The Okavango giant mafic dyke swarm (NE Botswana): its structural significance within the Karoo Large Igneous Province

The structural organization of a giant mafic dyke swarm, the Okavango complex, in the northern Karoo Large Igneous Province (LIP) of NE Botswana is detailed. This N110°E-oriented dyke swarm extends for 1500 km with a maximum width of 100 km through Archaean basement terranes and Permo-Jurassic sedimentary sequences. The cornerstone of the study is the quantitative analysis of N>170 (exposed) and N>420 (detected by ground magnetics) dykes evidenced on a ca. 80-km-long section lying in crystalline host-rocks, at high-angle to the densest zone of the swarm (Shashe area). Individual dykes are generally sub-vertical and parallel to the entire swarm. Statistical analysis of width data indicates anomalous dyke frequency (few data <5.0 m) and mean dyke thickness (high value of 17 m) with respect to values classically obtained from other giant swarms. Variations of mean dyke thicknesses from 17 (N110°E swarm) to 27 m (adjoining and coeval N70°E giant swarm) are assigned to the conditions hosting fracture networks dilated as either shear or pure extensional structures, respectively, in response to an inferred NNW–SSE extension. Both fracture patterns are regarded as inherited brittle basement fabrics associated with a previous (Proterozoic) dyking event. The Okavango N110°E dyke swarm is thus a polyphase intrusive system in which total dilation caused by Karoo dykes (estimated frequency of 87%) is 12.2% (6315 m of cumulative dyke width) throughout the 52-km-long projected Shashe section. Assuming that Karoo mafic dyke swarms in NE Botswana follow inherited Proterozoic fractures, as similarly applied for most of the nearly synchronous giant dyke complexes converging towards the Nuanetsi area, leads us to consider that the resulting triple junction-like dyke/fracture pattern is not a definitive proof for a deep mantle plume in the Karoo LIP.     

“We Don’t Equal Even Just One Man”: Gender and Social Control in Conservation Adoption

Women own or co-own approximately half of the farmland in Iowa, United States, yet researchers are only beginning to study these landowners’ social relationships in relation to their land. This study analyzes qualitative data collected in Iowa through a series of meetings hosted by the Women, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN). I find that social control through exclusion constrains women landowners’ access to information about and implementation of conservation. Specifically, I identify how women landowners experience the social processes of boundary maintenance and othering in land management. These processes create barriers to conservation adoption and maintain gendered agricultural landscapes. The women who participated in WFAN’s conservation programs express their experience of and resistance to dominant narratives as they attempt to create landscape change. These findings highlight the importance of further study of inequality processes and their relation to control of farmland if conservation goals are to be met.     

Late Pleistocene Vertebrates and Other Fossils from Epiguruk, Northwestern Alaska

Sediments exposed at Epiguruk, a large cutbank on the Kobuk River about 170 km inland from Kotzebue Sound, record multiple episodes of glacial-age alluviation followed by interstadial downcutting and formation of paleosols. Vertebrate remains from Epiguruk include mammoth, bison, caribou, an equid, a canid, arctic ground squirrel, lemmings, and voles. Radiocarbon ages of bone validated by concordant ages of peat and wood span the interval between about 37,000 and 14,000 yr B.P. The late Pleistocene pollen record is dominated by Cyperaceae, with Artemisia, Salix, Betula, and Gramineae also generally abundant. The fossil record from Epiguruk indicates that the Kobuk River valley supported tundra vegetation with abundant riparian willows during middle and late Wisconsin time. Large herbivores were present during the height of late Wisconsin glaciation as well as during its waning stage and the preceding interstadial interval. The Kobuk River valley would have been a favorable refugium for plants, animals, and possibly humans throughout the last glaciation.     

Pollution and cloud reflectance

Conventional power plants are prolific sources of cloudnucleating particles. Consequently clouds forming in air influenced by such emissions contain higher concentrations of cloud droplets than would prevail in clean conditions; optical properties of clouds are thereby modified, causing them to reflect more sunlight and transmit less. That has obvious consequences for climate physics, but it may also be relevant for mesoscale processes since quite substantial energy changes are involved. Ships constitute isolated sources in an environment that is often quite clean, and when low thin cloud layers are present, ships delineate their courses in satellite images by bright lines. These lines are caused by the above-mentioned increase in reflectance, providing, on a scale of tens to hundreds of kilometers, a realization of an effect which on a climatic scale cannot be directly observed (but which is likely to be comparable in magnitude to the CO₂ effect, but oppositely directed).     

Evaluation of a high-resolution regional climate simulation over Greenland

A simulation of the 1991 summer has been performed over south Greenland with a coupled atmosphere–snow regional climate model (RCM) forced by the ECMWF re-analysis. The simulation is evaluated with in-situ coastal and ice-sheet atmospheric and glaciological observations. Modelled air temperature, specific humidity, wind speed and radiative fluxes are in good agreement with the available observations, although uncertainties in the radiative transfer scheme need further investigation to improve the model’s performance. In the sub-surface snow-ice model, surface albedo is calculated from the simulated snow grain shape and size, snow depth, meltwater accumulation, cloudiness and ice albedo. The use of snow metamorphism processes allows a realistic modelling of the temporal variations in the surface albedo during both melting periods and accumulation events. Concerning the surface albedo, the main finding is that an accurate albedo simulation during the melting season strongly depends on a proper initialization of the surface conditions which mainly result from winter accumulation processes. Furthermore, in a sensitivity experiment with a constant 0.8 albedo over the whole ice sheet, the average amount of melt decreased by more than 60%, which highlights the importance of a correctly simulated surface albedo. The use of this coupled atmosphere–snow RCM offers new perspectives in the study of the Greenland surface mass balance due to the represented feedback between the surface climate and the surface albedo, which is the most sensitive parameter in energy-balance-based ablation calculations.     

