中国东部地区耕地土壤肥力变化趋势研究

随着人口、资源和环境之间的矛盾日趋尖锐,中国耕地土壤肥力及其变化日益为世人所关注。本文利用最近20年东北地区的吉林和黑龙江省,华北地区的北京市和河北省以及长江下游地区的江苏和浙江省的15个县市180个样本点的土壤数据资料,分析了20世纪80年代以来东部地区农业土壤肥力的演变趋势。结果表明,从总体上看,东部地区除土壤速效钾下降和酸碱性有所退化外,农业土壤的有机质、全氮和速效磷平均含量都增加了。在空间分布上,土壤肥力的变化趋势存在明显差异。长江下游和华北地区的平均肥力提高,东北地区下降。另外,除华北地区的土壤酸碱性有改善外,长江下游和东北地区土壤都存在酸化倾向。     

Recent ventifact development on the central Oregon coast,western USA

The unusual location of ventifacts, on a boulder‐built jetty at the mouth of the Siuslaw River, Oregon coast, western USA, allows ventifact age and wind abrasion rates to be estimated with some precision. The jetty was built mainly between 1892–1901 and extended throughout the twentieth century. Consideration of historical shoreline position and the history of jetty construction and repair suggests the ventifacts have formed since about 1930. Morphologically the ventifacts are aligned south‐to‐north reflecting winter winds and sediment transport from the adjacent beach. Wind‐parallel grooves and ridges with sharp, sinuous crests are developed on inclined boulder surfaces on top of the jetty and reflect suspended sand transport in wind vortices. Deeply pitted surfaces on steep boulder surfaces nearest the beach reflect impact by saltating sand grains. Based on present wind regimes (1992–2000) from three regional weather stations, southerly winds above the sand transport threshold occur for 21·9–29·6 per cent of the time. Based on estimated depth of loss from boulder surfaces, wind abrasion rates are calculated to be on the order of 0·24–1·63 mm a^?1. This is the first well‐constrained field estimate of ventifact age and ventifaction rate from a modern coastal environment. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Short‐term erosion rates from a 7Be inventory balance

Detailed soil erosion studies bene?t from the ability to quantify the magnitude of erosion over time scales appropriate to the process. An inventory balance for ⁷Be was used to calculate sediment erosion in a 30·73 m² plot during a series of runoff‐producing thunderstorms occurring over three days at the Deep Loess Research Station in Treynor, Iowa, USA. The inventory balance included determination of the pre‐ and post‐storm ⁷Be inventories in the soil, the atmospheric in?ux of ⁷Be during the event, and pro?les of the ⁷Be activity in the soil following the atmospheric deposition. The erosion calculated in the plot using the ⁷Be inventory balance was 0·058 g cm^?2, which is 23 per cent of the annual average erosion determined using ¹³⁷Cs inventories. The calculated erosion from the mass balance is similar to the 0·059 g cm^?2 of erosion estimated from the amount of sediment collected at the outlet of the 6 ha ?eld during the study period and the delivery ratio (0·64). The inventory balance of ⁷Be provides a new means for evaluating soil erosion over the time period most relevant to quantifying the prediction of erosion from runoff. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The stability of a remediated bed in Hamilton Harbour,Lake Ontario,Canada

