A Re–Os isotope and PGE study of kimberlite-derived peridotite xenoliths from Somerset Island and a comparison to the Slave and Kaapvaal cratons

The concentrations of platinum-group elements (PGE; Os, Ir, Ru, Pd and Pt) and Re, and the Os isotopic compositions were determined for 33 lithospheric mantle peridotite xenoliths from the Somerset Island kimberlite field. The Os isotopic compositions are exclusively less radiogenic than estimates of bulk-earth (¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os as low as 0.1084) and require a long-term evolution in a low Re–Os environment. Re depletion model ages (T_RD) indicate that the cratonic lithosphere of Somerset Island stabilised by at least 2.8 Ga, i.e. in the Neoarchean and survived into the Mesozoic to be sampled by Cretaceous kimberlite magmatism. An Archean origin also is supported by thermobarometry (Archean lithospheric keels are characterised by >150 km thick lithosphere), modal mineralogy and mineral chemistry observations. The oldest ages recorded in the lithospheric mantle beneath Somerset Island are younger than the Mesoarchean (>3 Ga) ages recorded in the Slave craton lithospheric mantle to the southwest [Irvine, G.J., et al., 1999. Age of the lithospheric mantle beneath and around the Slave craton: a Rhenium–Osmium isotopic study of peridotite xenoliths from the Jericho and Somerset Island kimberlites. Ninth Annual V.M. Goldschmidt Conf., LPI Cont., 971: 134–135; Irvine, G.J., et al., 2001. The age of two cratons: a PGE and Os-Isotopic study of peridotite xenoliths from the Jericho kimberlite (Slave craton) and the Somerset Island kimberlite field (Churchill Province). The Slave–Kaapvaal Workshop, Merrickville, Ontario, Canada]. Younger, Paleoproterozoic, T_RD model ages for Somerset Island samples are generally interpreted as the result of open system behaviour during metasomatic and/or magmatic processes, with possibly the addition of new lithospheric material during tectono-thermal events related to the Taltson–Thelon orogen. PGE patterns highly depleted in Pt and Pd generally correspond to older Archean T_RD model ages indicating closed system behaviour since the time of initial melt extraction. Younger Proterozoic T_RD model ages generally correspond to more complex PGE patterns, indicating open system behaviour with possible sulfide or melt addition. There is no correlation between the age of the lithosphere and depth, at Somerset Island.     

Cropping patterns in the Canadian Prairies: thirty years of change

Changes in cropping patterns in the Canadian Prairies are examined from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s using census data. Patterns of change within the region are mapped by census division using averaged proportions of land in crops occupied by the main crops for three pairs of census years. Spring wheat and oat have undergone the most significant relative declines. Canola increased dramatically from being the sixth-ranked crop by area in the early 1960s to the third-ranked crop by area by the 1990s. The main change in the Brown soil zone has been a large decline in spring wheat and a compensatory gain in durum wheat. Increases in special crops, especially pulse crops, canola and durum wheat have offset a substantial decline in spring wheat in the Dark Brown soil zone. Barley, tame hay and especially canola have increased at the expense of spring wheat, oat and flaxseed in the Black and Gray soil zones. Prices, transportation costs, changing export markets, crop breeding and local processing all have contributed to these changes.     

Meteorological inventory of rain-on-snow events in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and satellite detection assessment using passive microwave data

The spatial and temporal distributions of rain-on-snow (ROS) events across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) remain poorly understood owing to their sporadic nature in time and space. This situation motivated the development of remote sensing detection algorithms. This paper uses a large meteorological dataset across the CAA to adapt an existing ROS-detection algorithm developed in a previous study by our group. Results highlight the spatial distribution and evolution of ROS occurrences reported since 1985 at 14 weather stations across the CAA. Results show that >600 ROS events were inventoried since 1985, for which >70% were classified as pure rain (liquid form) and 30% as mixed precipitation (solid/liquid). Of the pure rain events, 75% occurred during spring, 14% during fall, 8% during summer and <1% during winter. Such events can have significant impacts on ungulate grazing conditions through the creation of ice layers, causing serious problems for caribou calf survival, especially during the migration period. This paper introduces an adaptation for larger scale Arctic application of a detection algorithm (sensitivity analysis on the detection threshold) with an error of ~5%. The validation, however, remains limited due to a short study period and limited number of sites.     

