The NAIAD experiment for WIMP searches at Boulby mine and recent results

The NAIAD experiment (NaI Advanced Detector) for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter searches at Boulby mine (UK) is described. The detector consists of an array of encapsulated and unencapsulated NaI(Tl) crystals with high light yield. Six crystals are collecting data at present. Data accumulated by four of them (10.6 kg × year exposure) have been used to set upper limits on the WIMP–nucleon spin-independent and WIMP–proton spin-dependent cross-sections. Pulse shape analysis has been applied to discriminate between nuclear recoils, as may be caused by WIMP interactions, and electron recoils due to gamma background. Various calibrations of crystals are presented.     

Biostratigraphic and aminostratigraphic constraints on the age of the Middle Pleistocene glacial succession in north Norfolk,UK

Considerable debate surrounds the age of the Middle Pleistocene glacial succession in East Anglia following some recent stratigraphical reinterpretations. Resolution of the stratigraphy here is important since it not only concerns the glacial history of the region but also has a bearing on our understanding of the earliest human occupation of north‐western Europe. The orthodox consensus that all the tills were emplaced during the Anglian (Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 12) has recently been challenged by a view assigning each major till to a different glacial stage, before, during and after MIS 12. Between Trimingham and Sidestrand on the north Norfolk coast, datable organic sediments occur immediately below and above the glacial succession. The oldest glacial deposit (Happisburgh Till) directly overlies the ‘Sidestrand Unio‐bed’, here defined as the Sidestrand Hall Member of the Cromer Forest‐bed Formation. Dating of these sediments therefore has a bearing on the maximum age of the glacial sequence. This paper reviews the palaeobotany and describes the faunal assemblages recovered from the Sidestrand Unio‐bed, which accumulated in a fluvial environment in a fully temperate climate with regional deciduous woodland. There are indications from the ostracods for weakly brackish conditions. Significant differences are apparent between the Sidestrand assemblages and those from West Runton, the type site of the Cromerian Stage. These differences do not result from contrasting facies or taphonomy but reflect warmer palaeotemperatures at Sidestrand and a much younger age. This conclusion is suggested by the higher proportion of thermophiles at Sidestrand and the occurrence of a water vole with unrooted molars (Arvicola) rather than its ancestor Mimomys savini with rooted molars. Amino acid racemisation data also indicate that Sidestrand is significantly younger than West Runton. These data further highlight the stratigraphical complexity of the ‘Cromerian Complex’ and support the conventional view that the Happisburgh Till was emplaced during the Anglian rather than the recently advanced view that it dates from MIS 16. Moreover, new evidence from the Trimingham lake bed (Sidestrand Cliff Formation) above the youngest glacial outwash sediments (Briton's Lane Formation) indicates that they also accumulated during a Middle Pleistocene interglacial – probably MIS 11. All of this evidence is consistent with a short chronology placing the glacial deposits within MIS 12, rather than invoking multiple episodes of glaciation envisaged in the ‘new glacial stratigraphy’ during MIS 16, 12, 10 and 6. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Late Holocene sea-level changes and isostasy in western Denmark

Cores and exposed cliff sections in salt marshes around Ho Bugt, a tidal embayment in the northernmost part of the Danish Wadden Sea, were subjected to ¹⁴C dating and litho- and biostratigraphical analyses to reconstruct paleoenvironmental changes and to establish a late Holocene relative sea-level history. Four stages in the late Holocene development of Ho Bugt can be identified: (1) groundwater-table rise and growth of basal peat (from at least 2300 BC to AD 0); (2) salt-marsh formation (0 to AD 250); (3) a freshening phase (AD 250 to AD 1600?), culminating in the drying out of the marshes and producing a distinct black horizon followed by an aeolian phase with sand deposition; and (4) renewed salt-marsh deposition (AD 1600? to present). From 16 calibrated AMS radiocarbon ages on fossil plant fragments and 4 calibrated conventional radiocarbon ages on peat, we reconstructed a local relative sea-level history that shows a steady sea-level rise of 4 m since 4000 cal yr BP. Contrary to suggestions made in the literature, the relative sea-level record of Ho Bugt does not contain a late Holocene highstand. Relative sea-level changes at Ho Bugt are controlled by glacio-isostatic subsidence and can be duplicated by a glacial isostatic adjustment model in which no water is added to the world's oceans after ca. 5000 cal yr BP.     

'Dad says I'm tied to a shooting star!' Grounding (research on) British expatriate belonging

This paper analyses one British woman's everyday practices of belonging as she negotiates expatriate life in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In doing so, it responds to widespread calls to ground research on processes of transnationalism and diaspora by drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research and adopting a three-stranded analytical framework to reflect on the significance of domesticity, intimacy and foreignness in expatriate belonging. The author focuses on a single research subject to draw attention to a particular British expatriate experience otherwise neglected in migration research and the paper resonates with theoretical literatures aiming to challenge the binary divisions of geographies of belonging, including attachment/detachment.     

