Early results from the 2001 census of England allow a preliminary analysis of joblessness. People in the prime working ages (25–49) are more likely to be in work than those in their 50s, but the differences are quite subtle: in particular, men without qualifications are not much more likely to be in work when they are younger, despite the suggestions that too many men cease working in their 50s. The evidence supports the view that there is a national shortfall of demand for labour, that the low-skilled are the least able to compete for scarce jobs, and older people are the most likely to be unqualified. Moreover there is a strong spatial clustering of areas where job availability has declined or grown least, undermining the government's claim that there were often available jobs near to concentrations of people without work. 相似文献
Mike Hapgood summarizes the RAS's position on planetary sciences in the UK, a subject that delivers world-class results, but needs focused support in order to continue to thrive. 相似文献
The delivery of volcanogenic sulphur into the upper atmosphere by explosive eruptions is known to cause significant temporary climate cooling. Therefore, phreatomagmatic and phreatoplinian eruptions occurring during the final rifting stages of active flood basalt provinces provide a potent mechanism for triggering climate change.
During the early Eocene, the northeast Atlantic margin was subjected to repeated ashfall for 0.5 m.y. This was the result of extensive phreatomagmatic activity along 3000 km of the opening northeast Atlantic rift. These widespread, predominantly basaltic ashes are now preserved in marine sediments of the Balder Formation and its equivalents, and occur over an area extending from the Faroe Islands to Denmark and southern England. These ash-bearing sediments also contain pollen and spore floras derived from low diversity forests that grew in cooler, drier climates than were experienced either before or after these highly explosive eruptions. In addition, coeval plant macrofossil evidence from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA, also shows a comparable pattern of vegetation change. The coincidence of the ashes and cooler climate pollen and spore floras in northwest Europe identifies volcanism as the primary cause of climate cooling. Estimates show that whilst relatively few phreatomagmatic eruptive centres along the 3000 km opening rift system could readily generate 0.5–1 °C cooling, on an annual basis, only persistent or repeated volcanic phases would have been able to achieve the long-term cooling effect observed in the floral record. We propose that the cumulative effect of repeated Balder Formation eruptions initiated a biodiversity crisis in the northeast Atlantic margin forests. Only the decline of this persistent volcanic activity, and the subsequent climatic warming at the start of the Eocene Thermal Maximum allowed the growth of subtropical forests to develop across the region. 相似文献
The internal architecture of the immense volumes of eruptive products in Continental Flood Basalt Provinces (CFBPs) provides vital clues, through the constraint of a chrono-stratigraphic framework, to the origins of major intraplate melting events. This work presents close examination of the internal facies architecture and structure, duration of volcanism, epeirogenetic uplift associated with CFBPs, and the potential environmental impacts of three intensely studied CFBPs (the Parana-Etendeka, Deccan Traps and North Atlantic Igneous Province). Such a combination of key volcanological, stratigraphic and chronologic observations can reveal how a CFBP is constructed spatially and temporally to provide crucial geological constraints regarding their development.
Using this approach, a typical model can be generated, on the basis of the three selected CFBPs, that describes three main phases of flood basalt volcanism. These phases are recognized in Phanerozoic CFBPs globally. At the inception of CFBP volcanism, relatively low-volume transitional-alkaline eruptions are forcibly erupted into exposed cratonic basement lithologies, sediments, and in some cases, water. Distribution of initial volcanism is strongly controlled by the arrangement of pre-existing topography, the presence of water bodies and local sedimentary systems, but is primarily controlled by existing lithospheric and crustal weaknesses and concurrent regional stress patterns. The main phase of volcanism is typically characterised by a culmination of repeated episodes of large volume tholeiitic flows that predominantly generate large tabular flows and flow fields from a number of spatially restricted eruption sites and fissures. These tabular flows build a thick lava flow stratigraphy in a relatively short period of time (c. 1–5 Ma). With the overall duration of flood volcanism lasting 5–10 Ma (the main phase accounting for less than half the overall eruptive time in each specific case). This main phase or ‘acme’ of volcanism accounts for much of the CFBP eruptive volume, indicating that eruption rates are extremely variable over the whole duration of the CFBP. During the waning phase of flood volcanism, the volume of eruptions rapidly decrease and more widely distributed localised centres of eruption begin to develop. These late-stage eruptions are commonly associated with increasing silica content and highly explosive eruptive products. Posteruptive modification is characterised by continued episodes of regional uplift, associated erosion, and often the persistence of a lower-volume mantle melting anomaly in the offshore parts of those CFBPs at volcanic rifted margins. 相似文献
Previous studies have shown that shallow groundwater in arid regions is often not in equilibrium with near‐surface boundary conditions due to human activities and climate change. This is especially the case where the unsaturated zone is thick and recharge rate is limited. Under this nonequilibrium condition, the unsaturated zone solute profile plays an important role in estimating recent diffuse recharge in arid environments. This paper combines evaluation of the thick unsaturated zone with the saturated zone to investigate the groundwater recharge of a grassland in the arid western Ordos Basin, NW China, using the soil chloride profiles and multiple tracers (2H, 18O, 13C, 14C, and water chemistry) of groundwater. Whereas conventional water balance and Darcy flux measurements usually involve large errors in recharge estimations for arid areas, chloride mass balance has been widely and generally successfully used. The results show that the present diffuse recharge beneath the grassland is 0.11–0.32 mm/year, based on the chloride mass balance of seven soil profiles. The chloride accumulation age is approximately 2,500 years at a depth of 13 m in the unsaturated zone. The average Cl content in soil moisture in the upper 13 m of the unsaturated zone ranges from 2,842 to 7,856 mg/L, whereas the shallow groundwater Cl content ranges from 95 to 351 mg/L. The corrected 14C age of shallow groundwater ranges from 4,327 to 29,708 years. Stable isotopes show that the shallow groundwater is unrelated to modern precipitation. The shallow groundwater was recharged during the cold and wet phases of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene humid phase based on palaeoclimate, and consequently, the groundwater resources are nonrenewable. Due to the limited recharge rate and thick unsaturated zone, the present shallow groundwater has not been in hydraulic equilibrium with near‐surface boundary conditions in the past 2,500 years. 相似文献