The effects of resolving the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in a finite element sea ice model

Though narrow straits may have a strong influence on the large-scale sea ice mass balance, they are often crudely represented in coarse resolution sea ice models. Unstructured meshes, with their natural ability to fit boundaries and locally increase the mesh resolution, propose an alternative framework to capture the complex oceanic areas formed by coasts and islands. In this paper, we develop a finite element sea ice model to investigate the sensitivity of the Arctic sea ice cover features to the resolution of the narrow straits constituting the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The model is a two-level dynamic-thermodynamic sea ice model, including a viscous-plastic rheology. It is run over 1979–2005, forced by daily NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data. Confronting qualitatively numerical experiments with observations shows a good agreement with satellite and buoys measurements. Due to its simple representation of the oceanic interactions, the model overestimates the sea ice extent during winter in the southernmost parts of the Arctic, while the Baffin Bay and Kara Sea remain ice-covered during summer. In order to isolate the benefits from resolving the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, a numerical experiment is performed where we artificially close the archipelago. Focusing on the large-scale sea ice thickness pattern, no significant change is found in our model, except in the close surroundings of the archipelago. However, the local and short-term influences of the ice exchanges are nonnegligible. In particular, we show that the ice volume associated to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago represents 10% of the Northern Hemisphere sea ice volume and that the annual mean ice export towards Baffin Bay amounts to 125 km³ yr⁻¹, which may play an important role on the convective overturning in the Labrador Sea.     

Geographical distribution of general aerobic heterotrophic bacteria in surficial sediments from the Chukchi Sea and Canadian Basin

This paper determined the abundance of General Aerobic heterotrophic Bacteria(GAB) in surficial sediments from the Chukchi Sea and the Canadian basin by using MPN and discussed their geographical distribution.The result shows that the determination percentages of the GAB were high,even till 100 percentage.The abundance range and averages of GAB for 4℃and 25℃ were from 4.00×102 to 2.40×106,1.71×106 ind.·g-1(wet sample) and from 2.40×105 to 2.40×107,1.10×107 ind.·g-1(wet sample) respectively.Not only the abundance range but also the averages of GAB in 25℃ were higher than that in 4℃.The abundance of GAB in sediments show a tendency that it is roughly greater in the lower latitudinal area than in the higher latitudinal area.The abundance of GAB increased from east to west as for the longitudinal distribution.With the water depth increasing,the abundance of GAB at 4℃ decreased,but GBA at 25℃ is not changed obviously with water depth.It seems that warmer circumstantial temperature is more suitable for some GAB.     

“Where is home?” Here and there: transnational experiences of home among Canadian migrants in the United States

Using structured telephone interviews this research focuses on how Canadian migrants living in the United States experience and describe home. We argue that the globalisation of peoples’ lives, transnationalism and the concomitant creation of transnational social spaces have greatly affected the meaning of home for migrants. The understandings of home that result reflect the reality of living in social worlds that span two countries and the development of decentred multiple attachments and feelings of belonging in more than one place. In response to these circumstances Canadian migrants experience home as multi-dimensional, pluri-local, and characterized by regular movement across the U.S.–Canada border. When asked specifically about feeling at home upon re-entry to the U.S. many respondents answered yes. However, many interviewees qualified their answers by describing home in different ways and associating different aspects of their lives with each country. Canada as home was most often described in terms of family, while home in the U.S. was associated with work. Respondents also differentiated between feeling at home once they reached their residence as opposed to feeling unwelcome at the U.S. border.     

