Dredging displaces bottlenose dolphins from an urbanised foraging patch

The exponential growth of the human population and its increasing industrial development often involve large scale modifications of the environment. In the marine context, coastal urbanisation and harbour expansion to accommodate the rising levels of shipping and offshore energy exploitation require dredging to modify the shoreline and sea floor. While the consequences of dredging on invertebrates and fish are relatively well documented, no study has robustly tested the effects on large marine vertebrates. We monitored the attendance of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) to a recently established urbanised foraging patch, Aberdeen harbour (Scotland), and modelled the effect of dredging operations on site usage. We found that higher intensities of dredging caused the dolphins to spend less time in the harbour, despite high baseline levels of disturbance and the importance of the area as a foraging patch.     

Studies of household activity patterns and urban structure

Simonsen, Kirsten, 1973: Studies of household activity patterns and urban structure. Geografisk Tidsskrift 73: 26–35. København, juni 1, 1974.

This Paper focuses upon the daily activity patterns of individuals and households. It gives a survey of the relevant literature and discusses the possible use of activity studies. Furthermore, it treats the interrelationship between activity patterns and environment and illustrates this by a case study from a Danish provincial town.     

Pattern of deglaciation of the last (Late Devensian) Scottish ice sheet: Evidence from ice-marginal deposits in the Dee valley,Northeast Scotland

The mode of deglaciation of the last Scottish ice sheet is assessed from evidence provided by geomorphological mapping and sedimentology. Ice-marginal deposits in the Dee valley have a distinctive morphological expression and a characteristically varied sedimentology that strongly resembles those from subpolar glaciers. The deposits tend to occur in certain topographic situations which can be accounted for by compression of ice near the margin and formation of an ice-cored supraglacial land system. A series of recessional stages of the ice-front can be mapped demonstrating that active retreat occurred. However, additional evidence shows there was probably a thin marginal zone of stagnant ice. Recessional stages are inferred to be stillstands that are considered to be topographically controlled rather than related to climate. Development of the supraglacial land system during deglaciation suggests that the ice sheet had a polythermal basal regime with a cold-based margin. This implies that deglaciation took place in northeast Scotland while the climate remained cold, probably due to a precipitation deficit, which agrees well with chronostratigraphic data.     

Extent of the last ice sheet in northern Scotland tested with cosmogenic 10Be exposure ages

The extent of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) in northern Scotland is disputed. A restricted ice sheet model holds that at the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; ca. 23–19 ka) the BIIS terminated on land in northern Scotland, leaving Buchan, Caithness and the Orkney Islands ice‐free. An alternative model implies that these three areas were ice‐covered at the LGM, with the BIIS extending offshore onto the adjacent shelves. We test the two models using cosmogenic ¹⁰Be surface exposure dating of erratic boulders and glacially eroded bedrock from the three areas. Our results indicate that the last BIIS covered all of northern Scotland during the LGM, but that widespread deglaciation of Caithness and Orkney occurred prior to rapid warming at ca. 14.5 ka. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Earth observation data based rapid flood-extent modelling for tsunami-devastated coastal areas

Earth observation (EO)-based mapping and analysis of natural hazards plays a critical role in various aspects of post-disaster aid management. Spatial very high-resolution Earth observation data provide important information for managing post-tsunami activities on devastated land and monitoring re-cultivation and reconstruction. The automatic and fast use of high-resolution EO data for rapid mapping is, however, complicated by high spectral variability in densely populated urban areas and unpredictable textural and spectral land-surface changes. The present paper presents the results of the SENDAI project, which developed an automatic post-tsunami flood-extent modelling concept using RapidEye multispectral satellite data and ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model Version 2 (GDEM V2) data of the eastern coast of Japan (captured after the Tohoku earthquake). In this paper, the authors developed both a bathtub-modelling approach and a cost-distance approach, and integrated the roughness parameters of different land-use types to increase the accuracy of flood-extent modelling. Overall, the accuracy of the developed models reached 87–92%, depending on the analysed test site. The flood-modelling approach was explained and results were compared with published approaches. We came to the conclusion that the cost-factor-based approach reaches accuracy comparable to published results from hydrological modelling. However the proposed cost-factor approach is based on a much simpler dataset, which is available globally.     

Spatial management measures for disease mitigation as practiced in Scottish aquaculture

Aquaculture is an increasingly important economic activity in coastal waters. The fluid environment means spatial management is an important tool for protecting fish health. Scottish aquaculture (largely Atlantic salmon) uses a range of different types of area to group farms for different management or reporting purposes related to fish health. Farm Management Areas are defined by local knowledge and used by industry for co-operation among groups of farms, including in the management of sea lice. Disease Management Areas, defined using a simple but robust model, are used by the Scottish Government for control of notifiable diseases. Particle dispersal models are used to assess areas affected by treatment residue around farms, and to manage maximum allowable area biomass for environmental protection. Sophisticated models of sea lice transport have been developed to help inform management of this key parasite. Large regional areas are used for a variety of purposes, such as a policy presumption against new farms covering the entire east and north coasts of Scotland, and five reporting areas for official production statistics. Scottish aquatic environments are shared by many interest groups and spatial management is proving essential for sustainable development by aquaculture and other users.     

