Baguio Mineral District: An oceanic arc witness to the geological evolution of northern Luzon,Philippines

The Baguio Mineral District exposes rock formations that evince the geological and tectonic evolution of this district from a subduction‐related marginal basin to an island arc setting. Available onshore and offshore data are consistent with an Early (onset phase) to Middle (developed phase) Miocene arc polarity reversal from the east (termination of subduction along the proto‐East Luzon Trough) to the west (initiation of subduction along the Manila Trench). Geophysical modeling and geochemical data calculation showed a 30 ± 5 km crustal thickness for the mineral district. Subduction‐related multiple arc magmatism and ophiolite accretion contributed to crustal thickening. Recent information on the Oligo–Miocene Zigzag and Klondyke formations in the mineral district reveal that the marginal basin, where these rocks were deposited, has received eroded materials from adjacent terrains characterized by siliceous lithologies. Furthermore, adakitic rocks, high permeable zones and extensional zones which are exploration markers applied to identify possible mineralization targets, are prevalent in the mineral district. The geological evolution that the district had undergone mimics the evolution of island arcs worldwide in general and northern Luzon in particular.     

Nutrient loadings and deforestation decrease benthic macroinvertebrate diversity in an urbanised tropical stream system

Lotic ecosystems in urban areas are severely impacted by anthropogenic environmental stressors, such as deforestation and nutrient pollution, due to socioeconomic activities in the catchment. To work out measures for identification and mitigation of concurrent multiple stressors to a stream system, it is necessary to assess the relative importance of impacts by the individual stressors. Here we aimed to discriminate the covarying effects of nutrient pollution and deforestation on benthic macroinvertebrate communities in an urbanised tropical stream system. In the Silang-Santa Rosa Subwatershed (SSRS) of Laguna de Bay, benthic macroinvertebrates and physicochemical environments were investigated at 13 sites varying in human population density, riparian canopy, and land-use pattern as indicated by geographic information systems in the catchment. Regression and multivariate analyses were performed to identify the drivers of the biodiversity loss and understand its underlying mechanisms. In the SSRS, where rapid economic growth took place without updating poorly installed wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), domestic activity indicated by human population density in the catchment was the primary factor in generating heavy phosphorous loadings (mean total phosphorus = 0.91; range = 0–1.50 mg/l) that caused hypoxia (mean dissolved oxygen = 2.98; range = 0.13–6.27 mg/l) in stream waters and subsequently reduced macroinvertebrate diversity (mean H’ = 0.91; SD ± 0.61). Nutrient and organic pollution and riparian deforestation explained 53.5% and 9.7% of the variation of benthic macroinvertebrate communities in SSRS, respectively. Given such scenario, additional WWTPs servicing urban developments and improved riparian canopy cover in the SSRS can be both strategic and cost-effective in the initial steps of environmental mitigation in urbanised streams, especially in rapidly developing countries.     

Access to fisheries in the maritime frontier of Palawan Province,Philippines

Globally, capital investments are intensifying extraction and contestation over resources in frontier spaces, yet most discussion has focused on terrestrial frontiers. This paper shifts this focus to bring a scaled political ecology approach to examine the access dynamics of fisheries trade in the maritime frontier of Palawan province, the Philippines. We adapt the linked concepts of access and exclusion to highlight how access dynamics unfold at multiple scales. At the local scale, social relations of class and ethnicity serve as important markers of difference that inform control over access to fisheries resources. At the regional scale, we show how engagement in fisheries trade is also shaped by broader historical and geographical contexts of migration and land use change. Access dynamics unfold at multiple inter‐related scales to heavily influence the differentiated social outcomes of expanded fisheries trade.     

Plate convergence measured by GPS across the Sundaland/Philippine Sea Plate deformed boundary: the Philippines and eastern Indonesia

The western boundary of the Philippine Sea (PH) Plate in the Philippines and eastern Indonesia corresponds to a wide deformation zone that includes the stretched continental margin of Sundaland, the Philippine Mobile Belt (PMB), extending from Luzon to the Molucca Sea, and a mosaic of continental blocks around the PH/Australia/Sunda triple junction. The GPS GEODYSSEA data are used to decipher the present kinematics of this complex area. In the Philippines, the overall scheme is quite simple: two opposing rotations on either side of the left-lateral Philippine Fault, clockwise to the southwest and counterclockwise to the northeast, transfer 55 per cent of the PH/Sundaland convergence from the Manila Trench to the northwest to the Philippine Trench to the southeast. Further south, 80 per cent of the PH/Sunda convergence is absorbed in the double subduction system of the Molucca Sea and less than 20 per cent along both continental margins of northern Borneo. Finally, within the triple junction area between the Sundaland, PH and Australia plates, from Sulawesi to Irian Jaya, preferential subduction of the Celebes Sea induces clockwise rotation of the Sulu block, which is escaping toward the diminishing Celebes Sea oceanic space from the eastward-advancing PH Plate. To the south, we identify an undeformed Banda block that rotates counterclockwise with respect to Australia and clockwise with respect to Sundaland. The kinematics of this block can be defined and enable us to compute the rates of southward subduction of the Banda block within the Flores Trench and of eastward convergence of the Makassar Straits with the Banda block. The analysis made in this paper confirms that this deformation is compatible with the eastward motion of Sundaland with respect to Eurasia determined by the GEODYSSEA programme but is not compatible with the assumption that Sundaland belongs to Eurasia, as was often assumed prior to this study.     

