A Sequence of Pan-African and Hercynian Events Recorded in Zircons from an Orthogneiss from the Hercynian Belt of Western Central Iberia--an Ion Microprobe U-Pb Study

Sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe U–Pb dating showsthat a biotite orthogneiss from the Hercynian belt of westerncentral Iberia contains 1000–300 Ma zircon. Older, 1000–570Ma ages within this range represent inherited, detrital materialamong which four age components may be recognized:     

The structural role of Ti in aluminosilicate liquids in the glass transition range: insights from heat capacity and shear viscosity measurements

The shear viscosities and 1 bar heat capacities of glasses and melts along the 67mol% silica isopleth in the system SiO₂-Al₂O₃-Na₂O-TiO₂ have been determined in the temperature ranges 780-1140 K and 305-1090 K respectively. Anomalous behaviour of both these properties is observed for compositions rich in TiO₂ and/or Al₂O₃, an observation attributed to liquid-liquid phase separation followed by anatase crystallization. For samples which do not show anomalous behaviour, it is found that the partial molar heat capacity of the TiO₂ component previously determined in Al-free compositions reproduces our heat capacities to within 1.3%. Viscosity data show that addition of TiO₂ tends to increase viscosity and melt fragility at constant temperature. Furthermore, heat capacity and viscosity data may be combined within the framework of the Adam-Gibbs theory to extract values of the configurational entropy of the liquids and qualitative estimates of the variation of the average energy barrier to viscous flow. Configurational entropy at 900K is inferred to decrease upon addition of TiO₂, in contrast to previous results from Al-free systems. The compositional limit separating normal from anomalous behaviour, as well as the data for homogenous melts have been used to constrain the structural role of Ti in these samples. Our data are consistent with a majority of Ti in five-fold coordination associated with a titanyl bond, in agreement with previous spectroscopic studies. Furthermore, we find no evidence for a Ti-Al interaction in our samples, and we are led to the conclusion that Al and Ti are incompletely mixed, a hypothesis consistent with the observed reduction of configurational entropy upon addition of TiO₂, suggesting an important role of medium range order in controlling the variations in thermodynamic properties.     

青藏高原的水塔功能

青藏高原是维持我国乃至东亚地区生态系统的重要水塔。高原平均海拔在4000m以上,与周边地区形成了巨大的地势差。高原东南部不仅具有丰富的降水,而且在3500m以上以冰川雪被形态储存了巨大的水资源,因此,高原具有重要的水塔功能。基于高原潜在输出总水量和不同海拔区域水体所具有的势能两个方面,建立了高原水塔功能的模型,从而利用GIS方法,通过对我国1∶400万系列图和相关资料的统计分析,计算出高原不同高度带贮存的大气降水、冰川储水量、湖泊水量以及工农业用水量。计算结果表明,青藏高原冰川湖泊的淡水储量达39921×108m3,其中冰川储水量为39228×108m3,可利用湖泊储水量为693×108m3,平均每年由降水获得的水资源量为8495×108m3,高原工农业用水量为129×108m3。因此,高原的输出水量即出境河川径流量为6870×108m3。高原储水主要分布在海拔3000～5000m间,与高原周围相比,平均势差在2000～4000m间,最大的势差达5500m。水体具有巨大的势能,在势能的作用下,自然向周边区域输送汇集,维持着周边地区的生态过程和社会经济活动,因此,青藏高原的水塔功能对于周边地区的生态系统和社会经济系统是极其重要的。     

东吴小筑园林植物应用评价

园林植物配置是园林植物应用的重要内容，对充分发挥园林功能和观赏特性具有重要作用。通过对东吴小筑入口、前庭小院、主景区、山林区、园路、出口等6个功能区园林植物水平配置的现状调查，分析了本景区园林植物的物种多样性、水平结构、垂直结构、色彩变化等特征。结果表明：东吴小筑园林景观营造中．植物配置显示出较高水准。在树种选择、树丛组合、层次搭配、空间组织、色彩表现、季相变化等方面的设计布局十分精细，对今后园林设计及园林绿化水平的提高具有较好的指导作用。     

长江三角洲主要城市产业结构转换的综合评价

文章在对地区产业结构转换影响因素系统分析的基础上，采用定量分析方法，对长江三角洲15个主要城市的产业结构转换能力、产业转换速度、产业转换方向以及它们之间的关系进行探讨。研究表明：长江三角洲主要城市产业结构转换能力的区域差异明显，产业结构转换能力与区域经济发展所处阶段有很大的关系；产业结构转换能力、速度与经济发展水平呈正相关。     

Geography Education: The Glass Is Half Full and It's Getting Fuller

This article examines the recent progress of geography education as an academic subfield of geography and as an area of activity in K–12 education. Challenges to both endeavors are described. A restructuring of geography education's research program that focuses on spatial thinking and reasoning and merges applied and theoretical research is proposed.     

