Anomalous structural evolution of the Shimanto Accretionary Prism at Murotomisaki, Shikoku Island, Japan

Abstract The Late Oligocene-Early Miocene Nabae Sub-belt of the Shimanto Accretionary Prism was created coevally (ca 25-15 Ma) with the opening of the Shikoku back-arc basin, located to the south of the southwest Japan convergent margin. The detailed geology of the sub-belt has been controversial and the interaction of the Shimanto accretionary prism and the opening of the Shikoku Basin has been ambiguous. New structural analysis of the sub-belt has led to a new perception of its structural framework and has significant bearing on the interpretation of the Neogene tectonics of southwest Japan. The sub-belt is divided into three units: the Nabae Complex; the Shijujiyama Formation; and the Maruyama Intrusive Suite. The Nabae Complex comprises coherent units and mélange, all of which show polyphase deformation. The first phase of deformation appears to have involved landward vergent thrusting of coherent units over the mélange terrane. The second phase of deformation involved continued landward vergent shortening. The Shijujiyama Formation, composed mainly of mafic volcanics and massive sandstone, is interpreted as a slope basin deposited upon the Nabae Complex during the second phase of deformation. The youngest deformational pulse involved regional flexing and accompanying pervasive faulting. During this event, mafic rocks of the Maruyama Intrusive Suite intruded the sub-belt. Fossil evidence in the Nabae Complex and radiometric dates on the intrusive rocks indicate that this tectonic scheme was imprinted upon the sub-belt between ～23 and ～14 Ma. The timing of accretion and deformation of the sub-belt coincides with the opening of the Shikoku Basin; hence, subduction and spreading operated simultaneously. Accretion of the Nabae Sub-belt was anomalous, involving landward vergent thrusting, magmatism in newly accreted strata and regional flexing. It is proposed that this complex and anomalous structural history is largely related to the subduction of the active Shikoku Basin spreading ridge and associated seamounts.     

数字滤波方法在月尺度数值预报中的应用：II.保留不同低频过程的效果比较

用数字滤波方法对观测资料序列进行处理，得到初始场用于Ｔ４２Ｌ９全球谱模式的月预报，以去除误差增长较快的高频扰动对低频过程的影响，并且利用多时刻的观测资料提取低频过程的信息。对冬季和夏季两个不同个例进行了实例，并比较了取不同长度的观测序列，截取不同周期的过程作为初值对预报效果的影响。结果说明，经过滤波后对低频分量和平均场的预报都有显著的改进。而且对于较长时效的预报，应保留更低频的过程（比如１０ｄ以上     

索马里越赤道气流变化及对7~9月副高位置的影响

通过分析索马里越赤道气流的变化特征及其对7-9月副高脊线位置的影响关系,结果表明：（1）在近44年来冬、夏季索马里越赤道气流强度都呈增强趋势,具有南北半球气流交换越来越激烈之事实;（2）5月索马里越赤道气流对7-9月环流影响关系最好,与副高脊线位置的影响呈正相关关系;（3）2005年诊断与实况相符。     

反射率因子和径向速度共同约束反演多普勒雷达风场

多普勒雷达可以提供降水回波区的风场信息。为了充分运用雷达资料分析中小尺度天气过程,本文假设反射率因子在短时间内的运动满足拉格朗日守恒,提出了采用连续两次的反射率因子回波和径向速度数据共同约束的方法来反演风场,在反演过程中避免了对径向速度的分布进行假设。针对连续两个时次之间反射率回波运动中产生的不同程度的误差做了模拟风场试验,结果表明,当回波运动随机误差不超过40%时,反演结果较为可靠。另外,本文还利用此风场反演方法进行两次中尺度天气过程的实例分析。结果表明,该方法反演的风场与实际风场结构相符,具有一定的应用价值。     

