Oil persistence on beaches in Prince William Sound - a review of SCAT surveys conducted from 1989 to 2002

In 2002, 13 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS), 39 selected sites in Prince William Sound (PWS) were re-surveyed following established shoreline cleanup assessment team (SCAT) field observation procedures to document surface and sub-surface oiling conditions in shoreline sediments and to compare results with those from previous Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team (SCAT) surveys and other surveys in PWS. The selected sites are locations where EVOS oil persisted in 1992, at the time the Federal and State On-Scene Coordinators determined that the cleanup was complete and that further cleanup activities would provide no net environmental benefit. These sites had been included in a 2001 NOAA survey of shoreline oiling conditions and account for 88% of the sub-surface oil residues (SSO) oil documented by that study. The 2002 field survey found isolated occurrences of residual EVOS surface oil residues (SO) in the form of weathered asphalt pavement at 15 of the 39 sites. This residual SO typically consisted of asphalt in mixed sand/gravel substrate, located within a wave shadow effect created by boulders or bedrock in the upper intertidal to supratidal zone. Residual SO, expressed as a continuous oil cover, was less than 200 m(2) within the approximately 111,120 m(2) surveyed. A total of 1182 pits were dug at locations where SSO residues were present in 1992. Six of the 39 sites and 815 (68%) of the pits contained no residual SSO. Eighty-three percent of pits with SSO residues were found primarily in middle to upper intertidal locations. SSO residues commonly occurred in a discontinuous approximately 3 cm thick band 5-10 cm below the boulder/cobble or pebble/gravel veneer. The SO and SSO occurrences in the 2002 survey closely match the locations where they were found in 1992 and earlier surveys; however, in 2002 residual SSO patches are more discontinuous and thinner than they were in the earlier surveys. These sites are biased toward SSO persistence; those that have SSO residues represent less than 0.5% of the originally oiled shorelines in PWS. Despite evidence of continued oil weathering, both at the surface and in the sub-surface, it is clear that the natural cleaning processes at these particular locations are slow. The slow weathering rates are a consequence of the oil residue being incorporated in finer sediments (fine sand, silt, mix) and isolated from active weathering processes as boulders and outcrops, shallow bedrock asperities, or boulder-armoring create wave shadows and limit effective physical action on shorelines.     

葛利普：一个世纪的回望——谨以此文纪念中国地质学会成立100周年及其创建者之一葛利普教授

葛利普（Amadeus William Grabau），美国地质学家，著名的地层学、古生物学家，其最后的26年在中国度过，是近代以来我国从事地质研究和教育的著名地质学家。他是中国近现代地质学的主要奠基者之一，也是中国最早的科学协会—中国地质学会的早期创始人之一，为中国近现代地质事业作出卓越贡献。在华期间，葛利普先生先后出版大量论文、专著，内容不仅涉及中国的区域地质，也建立起全球构造理论。基于归纳总结北美、欧洲以及亚洲的资料，20世纪30年代早期他提出“脉动理论”，确立了全球海平面升降的规律，并建立起基于海进、海退规律为基础的古生代构造-地层划分方案，成为现今层序地层学的基础；基于大陆漂移假说，分析演绎并建立“极控理论”，强调地壳的大规模水平运动，强调地槽的形成与水平构造运动有关，形成了原始的俯冲与海底扩张思想的萌芽。脉动理论和极控理论分别论述了地球表层的垂直运动和水平运动，两个理论互为补充，通过构造事件相联系，形成统一的葛利普的整体地球观。葛利普先生也是大陆漂移的热情支持者和推广者，为板块构造理论的出现发挥了重要作用，他灵活的归纳和演绎贯穿其科学生涯的始终。他身残志坚，身处绝境而仍笔耕不辍；他生命不息、奋斗不止的精神值得我们永远学习、敬仰和传承。     

The British Contribution to the Charting of the Adriatic Sea

In this paper, we present the results of an original research study that was based on the analysis of British charts of the Adriatic produced during and immediately after military operations undertaken by British forces and their allies against Napoleon in the Adriatic. We analyse the creation and production of British charts of the Adriatic from the first charting campaign of the Hydrographic Office of 1800–1801 to charts produced in the period of British rule over the island of Lissa of 1811–1815 to the first systematic hydrographic surveying of the Adriatic of 1817–1819 under the leadership of William Henry Smyth that resulted in the first hydrographic atlas and pilot book of the Adriatic. At the same time, the paper evaluates the British contribution to the creation of some of the first reliable nautical charts of the Adriatic and to the development of the nautical cartography of the Adriatic in general.     