ABSTRACT In situ measurements of lakebed sediment erodibility were made on three sites in Hamilton Harbour, Lake Ontario, using the benthic flume Sea Carousel. Three methods of estimating the surface erosion threshold (τ_c(0)) from a Carousel time series were evaluated: the first method fits measures of bed strength to eroded depth (the failure envelope) and evaluates threshold as the surface intercept; the second method regresses mean erosion rate (E_m) with bed shear stress and solves for the floc erosion rate (E_f) to derive the threshold for E_m = E_f = 1 × 10^?5 kg m^?2 s^?1; the third method extrapolates a regression of suspended sediment concentration (S) and fluid transmitted bed shear stress (τ₀) to ambient concentrations. The first field site was undisturbed (C) and acted as a control; the second (W) was disturbed through ploughing and water injection as part of lakebed treatment, whereas the third site (OIP) was disturbed and injected with an oxidant used for remediation of contaminated sediment. The main objectives of this study were: (1) to evaluate the three different methods of deriving erosion threshold; (2) to compare the physical behaviour of lacustrine sediments with their marine estuarine counterparts; and (3) to examine the effects of ploughing and chemical treatment of contaminated sediment on bed stability. Five deployments of Sea Carousel were carried out at the control site. Mean erosion thresholds for the three methods were: τ_c(0) = 0·5 (±0·06), 0·27 (±0·01) and 0·34 (±0·03) Pa respectively. Method 1 overpredicted bed strength as it was insensitive to effects in the surface 1–2 mm, and the fit of the failure envelope was also highly subjective. Method 2 exhibited a wide scatter in the data (low correlation coefficients), and definition of the baseline erosion rate (E_f) is largely arbitrary in the literature. Method 3 yielded stable (high correlation coefficients), reproducible and objective results and is thus recommended for evaluation of the erosion threshold. The results of this method correlated well with sediment bulk density and followed the same trend as marine counterparts from widely varying sites. Mass settling rates, expressed as a decay constant, k, of S(t), were strongly related to the maximum turbidity at the onset of settling (S_max) and were also in continuity with marine counterparts. Thus, it appears that differences in salinity had little effect on mass settling rates in the examples presented, and that biological activity dominated any effects normally attributable to changes in salinity. Bedload transport of eroded aggregates (2–4 mm in diameter) took place by rolling below a mean tangential flow velocity (U_y) of 0·32 ms^?1 and by saltation at higher velocities. Mass transport as bedload was a maximum at U_y = 0·4 ms^?1, although bedload never exceeded 1% of the suspended load. The proportion of material moving as bedload was greatest at the onset of erosion but decreased as flow competence increased. Given the low bulk density and strength of the lakebed sediment, the presence of a bedload component is notable. Bedload transport over eroding cohesive substrates should be greater in estuaries, where both sediment density and strength are usually higher. Significant differences between the ploughed and control sites were apparent in both the erosion rate and the friction coefficient (φ), and suggest that bed recovery after disruption is rapid (< 24 h). τ_c(0) increased linearly with time after ploughing and recovered to the control mean value within 3 days. The friction coefficient was reduced to zero by ploughing (diagnostic of fluidization), but increased linearly with time, regaining control values within 6 days. No long‐term reduction in bed strength due to remediation was apparent.     

Geochronology of Middle and Upper Pleistocene Loess Sections in Hungary

The application of both thermoluminescence and infrared stimulated luminescence dating to the extensively studied “classical” Hungarian loess/paleosol sequences from Basaharc, Mende, and Paks provides a reliable chronological framework and climatostratigraphic reconstruction for the last interglacial/glacial cycle. Based on this combined luminescence dating study a new chronology is proposed for the “Young Loess” in Hungary. Luminescence dating suggests that the loess below the MF2 horizon formed during the penultimate glaciation. The MF1 horizon probably formed during an interstade within oxygen isotope stage 3. For the youngest loess, overlying MF1, a very high accumulation rate was determined. Large time gaps occur above MF2 and MF1, indicating that most of the record of the last glaciation is missing in the standard sections at Basaharc, Mende, and Paks. Either large discontinuities or a very low accumulation rate occurred in all three type sections during the soil-forming periods. High-resolution studies of climatic proxies using this combined luminescence dating approach provide a reliable chronological framework for loess and loess derivatives of the last glacial cycle in Hungary, although a precise and complete chronostratigraphic reconstruction cannot be achieved from the incomplete records found at these sites.     

Rapid cooling and exhumation of eclogitic rocks from the Great Caucasus, Russia

Diffusion modelling of growth-zoned garnet is used in combination with standard geothermometric and geobarometric techniques to estimate cooling and denudation rates from the mafic eclogites of the Red Cliff area, Great Caucasus, Russia. Euhedral garnet porphyroblasts exhibit different degrees of prograde growth zoning depending on the size of the grain (100 μm to several mm in diameter). Zoning patterns are mainly expressed in terms of Fe–Mg exchange, with 100*Mg/(Mg+Fe) increasing from 18–20 to 33–37 from core to rim. Geothermobarometry yields conditions of 680±40 °C and a minimum of 1.6±0.2 GPa and of 660±40 °C and 0.8±0.2 GPa for the high-pressure and retrograde stages of equilibration, respectively. A temperature of 600±40 °C has been recorded for the late-stage metamorphic overprint in the mica schists surrounding the eclogites. Relaxation of garnet zoning profiles was modelled for three different hypothetical P–T –t trajectories, all with an initial temperature of 680 °C and a pressure change of 0.8 GPa. The first two trajectories involve decompression associated with regular cooling down to 660 °C (near isothermal) and 600 °C. The third path is a two-step trajectory comprising near-isobaric cooling down to 600 °C followed by isothermal decompression to 0.8 GPa. These P–T trajectories cover as wide a range of pressure and temperature changes endured by the rocks as possible, thus representing extreme cases for calculating cooling and exhumation rates. Calculations indicate that the zoning pattern of the smallest garnet (i.e. garnet for which the zoning is most easily eliminated during post-growth processes) along the different paths can be preserved for the following average exhumation and cooling rates: path 1, 143 mm a^?1 and 102 °C Ma^?1; path 2, 60 mm a^?1 and 171 °C Ma^?1; path 3, 11–30 mm a^?1 and 200–400 °C Ma^?1. These results are discussed in light of theoretical P–T–t paths extracted from thermal models of regions of thickened crust, and from analogue models of accretionary wedge and continental lithosphere subduction.     