Ice-sheet growth and high-latitudes sea-surface temperature

The response of the LLN 2-D climate model to the insolation and CO₂ forcings during the Eemian interglacial is compared to reconstructions obtained from deep-sea cores drilled in the Norwegian Sea and in the North Atlantic. Both reconstructions and modeling results show a decrease of sea-surface temperature (SST) in the higher latitudes (70–75 °N zonal belt for the model and the Norwegian Sea for the proxy records), associated with a more moderate cooling at lower latitudes (50–55 °N and North Atlantic), at the middle of isotopic substage 5e, several millenia before the beginning of continental ice-sheet growth. Such a comparison between the simulated SST and ice volume of the Northern Hemisphere has been extended to the whole last glacial-interglacial cycle. The influence of the insolation forcing on SST and the shortcomings of the model due to its zonal character are discussed. Received: 6 July 1995/Accepted: 19 December 1995     

CHEMINI: A new in situ CHEmical MINIaturized analyzer

“CHEMINI” is a new instrument developed for the measurement of seawater chemical parameters. It is a mono-parameter in situ chemical analyzer based on flow injection analysis and colorimetric detection. The deep-sea version of CHEMINI combines two modules to perform the analysis of dissolved iron [Fe (II) or Fe (II+III)] and total sulphide (H₂S+HS^?+S^2?) up to 6000 m depth. Detection limits are, respectively, 0.3 and 0.1 μM for iron and sulphide. The system proved highly reliable during the MoMARETO cruise on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The two CHEMINIs were used to describe the chemical environment in 12 mussel beds on the Tour Eiffel hydrothermal edifice.     

Extensional tectonics in the Gorringe Bank rocks, Eastern Atlantic ocean: evidence of an oceanic ultra-slow mantellic accreting centre

The Gorringe Bank corresponds to an upper mantle peridotite ridge enclosing a 500-m thick/ 50-km long laccolith-like body of gabbro, locally cut and poorly covered by tholeiitic rocks. Strain and kinematic analysis of orientated gabbros and peridotites sampled during the GORRINGE diving cruise (1996) provides new kinematic constraints on extensional high-temperature deformation recorded at deep levels during stretching, near an accreting centre axis of a mantle-dominant oceanic lithosphere. It is argued that the Gorringe Bank lithosphere formed at an oceanic ultra-slow, N010°–020°-trending accreting centre, mostly by passive tectonic denudation of the mantle, without any synchronous large magmatism. This peculiar lithosphere may be representative of the Iberia oceanic domain located between the continent and the J anomaly ridge, which likely marks the beginning of true spreading at an oceanic spreading ridge.     

Cassini SAR, radiometry, scatterometry and altimetry observations of Titan’s dune fields

Large expanses of linear dunes cover Titan’s equatorial regions. As the Cassini mission continues, more dune fields are becoming unveiled and examined by the microwave radar in all its modes of operation (SAR, radiometry, scatterometry, altimetry) and with an increasing variety of observational geometries. In this paper, we report on Cassini’s radar instrument observations of the dune fields mapped through May 2009 and present our key findings in terms of Titan’s geology and climate. We estimate that dune fields cover ∼12.5% of Titan’s surface, which corresponds to an area of ∼10 million km², roughly the area of the United States. If dune sand-sized particles are mainly composed of solid organics as suggested by VIMS observations (Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) and atmospheric modeling and supported by radiometry data, dune fields are the largest known organic reservoir on Titan. Dune regions are, with the exception of the polar lakes and seas, the least reflective and most emissive features on this moon. Interestingly, we also find a latitudinal dependence in the dune field microwave properties: up to a latitude of ∼11°, dune fields tend to become less emissive and brighter as one moves northward. Above ∼11° this trend is reversed. The microwave signatures of the dune regions are thought to be primarily controlled by the interdune proportion (relative to that of the dune), roughness and degree of sand cover. In agreement with radiometry and scatterometry observations, SAR images suggest that the fraction of interdunes increases northward up to a latitude of ∼14°. In general, scattering from the subsurface (volume scattering and surface scattering from buried interfaces) makes interdunal regions brighter than the dunes. The observed latitudinal trend may therefore also be partially caused by a gradual thinning of the interdunal sand cover or surrounding sand sheets to the north, thus allowing wave penetration in the underlying substrate. Altimetry measurements over dunes have highlighted a region located in the Fensal dune field (∼5° latitude) where the icy bedrock of Titan is likely exposed within smooth interdune areas. The hemispherical assymetry of dune field properties may point to a general reduction in the availability of sediments and/or an increase in the ground humidity toward the north, which could be related to Titan’s asymmetric seasonal polar insolation. Alternatively, it may indicate that either the wind pattern or the topography is less favorable for dune formation in Titan’s northern tropics.     

A study on the sociospatial context of ethnic politics and entrepreneurial growth in Koreatown and Monterey Park

The study examines the various sociospatial features of immigrant populations in two transnationally-linked ethnic enclaves in terms of how they may facilitate and constrain the politics of growth and development. In recent decades, the growing ethnic enclave economies of Koreatown and Monterey Park have witnessed the emergence of progrowth ethnic interest groups comprised of immigrant capitalists, entrepreneurs, developers, and organizations, who are playing key roles in politically spearheading (re)development projects in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Our aim is to understand how the sociospatial, entrepreneurial, and residential layout of these host municipalities set the context for the politics of growth in these ethnic enclave economies based on an analysis of GIS spatial mapping, 2000–2010 census data, and other secondary sources. The data suggests that Korean and Chinese elite face different political opportunities and challenges because of their different sociospatial characteristics—the former based on their greater entrepreneurial influence and weak electoral impact and the latter on their stronger political presence as residents.