Uncoupled U/Pb and REE response in zircon during the transformation of eclogite to mafic and intermediate granulite (Blanský les,Bohemian Massif)

An eclogite–mafic granulite occurs as a rare boudin within a felsic kyanite–K‐feldspar granulite in a low‐strain zone. Its boundary is marked by significant metasomatism–diffusional gain of potassium at the centimetre‐scale, and probable infiltration of felsic melt on a larger scale. This converted the eclogite–mafic granulite into an intermediate‐composition, ternary‐feldspar‐bearing granulite. Based on inclusions in garnet, the peak P–T conditions of the original eclogite are 18 kbar at 850–950 °C, with later matrix re‐equilibration at 12 kbar and 950 °C. Four samples from the transition of the eclogite–mafic granulite through to the intermediate granulite were studied. In the eclogite, REE patterns in the garnet core show no Eu anomaly, compatible with crystallization in the absence of plagioclase and consistent with eclogite facies conditions. Towards the rim of garnet, LREE decrease, and a weak negative Eu anomaly appears, reflecting passage into HP granulite facies conditions with plagioclase present. The rims of garnet next to ternary feldspar in the intermediate granulite show the lowest LREE and deepest Eu anomalies. Zircon from the four samples was analysed by LASS (laser ablation–split‐stream inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry). It shows U–Pb ages from 404 ± 4.0 to 331 ± 3.3 Ma, with a peak at 340 ± 4.0 Ma corresponding to the likely exhumation of the rocks to 12 kbar. Older ages from zircon with steep HREE patterns indicate the minimum age of the protolith, and ages <360 ± 4.0 Ma are interpreted to correspond to the eclogite facies metamorphism. Only some zircon grains ≤350 ± 4.0 Ma have flat HREE patterns, suggesting that these are primarily modified protolith grains, rather than new zircon crystallized in the eclogite‐ or granulite facies. The metasomatic processes that converted the eclogite–mafic granulite to an intermediate granulite may have facilitated zircon modification as zircon in the intermediate granulite has flat HREE and ages of 340 ± 4.0 Ma. The difference between the oldest and youngest ages with flat REE patterns indicates a 16 ± 5.6 Ma period of zircon modification in the presence of garnet.     

Times for (Un)sustainability? Challenges and opportunities for developing behaviour change policy. A case-study of consumers at home and away

This paper examines the assertion that individuals with seemingly high levels of commitment to the environment at home may also be those engaged in less sustainable leisure and tourism behaviours, including a high dependency on air travel. This potential difference in environmental commitments between different consumption settings is placed within the context of recent policy developments that have seen the rise of segmentation as a commonly applied technique used to understand and encourage pro-environmental behaviours through the notion of ‘sustainable lifestyles’ and social marketing campaigns. Using data derived from a questionnaire of consumers in the UK, three distinctive, empirically-defined ‘lifestyle’ groups are identified, based on the respondents’ environmental behaviours. Significant differences emerged in reported environmental commitments according to their consumption setting. Those with higher levels of commitment in and around the home also tended to be those who flew furthest and most frequently, whilst those with moderate-to-high commitments ‘at home’ often failed to transfer these activities to their holiday environments. The paper concludes by arguing that both academics and policy-makers need to address the role of different consumption settings in which behaviours are undertaken and the ways in which these relate to underlying social practices within these settings.     

Extended Barcelona Basic Model for unsaturated soils under cyclic loadings

The Barcelona Basic Model (BBM) is an extension of the Cam clay model that has become popular in applications involving unsaturated soils and, in particular, in simulations using the finite element method. Partially saturated soils can be loaded in different ways, for instance, mechanically and/or hydraulically. In addition, cycles of loading and unloading can be applied. The present work introduces a modification of the BBM in order to simplify its computer implementation and also to allow the simulation of elastoplastic behaviour during cycles of both mechanical and hydraulic loading. A unique smooth yield surface is introduced and a two-yield surfaces concept is applied in order to represent the cyclic behaviour. The influence of the intermediate principal stress on the strength is also accounted for. Finally, the numerical integration (stress update) of the extended BBM is briefly discussed.     

Rising to the challenge of environmental behaviour change: Developing a reflexive diary approach

The relationship between expressed attitudes and actual behaviour in the context of sustainable development is complex and difficult to apply in a policy-relevant manner. The household, however, represents a key ‘lens’ for understanding the environmental impact of consumption patterns and for instigating policy designed to change consumer behaviour. This paper assesses the use of a household diary approach as a means of framing and collecting household environmental data, and, critically, as an educational vehicle for bringing about behavioural change by encouraging reflexivity. Evaluating the success of the diary approach at instigating behavioural change, the paper concludes that the diary approach: (1) created awareness about pro-environmental behaviour where there was none; (2) extended existing awareness to a wider range of pro-environmental behaviours and range of household members, and; (3) induced change in pro-environmental behaviour. In particular, the paper argues that current research neglects the potential that participating in the research process may contribute to changing the outlook or behaviour of participants.     