Erosion rates of alpine bedrock summit surfaces deduced from in situ Be and Al

We have measured the concentration of in situ produced cosmogenic ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al from bare bedrock surfaces on summit flats in four western U.S. mountain ranges. The maximum mean bare-bedrock erosion rate from these alpine environments is 7.6 ± 3.9 m My⁻¹. Individual measurements vary between 2 and 19 m My⁻¹. These erosion rates are similar to previous cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN) erosion rates measured in other environments, except for those from extremely arid regions. This indicates that bare bedrock is not weathered into transportable material more rapidly in alpine environments than in other environments, even though frost weathering should be intense in these areas. Our CRN-deduced point measurements of bedrock erosion are slower than typical basin-averaged denudation rates ( 50 m My⁻¹). If our measured CRN erosion rates are accurate indicators of the rate at which summit flats are lowered by erosion, then relief in the mountain ranges examined here is probably increasing.

We develop a model of outcrop erosion to investigate the magnitude of errors associated with applying the steady-state erosion model to episodically eroding outcrops. Our simulations show that interpreting measurements with the steady-state erosion model can yield erosion rates which are either greater or less than the actual long-term mean erosion rate. While errors resulting from episodic erosion are potentially greater than both measurement and production rate errors for single samples, the mean value of many steady-state erosion rate measurements provides a much better estimate of the long-term erosion rate.     

Exhumation rates and age of metamorphism in the Sanbagawa belt: new constraints from zircon fission track analysis

Zircon fission track dating and track length analysis in the high‐grade part of the Asemigawa region of the Sanbagawa belt demonstrates a simple cooling history passing through the partial annealing zone at 63.2 ± 5.8 (2 σ) Ma. Combining this age with previous results of phengite and amphibole K–Ar and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating gives a cooling rate of between 6 and 13 °C Myr^?1, which can be converted to a maximum exhumation rate of 0.7 mm year^?1 using the known shape of the P–T path. This is an order of magnitude lower than the early part of the exhumation history. In contrast, zircon fission track analyses in the low‐grade Oboke region show that this area has undergone a complex thermal history probably related to post‐orogenic secondary reheating younger than c. 30 Ma. This event may correlate with the widespread igneous activity in south‐west Japan around 15 Ma. The age of subduction‐related metamorphism in the Oboke area is probably considerably older than the generally accepted range of 77–70 Ma.     

Efficient use of resources: urban waste ash and soil fertility on the Jos Plateau, Nigeria

Waste disposal constitutes an acute problem in numerous African cities. One solution could lie in the recycling of the nutrient-rich waste into agriculture taking place in and around cities. Farmers involved in vegetable production around Jos, Nigeria, have developed a sophisticated soil fertility management strategy combining inorganic fertilizers, manure and urban waste ash. This paper: (1) investigates the socio-economic constraints linked to obtaining scarce organic inputs, particularly urban waste ash and the health hazards (particularly heavy metal contamination of soil and crops) caused by using this ash and (2) suggests ways to improve use of this important resource.     

Erratic judgements: re-evaluating solutional erosion rates of limestones using erratic-pedestal sites, including Norber, Yorkshire

The re-interpretation of surface karst landforms in Northern England has led to a re-examination of well-known erratic-pedestal sites that were the origin for karst denudation rates applied extensively, on the supposition that erratics protect underlying limestone from rainwater solution. Height of the pedestal has been used to calculate long-term solutional-lowering, as much as 50 cm in 15 ka (33.3 mm/ka) from UK sites. The sites include Norber and Scar Close, Yorkshire, UK. This paper shows that the sites have been misinterpreted, in particular at Norber where the erratics lie on a pre-existing structurally stepped surface. Norber and several other sites also experience much mechanical weathering, in relatively weak, well-fractured limestones, a process which must be distinguished from solution. Sites in strong, less-fractured limestones demonstrate lower rates, which are sounder indications of land surface lowering. Some pedestals have been confirmed as partly resulting from solutional weathering in surrounding soil and vegetation. Re-evaluation reduces solution rates to 3–13 cm in 15 ka. Applying such rates has profound implications for understanding limestone landscapes, challenging orthodox views.