Landslides in the Tandayapa Valley, northern Andes, Ecuador: implications for landform development in humid and tectonically active mountain ranges

Landslides are common throughout the Ecuadorian Andes, but their causal and controlling factors and their roles in landform development have not yet been systematically investigated. This paper reports observations and hypotheses arising from a reconnaissance study of the Tandayapa Valley in the Cordillera Occidental, approximately 30 km west of Quito. This study area is characterised by high local relief (ca. 800 m) associated with dissected mountainous terrain, high annual rainfall (>2,000 mm), and secondary-succession wet montane ‘cloud forest’. Regolith cover is extremely thin on the very steep (45 to >60°) upper main valley slopes, but there are thick accumulations of tephra on the slope crests and ridgetops. These deposits show periods of soil development separated by deposition events. Natural landslides in this environment comprise rare large deep-seated bedrock failures and occasional shallow failures on the steep upper slopes where potentially unstable thicknesses of tephra have accumulated. Landslides associated with construction of roads and forest trails are more common. Back-analysis of one road-cut landslide, using field and laboratory data to characterise the in situ weathered material where possible, indicated that natural shallow failures are unlikely in the absence of a surficial cover of tephra. By analogy with another mountainous tropical landscape, it is suggested that long-term landform development can be explained in terms of channel incision, driven by uplift, producing steep lower valley slopes that eventually exceed bedrock failure thresholds. Therefore, large deep-seated landslides appear to control valley slope form development, whilst the shallow landslides contribute to general denudation.     

A cross section of the eastern Betic Cordillera (SE Spain) according field data and a seismic reflection profile

The BT3 multichannel seismic profile was acquired by the C.G.G. (Compagnie General de Géophysique) in 1977 for hydrocarbon exploration in the eastern Betic Cordillera. REXIMseis Ltd scanned and vectorized a paper copy and then performed post-stack processing, including coherence filtering and deconvolution. The receiver functions of a broad-band seismic station located near the village of Vélez Rubio, at the SE end of the profile, were analysed by Julia et al. [Julia, J., Mancilla, F., Morales, J., 2005. Seismic signature of intracrustal magmatic intrusions in the Eastern Betics (Internal Zone), SE Iberia, Geophysical Research Letters 32, L16304, doi:10.1029/2005GL023274.] to determine the structure of the underlying crust. We have used these Vp data to convert the profile to depth. The profile has a mean SE–NW trend, with a SE-Section 44 km in length followed by a NW-Section 20 km in length. The record includes the first 4 s (twtt), which corresponds to 11 km.Two main areas can be seen in the profile. At the SE-end, a band of high-amplitude discontinuous reflectors dips towards the north. The band is 100 to 200 ms thick, increasing even more northwards. This band reaches the surface at the top of the Maláguide Complex (the upper complex of the Internal Zones). Above these reflectors, an area with chaotic seismic facies and no reflectors corresponds to the outcrops of the olistostromes and turbidites of the Solana Formation, and it is in turn overlain by discontinuous reflectors of the Subbetic rocks.At the NW-end of the profile, a set of high-amplitude continuous reflectors with SE dips point to the location of the Prebetic. Below this section, oblique reflectors of intermediate amplitude indicate the Variscan basement. Over the Prebetic, we have marked the basal thrusts of the Intermediate Units and the Subbetic. Using this seismic data, as well as field observations, we propose a geological cross-section of the upper crust of the eastern Betic Cordillera and a model of the most recent evolution of the orogen. In this model, the Internal Zones and the Subbetic have been welded together from the Middle Burdigalian to the present day and acted as an orogenic wedge that deformed the Intermediate Units and the Prebetic.     

Influence of glacial retreat on natural hazards of the Palcacocha Lake area, Peru

In this article we describe natural hazards associated with outburst floods of Palcacocha Lake and landslide events on the slopes of its moraine dam, in Cojup Valley, Cordillera Blanca (Peru). These events occurred in the last 70 years and some of them resulted in disasters, which strongly affected the city of Huarás. Field investigations and reference expression hydrodynamic tests as well as archive satellite images and aerial pictures were used to describe the evolution of hazards connected with Palcacocha Lake. Expression hydrodynamic tests proved a high permeability of sandy gravels glacial sediments, which form the present-day lake dam. Seepage through the natural dam forming small ponds below the overflow spillways occurs. A retreat of the glacial tongue causing an increase of the lake volume and unloading of the slope toe areas are the most important recent processes that influence the potential hazards affecting the Cojup valley. The research has proved that the climate warming and ongoing deglaciation play a very significant role in the change of natural hazards conditions in high mountains.