Identifying children’s perspectives on anti-social behaviour: Variations by home area and the implications

The paper examines the views of children living in contrasting British suburbs: exploring their perceptions of the occurrence of anti-social behaviour (ASB), their anxieties about different types of incident, and their views on appropriate punishments. Based on interviews with over 260 children aged 11–16 years, and 44 adults with a professional involvement in ASB, the evidence shows that the influence of home area on children’s perspectives of ASB varies according to the type of ASB under consideration. For ‘interpersonal’ ASB, children appear especially sensitive in the poorer area, where this ASB is much more common. Theories of normalisation regarding interpersonal ASB are not supported, as children in the poorer area are sensitised to the problems, rather than hardened, arguing for an urgent policy response. Regarding environmental ASB and the role of home area, the findings are reversed, and theories of normalisation are supported. Children’s lesser concerns about environmental ASB in the poorer, most affected area, pose rather different challenges to policy-makers, arguing for the selection of effective reduction measures at a local level, designed to better reflect the differing views of children in different areas. Identifying children’s perspectives brings new understandings to the multiple geographies of ASB, highlighting the importance of distinguishing between different types of ASB and raising awareness of the ways in which children’s perspectives may be similar and different from adults’ views. Our findings argue strongly for the central role of area in theoretical and applied ASB research, and a continuing emphasis on ‘the local’.     

Metabolic loss of mass in glass eels at different salinities according to their propensity to migrate

Eel facultative catadromy is not clearly understood. Initial work suggested a possible control by energy content and energy expense in young stages. The present work aimed to better understand the mechanisms involved, by studying the influence of the salinity rearing environment in the loss of mass and therefore on fish energy and migration. Glass eels (Anguilla anguilla L.) caught on the Atlantic coast were identified according to their rheotactic response to the dusk signal, and thus to their propensity to migrate which can be low (sedentary, M⁻ fish) or high (flow-wise catches in early night, M⁺ fish). M⁺ and M⁻ fish were individually placed at different salinities (0, 10 or 30) for 28 days in small containers equipped with shelters. Individual wet mass and pigmentary stage were determined on Day 1 and Day 28. In addition, dry mass and percent dry mass were measured on a sub-sample of 30 fish randomly chosen on Day 1, and on all fish on Day 28. There was no difference in the loss of mass linked to their adaptation to salinity between M⁻ and M⁺ fish, and so the results do not support the link between migratory behaviour and salinity tolérance (or to a larger extent osmoregulation). However, M⁻ fish lost more wet mass than M⁺ fish irrespective of the salinity, maybe because of a higher standard metabolism, which suggests that glass eels prone to loose more energy might choose to settle at sea or in estuary. In addition, the highest percent dry mass after 28 days in seawater associated to the highest loss of mass in 28 days in seawater does not support a higher energy cost of osmoregulation at sea.     

Rheology and strength of the lithosphere

Mechanical properties of lithosphere are of primary importance for interpretation of deformation at all spatial and time scales, from local scale to large-scale geodynamics and from seismic time scale to billions of years. Depending on loading conditions and time scale, lithosphere exhibits elastic, brittle (plastic) or viscous (ductile) properties. As can be inferred from rock mechanics data, a large part of the long-term lithospheric strength is supported in the ductile or ductile-elastic regime, while it also maintains important brittle strength. Yet, at short seismic time scale (s), the entire lithosphere responds in elastic/brittle-elastic regime. Even though rock mechanics experiments provide important insights into the rheological properties of the lithosphere, their conditions (e.g., time scales, strain rates, temperature and loading conditions) are too far from those of real Earth. Therefore, these data cannot be reliably extended to geological time- and spatial scales (strain rates ∼10⁻¹⁷ to 10⁻¹³ s⁻¹) without additional parameterization or validation based on geological time scale observations of large-scale deformation. For the oceanic lithosphere, the Goetze and Evan’s brittle-elastic-ductile yield strength envelopes (YSEs) were validated by geodynamic scale observations such as the observations of plate flexure. However, oceanic lithosphere behavior in subduction zones and passive continental margins is strongly conditioned by the properties of the continental counterpart, whose rheology is less well understood. For continents and continental margins, the uncertainties of available data sources are greater due to the complex structure and history of continental plates. For example, in a common continental rheology model, dubbed “jelly sandwich”, the strength mainly resides in crust and mantle, while in some alternative models the mantle is weak and the strength is limited to the upper crust. We address the problems related to lithosphere rheology and mechanics by first reviewing the rock mechanics data, T_e (flexure) and T_s (earthquake) data and long-term observations such as folding and subsidence data, and then by examining the physical plausibility of various rheological models. For the latter, we review the results of thermo-mechanical numerical experiments aimed at testing the possible tectonic implications of different rheology models. In particular, it appears that irrespective of the actual crustal strength, the models implying weak mantle are unable to explain either the persistence of mountain ranges for long periods of time or the integrity of the subducting slabs. Although there is certainly no single rheology model for continents, the “jelly sandwich” is a useful first-order model with which to parameterize the long-term strength of the lithosphere. It is concluded that dry olivine rheology laws seem to represent well the long-term behavior of mantle lithosphere in oceans, margins and continents. As to the continent and margin crust rheology, analysis of the results of thermo-mechanical models and of T_e data based on the most robust variants of flexural models, suggests that continental plates with T_e 30-50% smaller than their theoretical mechanical thickness h_m (i.e. T_e = 20-60 km) should be characterized by a weak lower or intermediate crustal rheology enabling mechanical decoupling between crust and mantle. Older plates such as cratons are strong due to crust-mantle coupling and specific properties of the cratonic mantle lithosphere.     