Spatiotemporal variability of hypoxia and eutrophication in Manila Bay,Philippines during the northeast and southwest monsoons

Hypoxia in Manila Bay, Philippines was previously reported during the northeast monsoon (dry season) in February 2010. In this study, four more field surveys of the same 31 stations were conducted in July 2010, August 2011 and 2012 (wet season, southwest monsoon), and February 2011 (dry season, northeast monsoon). During the wet season, bottom hypoxia spread northward towards the coast with dissolved oxygen (DO) ranging from 0.12 to 9.22 mg/L and the bay-wide average reaching 2.10 mg/L. Nutrient levels were elevated, especially near the bottom where dissolved inorganic nitrogen reached 22.3 μM (July 2010) and phosphorus reached 5.61 μM (August 2011). High nutrient concentrations often coincided with low near-bottom DO content. Our work builds on the preliminary assessment of hypoxia in Manila Bay, the importance of repeated temporal studies, and shows hypoxia to prevail significantly during the southwest monsoon (wet season) when increased freshwater discharge caused strong water column stratification.     

Impact of milk fish farming in the tropics on potentially pathogenic vibrios

Ratios of sucrose-negative to sucrose-positive vibrios on TCBS agar (suc−/suc+) indicate the abundance of potential human pathogenic non-cholera vibrios in coastal mariculture environments of the Lingayen Gulf (Philippines. In guts of adult maricultured milkfish (Chanos chanos) of suc− vibrios reached extreme peak values ranging between 2 and 545 million per g wet weight. Suc− vibrios outnumbered suc+ vibrios in anoxic sediments, too, and were rarely predominant in coastal waters or in oxidized sediments. Suc−/suc+ ratios in sediments increased toward the mariculture areas with distance from the open sea at decreasing redox potentials. There is circumstantial evidence that suc− vibrios can be dispersed from mariculture areas to adjacent environments including coral reefs. An immediate human health risk by pathogenic Vibrio species is discounted, since milkfish guts contained mainly members of the Enterovibrio group. A representative isolate of these contained proteolytic and other virulence factors, but no genes encoding toxins characteristic of clinical Vibrio species.     

近40年菲律宾M_S≥7级地震时空结构及未来趋势再判断

整理了近40年菲律宾MS≥7级地震公开的灾害数据,采用可公度计算、蝴蝶结构图、可公度结构系等方法分析判断未来地震的时间;利用相邻地震震源经、纬度差变化分析震中的空间迁移;并利用震中经向、纬向迁移进行佐证,实现对其时空结构的未来趋势判断。通过判断发现菲律宾MS≥7级地震在2014年、2015年发生的信号较强;未来地震震中可能会在2013年10月15日菲律宾地震震中的东北方向,空间位置大致在9.8°N以北,126.704°E以东。菲律宾MS≥7级地震与地球自转速度变化有一定的关系,减速期发生地震的可能性更大,且速率转换的时间越长越易发生地震;同时发现太阳活动处于活跃强烈期内时,太阳黑子峰值、次峰值前后发生地震的概率很大。目前地球自转正处于减速期、太阳活动处于太阳黑子第24周期极大年附近,所以2014—2015年菲律宾发生MS≥7级地震的可能性很大。     

洛阳铲钻探在菲律宾迪纳加特岛汇洋镍矿区快速评价中的应用

在菲律宾迪纳加特岛汇洋镍矿区第二期勘查中,采用以洛阳铲钻探为主、浅井为辅的勘探方式,取得了较好的勘查效果。洛阳铲钻探和浅井勘探的镍品位曲线具有相似的特征,可以互相印证;铁品位曲线具有相同的变化趋势。与浅钻勘探资料对比,洛阳铲的镍品位变化趋势与浅钻的结果非常相似。因此认为,用洛阳铲勘探品位变化小的风化壳型矿床的浅部是适宜的,如果将其与浅井、浅钻结合使用,将在风险勘查中独具优势。     

Helge Ingstad 1899-2001

The article aims to determine the degree of sociocultural change resulting from the return of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), how the changes have impacted on the workers' original communities, and the various reintegration challenges posed by those communities. The theoretical framework of the article is built upon concepts of transnationalism and habitus. The methodology employed included field research conducted in 2010 and a village community approach. The study revealed that changes in the personal identities and social behaviour of the returnees are significant. However, the returnees' family ties and attitudes towards religion were largely the same as before they went overseas, and some had grown even closer to their families and become more religious. Further, the changes in their local community that occurred subsequent to their return revealed both positive and negative influences. Several sociocultural factors impeded the reintegration of returnee OFWs, and this called for action at all levels of government in the Philippines as well as from local communities and the returnees themselves.     

Controls on mineral deposit occurrence inferred from analysis of their spatial pattern and spatial association with geological features

In this paper, point pattern analysis, fractal analysis and Fry analysis were employed to study the spatial pattern of known occurrences of mineral deposits of the type sought, whereas distance distribution method was applied to study the spatial associations between various geological features and known occurrences of mineral deposits of the type sought. In the Aroroy district (Philippines), the results of the applications of these spatial analytical techniques support a conceptual model of district-scale mechanism of geologic controls on low-sulphidation epithermal Au mineralization, which involves a more-or-less regular mesh of interlinked zones of extension faults/fractures at and/or around intersections of NNW- and NW-trending strike-slip faults/fractures. Integration of spatial evidential data layers representing these structural controls and surficial geochemical anomalies, via knowledge-guided application of data-driven evidential belief functions, results in delineation of prospective areas occupying about 25% of the district, in which there is about 70% likelihood of undiscovered occurrences of low-sulphidation epithermal Au deposits.