鄂尔多斯盆地北缘南北向剖面上地幔远震P波层析成像

为深入理解华北克拉通破坏机理,本研究通过鄂尔多斯盆地北缘南北向宽频带线性高密度流动地震台观测记录的远震波形数据,获得了1985条高质量到时资料,进而利用FMTT(Fast Marching Teleseismic Tomography)快速行进层析成像方法获得了华北克拉通西部鄂尔多斯盆地北缘深至300 km范围的P波速度模型.结果显示,鄂尔多斯盆地下方呈现出深至150~200 km的高波速异常,说明华北克拉通其西部岩石圈保存完好尚未遭到明显破坏.河套地堑下方存在向鄂尔多斯盆地下方延伸的明显低波速异常,其深度可达300 km深度,而阴山造山带下方上地幔存在深至100 km左右的弱高波速异常,说明鄂尔多斯盆地周边地区的岩石圈均遭到一定程度破坏并减薄,可能与新生代时期太平洋板块的俯冲引起深部热物质上涌等作用密切相关.这些研究结果说明,华北克拉通在构造演化过程中不同块体经历了不同的破坏演化历史,这对于认识克拉通破坏减薄机制具有重要意义.     

Mercury surface composition: Integrating petrologic modeling and remote sensing data to place constraints on FeO abundance

A significant opaque component in Mercury’s crust is inferred based on albedo and spectral observations. Previous workers have favored iron-titanium bearing oxide minerals as the spectrally neutral opaque. A consequence of this hypothesis is that Mercury’s surface would have a high FeO content. An array of remote sensing techniques have not provided definitive constraints on the FeO content of Mercury’s surface. However, spectral observations have not detected a diagnostic 1 μm absorption band and have thus limited the FeO in coexisting silicates to <2 wt.% FeO. In this paper, we assess equilibrium among oxide and silicate minerals to constrain the distribution of iron between opaque oxides and silicates under a variety of environmental conditions. Equilibrium modeling is favored here because the geologic process that produced Mercury’s low-albedo intermediate terrain must have occurred globally, which favors a common widespread igneous process. Based on our modeling, we find that iron-rich ilmenite cannot occur with silicates that do not display a 1 μm absorption feature unless plagioclase abundances are high. However, such high plagioclase abundances are precluded by Mercury’s low albedo. Incorporating equilibrium crystallization modeling with spectral and albedo constraints we find the iron abundance of Mercury’s intermediate terrain is ?10 wt.% FeO. This intermediate iron composition matches constraints provided by visible albedo and total neutron absorption observed by MESSENGER. In fact, the total neutron absorption of mixtures of oxide, plagioclase, olivine and pyroxene for the oxide abundances estimated for Mercury, favor Mg-rich members of the ilmenite-geikielite solid-solution series. This work offers compositional constraints for Fe, Ti, and Mg that will be testable by various MESSENGER instrument data sets after it begins its orbital mission.     

Sediment yield of the lower Tana River,Kenya, is insensitive to dam construction: sediment mobilization processes in a semi‐arid tropical river system

Dam construction in the 1960s to 1980s significantly modified sediment supply from the Kenyan uplands to the lower Tana River. To assess the effect on suspended sediment fluxes of the Tana River, we monitored the sediment load at high temporal resolution for 1 year and complemented our data with historical information. The relationship between sediment concentration and water discharge was complex: at the onset of the wet season, discharge peaks resulted in high sediment concentrations and counterclockwise hysteresis, while towards the end of the wet season, a sediment exhaustion effect led to low concentrations despite the high discharge. The total sediment flux at Garissa (c. 250 km downstream of the lowermost dam) between June 2012 and June 2013 was 8.8 Mt yr^‐1. Comparison of current with historical fluxes indicated that dam construction had not greatly affected the annual sediment flux. We suggest that autogenic processes, namely river bed dynamics and bank erosion, mobilized large quantities of sediments stored in the alluvial plain downstream of the dams. Observations supporting the importance of autogenic processes included the absence of measurable activities of the fall‐out radionuclides ⁷Be and ¹³⁷Cs in the suspended sediment, the rapid lateral migration of the river course, and the seasonal changes in river cross‐section. Given the large stock of sediment in the alluvial valley of the Tana River, it may take centuries before the effect of damming shows up as a quantitative reduction in the sediment flux at Garissa. Many models relate the sediment load of rivers to catchment characteristics, thereby implicitly assuming that alterations in the catchment induce changes in the sediment load. Our research confirms that the response of an alluvial river to external disturbances such as land use or climate change is often indirect or non‐existent as autogenic processes overwhelm the changes in the input signal. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of emersion and immersion on the porewater nutrient dynamics of an intertidal sandflat in Tokyo Bay