The strength of biogenic sand reefs: Visco-elastic behaviour of cement secreted by the tube building polychaete Sabellaria alveolata, Linnaeus, 1767

Mechanical properties of the biomineralised cement from tube-building marine worms are poorly known. Secreted from an organ connected to the polychaetes specialised glands, the cement glues sand grains and calcareous shell fragments of a given size and, on a larger scale, ensures the resistance of the reef to waves. In this study, three kinds of mechanical tests were performed with worm tubes to establish the nature of the cement behaviour. Results obtained show that cement behaves like a visco-elastic material. This property allows the tubes to dissipate the mechanical energy from the waves to which they are subject and to reduce the mechanical stress transmitted inside the tubes to the polychaetes. Comparison of “fresh” and “dry” cements highlights that the visco-elastic behaviour of the cement is maintained after five years. The viscosity of the cement is therefore not related to moisture but to its chemical composition. More generally, these results offer a better understanding of the role of cement on worm reefs strength and their persistence in the geological record.     

Undrained behavior of natural marine clay under cyclic loading

To study the undrained behavior of natural marine clay under cyclic loading, two kinds of stress-controlled cyclic triaxial tests were conducted on natural K₀-consolidated Wenzhou clay. In the Series I tests, samples were cyclically sheared until failure, and the accumulative behavior was studied; based on the results, a suitable cyclic failure criterion is suggested for natural clays. The effect of loading frequency was also investigated, and it was observed that the loading duration t is a key factor in controlling the undrained cyclic behavior. In the Series II tests, cyclic undrained tests followed by strain-controlled monotonic compression tests were carried out, and special attention was given to changes in the undrained strength after cyclic loading. The degradation of the post-cyclic peak strength was affected by the accumulative behavior during cyclic shearing, but the deviatoric stresses at the critical state were nearly constant. Finally, the accumulative behavior of natural clays was simulated using a proposed anisotropic elastic viscoplastic model with a pseudo-static method of equivalent undrained creep, and the results indicate that this equivalent creep simplification is suitable in practice. By taking the apparent overconsolidation after cyclic loading into account, the post-cyclic strength degradation can also be explained by this model.     

Estimating Synaphobranchus kaupii densities: Contribution of fish behaviour to differences between bait experiments and visual strip transects

Kaup's arrowtooth eel Synaphobranchus kaupii is a small-bodied fish and an abundant inhabitant of the European continental slope. To estimate its local density video information using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Victor 6000 were collected at three locations in the Bay of Biscay slope. Two methods for estimating local densities were tested: strip transect counts and bait experiments. For bait experiments three behaviour types were observed in about equal proportions for individuals arriving near the seafloor: moving up the current towards the ROV, moving across the current and drifting with the current. Visible attraction towards the bait was the highest for individuals swimming against the current (80%) and about equally low for the other two types (around 30%); it did not depend on current speed nor temperature. Three main innovations were introduced for estimating population densities from bait experiments: (i) inclusion of an additional behaviour category—that of passively drifting individuals, (ii) inclusion of reaction behaviour for actively swimming individuals and (iii) a hierarchical Bayesian estimation framework. The results indicated that about half of individuals were foraging actively of which less than one third reacted on encountering the bait plume and the other half were drifting with the current. Taking account of drifting individuals and the reaction probability made density estimates from bait experiments and strip transects more similar.