Petrology,geochemistry and thermobarometry of the northern area of the Flamenco pluton,Coastal Range batholith,northern Chile. A thermal approach to the emplacement processes in the Jurassic andean batholiths

The Flamenco pluton is part of a N–S alignment of Late Triassic to Early Jurassic intrusive belt comprising the westernmost part of the Coastal Range batholith in northern Chile. The Jurassic-Cretaceous voluminous magmatism related to subduction in the western active continental margin of Gondwana is emplaced in the predominantly metasedimentary Paleozoic host-rocks of the Las Tórtolas formation, which in the northern area of the Flamenco pluton present an intense deformation, including the Chañaral mélange.Geochemically, the Flamenco pluton shows a wide compositional variability (SiO₂ between 48wt % and 67wt %). Gabbros, Qtz-diorites and tonalites, mesocratic and leucocratic granodiorites are classified as calc-alkaline, calcic, magnesian and metaluminous magmatism. Flamenco granitoids define cotectic linear evolution trends, typical of magmatic fractionation processes. Geochemical trends are consistent with magmas evolved from undersaturated and low-pressure melts, even though the absence of transitional contacts between intrusive units precludes in-situ fractionation. Although some granodioritic samples show crossed geochemical trends that point to the compositional field of metasediments, and large euhedral prismatic pinnite-biotite crystals, typical Crd pseudomorph, are observed in contact magmatic facies, geochemical assimilation processes are short range, and the occurrence of host-rocks xenoliths is limited to a few meters from the pluton contact.A thermal approach to the emplacement process has been constrained through the thermobarometric results and a 2D thermo-numerical model of the contact aureole. Some Qtz-diorites and granodiorites located in the north area of the pluton exhibit granulitic textures as Hbl-Pl-Qtz triple junctions, poikiloblastic Kfs and Qtz recrystallization. The Hbl–Pl pairs have been used for the thermobarometric study of this metamorphic process, resulting granoblastic equilibrium temperatures between 770 and 790 °C, whereas Hbl–Pl pairs in domains that preserve the original igneous textures yield temperatures above 820 °C. This is characteristic of self-granulitization processes during the sequential emplacement of composite batholiths.In addition, the thermal modeling was used in order to compare the expected and observed thermal contact aureole of the intrusive body. Model P-T conditions have been established between 3 and 4 kbars (extracted from the thermobarometric results), and temperatures between 1159 °C (liquidus temperature for a tonalitic composition) and 992 °C (fixed at the rheological threshold of a 50% crystal fraction). The thermal modeling estimates a homogeneous contact aureole, where the established temperatures for the melting reactions in the host-rocks are located at distances between 200 and 650 m from the magma chamber boundary, whereas the temperatures for Crd stabilization extend 1500 m far from the contact in the case of the emplacement at liquidus temperatures and 4 kbars. According to field observations, the contact aureole presents a scarce development in the northern area of the Flamenco pluton, with few migmatite outcrops and less than 1 Km in thickness for Crd-schists. However, in the southern contact, partially melted rocks are described at distances up to 2 km from the Flamenco pluton boundary.The processes of self-granulitization and the differences between the observed and calculated (by the thermal modeling of one single pulse) contact aureole suggests a process of incremental emplacement for the Flamenco pluton, by accretion of magmatic pulses from north to south (in its current position), where the thermal maturity reached through the repeated magmatic intrusion generates a more extensive area of high-grade metamorphism.     

Development of a Neolithic pine tree‐ring chronology for northern Scotland

The peatlands of northern Scotland (one of the largest and most intact areas of blanket bog in the world) contain a rare widespread horizon of subfossil pine in stratigraphic context. Eighteen bog pine from three new sites are incorporated into a mean Neolithic pine chronology now composed of subfossil pine from 12 sites, which is tree‐ring‐dated against Irish bog pine chronologies to span 3198–2757 BC. Germination and peaks of radial growth infer drier conditions between 3199 and 3130 BC. Dying‐off phases and depression of growth reflect a change to wetter conditions between 3023 and 3002 BC and a terminal decline of pine between 2809 and 2782 BC. The close synchronization of germination/die‐off phases and major ring‐width variations between sites across this region indicates that the environmental changes are probably triggered by climate change. Twenty‐four bog pine samples remain unmatched. Future multi‐discipline research into this important example of climatic change at the Neolithic/Bronze Age transition is recommended. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.