Porewater nutrient dynamics during emersion and immersion were investigated during different seasons in a eutrophic intertidal sandflat of Tokyo Bay, Japan, to elucidate the role of emersion and immersion in solute transport and microbial processes. The water content in the surface sediment did not change significantly following emersion, suggesting that advective solute transport caused by water table fluctuation was negligible. The rate of change in nitrate concentration in the top 10 mm of sediments ranged from −6.6 to 4.8 μmol N l⁻¹ bulk sed. h⁻¹ during the whole period of emersion. Steep nutrient concentration gradients in the surface sediment generated diffusive flux of nutrients directed downwards into deeper sediments, which greatly contributed to the observed rates of change in porewater nutrient concentration for several cases. Microbial nitrate reduction within the subsurface sediment appeared to be strongly supported by the downward diffusive flux of nitrate from the surface sediment. The stimulation of estimated nitrate production rate in the subsurface layer in proportion to the emersion time indicates that oxygenation due to emersion caused changes in the sediment redox environment and affected the nitrification and/or nitrate reduction rates. The nitrate and soluble reactive phosphorus pools in the top 10 mm of sediment decreased markedly during immersion (up to 68% for nitrate and up to 44% for soluble reactive phosphorus), however, this result could not be solely explained by molecular diffusion.     

Resurfacing history of Europa from pole-to-pole geological mapping

We produced geologic maps from two regional mosaics of Galileo images across the leading and trailing hemispheres of Europa in order to investigate the temporal distribution of units in the visible geologic record. Five principal terrain types were identified (plains, bands, ridges, chaos, and crater materials), which are interpreted to result from (1) tectonic fracturing and lineament building, (2) cryovolcanic reworking of surface units, with possible emplacement of sub-surface materials, and (3) impact cratering. The geologic histories of both mapped areas are essentially similar and reflect some common trends: Tectonic resurfacing dominates the early geologic record with the formation of background plains by intricate superposition of lineaments, the opening of wide bands with infilling of inter-plate gaps, and the buildup of ridges and ridge complexes along prominent fractures in the ice. It also appears that lineaments are narrower and more widely spaced with time. The lack of impact craters overprinted by lineaments indicate that the degree of tectonic resurfacing decreased rapidly after ridged plains formation. In contrast, the degree of cryovolcanic resurfacing appears to increase with time, as chaos formation dominates the later parts of the geologic record. These trends, and the transition from tectonic- to cryovolcanic-dominated resurfacing could be attributed to the gradual thickening of Europa's cryosphere during the visible geologic history, that comprises the last 2% or 30-80 Myr of Europa's history: An originally thin, brittle ice shell could be pervasively fractured or melted through by tidal and endogenic processes; the degree of fracturing and plate displacements decreased with time in a thickening shell, and lineaments became narrower and more widely spaced; formation of chaos regions could have occurred where the thickness threshold for solid-state convection was exceeded, and can be aided by preferential tidal heating of more ductile ice. In a long-term context it is not clear at this point whether this inferred thickening trend would reflect a drastic change in the thermal evolution of the satellite, or cyclic or irregular episodes of tectonic and cryovolcanic activity.     

It’s Time To Learn About Learning: Where Should the Environmental and Natural Resource Governance Field Go Next?

This Commentary reflects on the state of the scholarship on learning for environmental and natural resource policy and governance. How have we been learning about learning? We highlight theoretical and empirical advancements related to learning, as well as areas of divergence between learning theories and frameworks, and underdeveloped knowledge around processes and outcomes. To address these limitations and improve progress in both theory and practice, we offer recommendations for learning scholarship by focusing on how to collectively engage in ‘learning about learning’.