Sediment transport on the Freiston Shore managed realignment site: An investigation using environmental magnetism

This paper presents the first attempt to use environmental magnetism to quantify sediment provenance on a managed realignment (MR) site. MR is one technique for creating/restoring intertidal habitats and improving the standard of coastal flood protection. Monitoring of MR sites is essential for determining how successful they are at achieving these aims, and normally includes measurement of sedimentation rates through the use of accretion plates and sediment erosion tables (SETs). One limitation of this technique is that the provenance of sediment accreting on realigned surfaces cannot readily be quantified. Our results demonstrate that magnetics-based fingerprinting can successfully apportion sediment source contributions to created/restored coastal saltmarshes with an efficiency similar to that of existing un-mixing models applied to other habitats (82.87%). Analysis of mineral magnetic properties (χ_FD, IRM_soft and SIRM) demonstrated that the majority of sediment accreting on the Freiston Shore MR Site (Lincolnshire, UK) is derived from established saltmarshes seaward of the breached embankment. This indicates that the MR site may be growing at the expense of neighbouring saltmarshes—thereby undermining the habitat-creation objectives used to justify MR. It is recommended that future MR monitoring programmes consider the provenance of post-breach deposits to help identify any adverse impacts that wetland creation/restoration may have on existing habitats. Further testing of environmental magnetism in coastal saltmarshes and MR sites is necessary to validate wider use of the technique.     

Origin of a partially differentiated Titan

Accretional temperature profiles for Saturn’s large moon Titan are used to determine the conditions needed for accretion to avoid global melting as a function of the timing, duration, and nebular conditions of Titan’s accretion. We find that Titan can accrete undifferentiated in a “gas-starved” disk even with modest quantities of ammonia mixed in with its ices. Simulations of impact-induced core formation are used to show that Titan can remain only partially differentiated after an outer Solar System late heavy bombardment capable of melting its outer layers, permitting some of its rock to consolidate into a core.     

Urbanization impacts on flood risks based on urban growth data and coupled flood models

Natural Hazards - Urbanization increases regional impervious surface area, which generally reduces hydrologic response time and therefore increases flood risk. The objective of this work is to...     

City renaming as brand promotion: exploring neoliberal projects and community resistance in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Proposals to change the names of entire urban centres are rare. We examine the case of Blenheim, New Zealand, where in 2016, representatives of local businesses campaigned for its renaming as Marlborough City, in recognition of the region’s wine industry. Although defeated the proposal threatened to over-write established settlement history. It presumed to rename Blenheim under the aegis of New Zealand Inc., a shorthand for the pervasive yet nebulous economic nationalism that seeks to yoke all local and national identity to enhancing export growth. Drawing on media reports, we interpret this example of toponymic commodification as a neoliberalized project of place-making. Ironically, Blenheim and Marlborough are colonial names that displaced a long-established Māori name. The proposal highlights both the perversities and the deeply contested claims-making that often underlie and animate toponymic politics. Ultimately, it illustrates some of the limits of rights claimed under neoliberalism.     

Rates of deformation of an extensional growth fault/raft system (offshore Congo, West African margin) from combined accommodation measurements and 3-D restoration

The aim of this paper is to quantify the evolution in time and space of the accommodation (space available for sedimentation) in the case of a growth fault structure resulting from gravity‐induced extension comprising a listric fault/raft system located along the West African margin. To achieve this, use was made of an original approach combining two complementary techniques (accommodation variation measurements and 3‐D restoration) in order to quantify vertical and horizontal displacement related to deformation, using a data set made up of a 3‐D seismic survey and well logs. We applied sequence stratigraphic principles to (i) define a detailed stratigraphic framework for the Albo‐Cenomanian and (ii) measure subsidence rates from accommodation variations. 3‐D restoration was used to (iii) reconstruct the evolution of the 3‐D geometry of the fault system. The rates of horizontal displacement of structural units were measured and linked to successive stages in the growth of the fault system. Subsidence of the structural units exhibits three scales of variation: (1) long‐term variation (10 Ma) of c. 80 m Ma^?1 for a total subsidence of about 1400 m, compatible with the general subsidence of a passive margin, and (2) short‐term variations (1–5 Ma) corresponding to two periods of rapid subsidence (about 150–250 m Ma^?1) alternating with periods of moderate subsidence rate (around 30 m Ma^?1). These variations are linked to the development of the fault system during the Albian (with downbuilding of the raft and development of the initial basin located in between). During the Cenomanian, the development of the graben located between the lower raft and the initial basin did not seem to affect the vertical displacements. (3) High‐frequency variations (at the scale of genetic unit sets) range between ?50 and 250 m for periods of 0.2–2 Ma. Accommodation variations governed these cycles of progradation/retrogradation rather than sediment flux variations. In addition, the nine wells display a highly consistent pattern of variation in accommodation. This suggests that the genetic unit sets were controlled at a larger scale than the studied system (larger than 20 km in wavelength), for example, by eustatic variations. Translation rates are between 3 and 30 times higher than subsidence rates. Therefore, in terms of amplitude, the main parameter controlling the space available for sedimentation is the structural development of the fault system, that is to say, the seaward translation of the raft units, itself resulting from a regional gravity‐driven extension.