Revisiting William Morris Davis and Walther Penck to Propose a General Model of Slope ‘Evolution’ in Deserts

Based on research from slopes on rhyolite domes of known age formed over a million‐year continuum in eastern California, a classic geomorphic debate is reconsidered and a general model of desert slope development proposed. This study examines steep (～25° to ～35°) boulder‐dominated slopes that include well, varnished, vertically oriented colluvial deposits. Such deposits are common throughout the arid southwestern United States. Basic field and isotopic dating methods are combined with two surface‐dating techniques, cosmogenic chlorine‐36 and rock varnish microlaminae, to produce a detailed slope development history with broad implications for geomorphic theory that includes the unresolved geomorphic debate between Walther Penck and William Morris Davis. Slopes in this study are dominated by the on‐going desert slope processes of debris flows and in‐situ grain disintegration as evidenced by active debris flow features, terminal Pleistocene ages of microlaminae, and chlorine‐36 ages progressively younger than potassium‐argon ages for slope genesis. Results also indicate that slopes retreat in a parallel fashion as postulated by Penck. Furthermore, the deposits do not exhibit significant changes in grain size, shape, or angularity from genesis to ～0.6 Ma but change markedly after that time possibly indicating a geomorphic threshold between ～0.6 and ～1 Ma, or episodic erosional events throughout the mid to late Pleistocene.     

Asperity distribution of the 1964 Great Alaska earthquake and its relation to subsequent seismicity in the region

The 1964 Alaska earthquake was the second largest seismic events in the 20th century. The aim of this work is the use of surface deformation data to determine asperity and slip distributions on the fault plane of the Alaska earthquake: these distributions are calculated by a Monte Carlo method. To this aim, we decompose the fault plane in a large number of small square asperity units with a side of 25 km; this allows us to obtain plane surfaces with an irregular shape. In the first stage, each asperity unit is allowed to slip a constant amount or not to slip at all, providing the geometry of the dislocation surface that best reproduces the observed displacements. To this purpose, a large number of slip distributions have been tried by the use of the Monte Carlo method. The slip amplitude is the same for all the asperities and is equal to the average fault slip inferred from the seismic moment. In the second stage, we evaluate the slip distribution in the dislocation area determined by the Monte Carlo inversion: in this case, we allow unit cells to undergo different values of slip in order to refine the initial dislocation model. The results confirm the previous finding that the slip distribution of the great Alaska earthquake was essentially made of two dislocation areas with a higher slip, the Prince William Sound and the Kodiak asperities. Analysis of the post-1964 seismicity in the rupture region shows a strong correlation between the larger earthquakes (M_w≥6) and the distribution of locked asperities following the 1964 event, which can be considered as an independent test of the validity of the model. We do not find slip values higher than 25 m for any of the patches, and we determine two separate high-slip zones: one correspondent to the Prince William Sound asperity, and one (18 m slip) to the Kodiak asperity. The slip distribution connected with the 1964 shock appears to be consistent with the following seismicity in the region.     

《献给爱米丽的一朵玫瑰花》之叙事解读

威廉·福克纳的短篇小说《献给爱米丽的一朵玫瑰花》以强烈的情感和深刻的社会内涵打动了读者 ,其艺术性则更是批评界所津津乐道的。它不同凡响的叙事审美效果与离奇的情节、独特的象征、迭起的悬念以及哥特式的氛围等都有着密切的关系 ,而作者精巧的叙事策略和手法当尤为功不可没。     

Adjustment of benthic fauna following sediment disposal at a site with multiple stressors in Port Valdez, Alaska

The shallow subtidal macrobenthos at Port Valdez, Alaska, was examined to assess faunal adjustment following disposal of dredged sediments over a three-year period. Prior to sediment disposal, the infauna consisted of a relatively species-rich assemblage dominated by sessile polychaetes and bivalves. Six months after disposal, virtually all taxa present prior to dredging and disposal were rare or absent with opportunistic taxa dominant. Surveys performed 1.5 years after sediment disposal indicated faunal adjustment was in progress; large, sessile polychaetes and bivalves were still present in low numbers after 2.5 years. At one station, increasing organic enrichment by fish-wastes from adjacent processing plants resulted in a shift to a highly disturbed benthic assemblage. The trends in the faunal assemblage suggest that environmental conditions were still in a state of flux 2.5 years after the dredging event.