Mapping memorials for Edith Cavell on the colonial edge

Abstract:  This paper identifies and explains the pattern of memorialization in New Zealand for English nurse Edith Cavell, arguing that while the influences of empire and colonial mimicry provided a strong overarching framework, local context and parochial expressions were also strong at the colonial edge. In 1915 Cavell was executed by the occupying German forces in Belgium for her resistance work. The general transnational pattern of remembrance that resulted from the huge reaction to her death is explained. The paper then turns to the New Zealand memorialization of Cavell. With reference to monuments for other medical women, and addressing where Cavell does not appear in the landscape, the last section contextualizes Cavell's New Zealand memorialization.     

Climatic and environmental reconstructions based on fossil assemblages from middle devensian (Weichselian) deposits of the river Thames at south kensington, central London, UK

Fossiliferous silts within the Late Pleistocene Kempton Park Gravel, of the River Thames Valley, were exposed in 1980 during foundation works for the Ismaili Centre in South Kensington, London. The results of a multidisciplinary study of the geomorphology, sediments, fossil plants, vertebrates, molluscs, ostracods and insects are reported. The silts were deposited under two distinct climatic regimes; a lower unit accumulated when the climate was arctic and an upper when the temperatures were at least as warm as those of the present day. Both these units occupy the same channel system and are separated from one another by less than a metre of sediment, implying that the climatic change was probably sudden and intense. The strongest evidence for this climatic difference comes from a study of the Coleoptera, which show an almost complete replacement of the arctic element in the fauna by a suite of temperate species. Palaeotemperature reconstructions using the Mutual Climatic Range method, based on the coleopteran assemblages from the lower unit, suggest that the mean temperature of the warmest month was 9±2 °C and that of the coldest month −22±10 °C. For the upper unit the mean temperature of the warmest month had risen to about 17 °C and that of the coldest month to about −4 °C. The episode represented by the lower unit, with its arctic climate, had not previously been recognized in the Thames Valley. The fauna from the upper, temperate, unit is very similar to that from other sites in the Kempton Park Gravel, such as that from Isleworth, 10 km upriver, which, like the upper unit at the Ismaili Centre, was characterized by the virtual absence of trees. It would appear that in such cases this treelessness does not indicate cold conditions, equivalent to those of the modern tundra, but may instead result from a combination of ecological and temporal factors. The value of multidisciplinary studies in reaching such conclusions is emphasized.The temperate episode described here is correlated with the thermal maximum at the early part of the Upton Warren Interstadial Complex. An earlier suggestion, based on amino acid epimerization ratios, that the Upton Warren Interstadial correlates with Oxygen Isotope Sub-stage 5a is not supported by the data, which show no evidence of the forested environments that characterized this period in both Britain and the adjacent Continent. It is thought that the temperate deposits at the Ismaili Centre belong to the Middle (Pleniglacial), rather than the Early, Devensian (Weichselian) and are equivalent to Oxygen Isotope Stage 3.     

NEGOTIATING DUALISMS: WOMEN, LOCALITY AND EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN OAXACA CITY, MEXICO

This paper examines the validity of the public/private and reproductive/productive dichotomies commonly adopted in the analysis of gender and employment. It considers three aspects of the dualisms: spatial division, activity patterns and the construction of identities. The discussion is based on fieldwork undertaken in three districts of Oaxaca City, Mexico, between 1992 and 1995. While recognising the usefulness of spatial dualisms within Mexican cities, the paper seeks to identify the ways in which class and location within the urban space affect the construction of the boundary between “public” and “private”, women's “employment” experiences, and women's identities.     

Decadal‐Scale Changes of the Ödenwinkelkees,Central Austria,Suggest Increasing Control of Topography and Evolution Towards Steady State

Small mountain glaciers have short mass balance response times to climate change and are consequently very important for short‐term contributions to sea level. However, a distinct research and knowledge gap exists between (1) wider regional studies that produce overview patterns and trends in glacier changes, and (2) in situ local scale studies that emphasise spatial heterogeneity and complexity in glacier responses to climate. This study of a small glacier in central Austria presents a spatiotemporally detailed analysis of changes in glacier geometry and changes in glaciological behaviour. It integrates geomorphological surveys, historical maps, aerial photographs, airborne LiDAR data, ground‐based differential global positioning surveys and Ground Penetrating Radar surveys to produce three‐dimensional glacier geometry at 13 time increments spanning from 1850 to 2013. Glacier length, area and volume parameters all generally showed reductions with time. The glacier equilibrium line altitude increased by 90 m between 1850 and 2008. Calculations of the mean bed shear stress rapidly approaching less than 100 kPA, of the volume–area ratio fast approaching 1.458, and comparison of the geometric reconstructions with a 1D theoretical model could together be interpreted to suggest evolution of the glacier geometry towards steady state. If the present linear trend in declining ice volume continues, then the Ödenwinkelkees will disappear by the year 2040, but we conceptualise that non‐linear effects of bed overdeepenings on ice dynamics, of supraglacial debris cover on the surface energy balance, and of local topographically driven controls, namely wind‐redistributed snow deposition, avalanching and solar shading, will become proportionally more important factors in the glacier net balance.