Simulation of seismic response in a city-like environment

We study the seismic response of idealized 2D cities, constituted by non-equally spaced, non-equally sized homogenized blocks anchored in a soft layer overlying a hard half space. The blocks and soft layer are occupied by dissipative media. To simulate such response, we use an approximation of the viscoelastic modulus by a low-order rational function of frequency and incorporate this approximation into a first-order-in-time scheme. Our results display spatially variable, strong, long-duration responses inside the blocks and on the ground, which qualitatively match the responses observed in some earthquake-prone cities of Mexico, France, the USA, etc.     

Effects of spatially structured vegetation patterns on hillslope erosion in a semiarid Mediterranean environment: a simulation study

A general trend of decreasing soil loss rates with increasing vegetation cover fraction is widely accepted. Field observations and experimental work, however, show that the form of the cover‐erosion function can vary considerably, in particular for low cover conditions that prevail on arid and semiarid hillslopes. In this paper the structured spatial distribution of the vegetation cover and associated soil attributes is proposed as one of the possible causes of variation in cover–erosion relationships, in particular in dryland environments where patchy vegetation covers are common. A simulation approach was used to test the hypothesis that hillslope discharge and soil loss could be affected by variation in the spatial correlation structure of coupled vegetation cover and soil patterns alone. The Limburg Soil Erosion Model (LISEM) was parameterized and verified for a small catchment with discontinuous vegetation cover at Rambla Honda, SE Spain. Using the same parameter sets LISEM was subsequently used to simulate water and sediment fluxes on 1 ha hypothetical hillslopes with simulated spatial distributions of vegetation and soil parameters. Storms of constant rainfall intensity in the range of 30–70 mm h^?1 and 10–30 min duration were applied. To quantify the effect of the spatial correlation structure of the vegetation and soil patterns, predicted discharge and soil loss rates from hillslopes with spatially structured distributions of vegetation and soil parameters were compared with those from hillslopes with spatially uniform distributions. The results showed that the spatial organization of bare and vegetated surfaces alone can have a substantial impact on predicted storm discharge and erosion. In general, water and sediment yields from hillslopes with spatially structured distributions of vegetation and soil parameters were greater than from identical hillslopes with spatially uniform distributions. Within a storm the effect of spatially structured vegetation and soil patterns was observed to be highly dynamic, and to depend on rainfall intensity and slope gradient. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于二维小波变换的FMI图象分割

为了从FMI资料中定量提取参数，一个重要的步骤是从实际FMI资料中分离出反映溶孔、溶洞、裂缝的子图像。本文给出的方法，考虑图像像元邻域的特征，应用二维小波变换求出目标与背景边缘的点集，按这个边缘点集的坐标点所对应的原图像像素灰度值的平均值作为分割阈值进行图像分割。实际资料处理表明，应用这种方法可以从实际的FMI资料中准确地分割出孔洞、裂缝的子图像并且可以按深度段连续自动处理，为后续定量计算参数奠定了良好基础。     

Changes in the spatial scale of Beijing UHI and urban development

The seasonal and interannual variations of Beijing urban heat island (UHI) are investigated in this paper using the temperature data from 1960 to 2000 at 20 meteorological stations in the Beijing region, and then the relationship between the intensity and spatial scale of UHI and Beijing urbanization indices is analyzed and discussed. Main conclusions are the followings. First, Beijing UHI shows obvious seasonal variations, and it is strongest in winter, next in spring and autumn, and least in summer. The seasonal variation of the UHI mainly occurs in the urban area. The UHI intensity at the center of Beijing is more than 0.8℃ in winter, and only 0.5℃ in summer. Second, the intensity of Beijing HUI exhibits a clear interannual warming trend with its mean growth rate (MGR) being 0.3088℃/10 a. The MGR of HUI is largest in winter, next in spring and autumn, and least in summer, and the urban temperature increase makes a major contribution to the growth of HUI intensity. Third, since the Reform and Opening, the urbanization indices have grown several ten times or even one hundred times, the intensity of HUI has increased dramatically, and its spatial scale also expanded distinctively along with the expansion of urban architectural complexes. Fourth, the interannual variation of urbanization indices is very similar with that of HUI intensity, and their linear correlation coefficients are significant at a more than 0.001 confidence level.