High-P granulites of the Songshugou area (Qinling Orogen,east-central China): Petrography,phase relations,and U/Pb zircon geochronology

High-pressure (HP) granulites provide telling records of mineral reactions at upper mantle to lower crustal levels and key information on the fate of material in subduction systems. The latter especially applies when they abut eclogite and mantle dunite because such rock associations are crucial for understanding the incompletely known processes at the interface of converging plates. A continental arc, active c. 520–395 Ma ago, formed an enigmatic example of such a rock association in the Songshugou area, Qinling Orogen. To unravel the juxtaposition of the distinct rocks, this study combines petrography, phase equilibria modelling, conventional thermobarometry, and zircon U–Th–Pb–Ti–REE analysis. Two mafic HP granulites, which contain the mineral assemblages garnet–clinopyroxene–plagioclase–rutile–mesoperthite–quartz and garnet–clinopyroxene–plagioclase–rutile, experienced peak metamorphic conditions of ≤1.4 GPa, 860°C and ~1.3 GPa, ≥910°C, respectively. During decompression and cooling, at 489 ± 4 Ma, amphibole lamellae unmixed from a clinopyroxene solid solution and orthopyroxene in part replaced garnet. A felsic HP granulite shows equilibration of garnet, perthite, antiperthite, kyanite, quartz, and rutile at 810–860°C, ~1.2 GPa, sillimanite growth during decompression, and upper amphibolite facies cooling at 510 ± 4 Ma. Though the thermobarometric data are just within the methodological errors, the U/Pb zircon ages imply the HP granulites did not evolve coherently. The HP granulites either represent foundered lower arc crust or originated from subduction erosion because their geochemistry is indistinguishable from that of the hanging-wall plate. Published and new pressure–temperature–time–deformation paths converge at ~710°C, ~0.9 GPa, and ≲470 Ma, implying exhumation tectonics juxtaposed the HP granulites with a mélange of eclogite and mantle dunite at lower crustal levels. This study highlights that lower arc crust can comprise material of diverse evolution.     

The use of single seeding events to evaluate the effect of hail suppression

Summary During the years 1977–82 a randomized hail suppression experiment, Grossversuch IV, was conducted in Central Switzerland, testing a Soviet seeding method, which was called the competing embryo concept. Due to logistical and technical difficulties there were several seeded hail cells with insufficient seeding coverage. This fact complicates a statistically proper evaluation of the experiment.To overcome the problem of insufficient seeding, a method is demonstrated, which takes a single seeding event (in our case one rocket) as the statistical unit instead of the seeded cell. The assumption is made that each rocket, which hit the zone of hail formation, reduces the hail production and can be investigated independently from the others. 19 seed cells with 226 truly fired rockets and 18 control cells with 170 simulated rockets, representing over 90% of the total global kinetic energy of all Grossversuch IV cells, were selected. A randomization test is introduced to test the average differences of the true and simulated seeding events. A highly significant increase of kinetic energy after seeding (p-value around 1%) is observed. This result supports the statistically non-significant trend obtained in the confirmatory analysis.With 4 Figures     

Hindcast of pluvial,fluvial, and coastal flood damage in Houston,Texas during Hurricane Harvey (2017) using SFINCS

Natural Hazards - As demonstrated by recent tropical cyclone events, including U.S. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (2017), and Florence (2018), the destructive potential of flooding driven by...     

Modélisation de propagation d’écoulement entre lits mineur et majeur sur les fleuves Sénégal et Niger

In the Senegal River valley and Niger Inner Delta, the annual floods inundate a wide floodplain consisting of a complex network of lakes and channels, where topographic information needed by standard hydraulic models is difficult to obtain. To represent the flood propagation between mainstream and floodplain, we use a model designed for flood propagation in river mainstreams with flat bed and large overflow and without topographic data. Depending on the water level in the riverbed, the model calibrated on the levels observed at two stations gives the level in the floodplains and propagation time between stations. Several cases are tested for various types of hydraulic connections between mainstream and floodplain. The model could correctly reproduce the flood rise and fall in the floodplain, even for a lake connected by a single channel to the riverbed or in the case of a strong attenuation of the flood between very distant stations.     

Influence of age,size and condition factor on lipid concentration in the snapper Chrysophrys auratus

Survival, growth rates and functionality of larvae have been hypothesised to correlate with higher lipid provisioning in older teleosts. To test the lipid provisioning part of this hypothesis, we investigated the total and relative (mg/g) lipid (triglyceride) concentration in both the source (liver) and sink (gonad) lipidation organs of female snapper Chrysophrys auratus across age, size and condition factor throughout its spawning season. Age, size and condition factor had little discernible effect on the total or relative lipid concentration in either liver or gonadal tissue. Therefore, if oocyte quality (based on triglyceride concentration) is comparable across a population, research on the relationship between lipidomics and reproductive success needs to move beyond highlighting correlations to elucidating causation by focusing on the biochemical mechanisms of egg quality and larval survival, identifying maternal parameters associated with consistent lipid provisioning, and partitioning of phenotypic and genotypic maternal influences.     

The 1983 drought in the West Sahel: a case study

Some drought years over sub-Saharan west Africa (1972, 1977, 1984) have been previously related to a cross-equatorial Atlantic gradient pattern with anomalously warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) south of 10°N and anomalously cold SSTs north of 10°N. This SST dipole-like pattern was not characteristic of 1983, the third driest summer of the twentieth century in the Sahel. This study presents evidence that the dry conditions that persisted over the west Sahel in 1983 were mainly forced by high Indian Ocean SSTs that were probably remanent from the strong 1982/1983 El Ni?o event. The synchronous Pacific impact of the 1982/1983 El Ni?o event on west African rainfall was however, quite weak. Prior studies have mainly suggested that the Indian Ocean SSTs impact the decadal-scale rainfall variability over the west Sahel. This study demonstrates that the Indian Ocean also significantly affects inter-annual rainfall variability over the west Sahel and that it was the main forcing for the drought over the west Sahel in 1983.     

Winter storms in Switzerland North of the Alps 1864/1865–1993/1994

Summary In the framework of the Swiss National Research Program 31 Climate changes and natural disasters the question was brought up whether a global warming of the atmosphere would have an influence on the frequency and/or intensity of the extratropical storms of the Swiss winter season. In order to investigate a possible trend, time series of days with a minimum wind speed estimate or measurement equivalent to Beaufort 7, 8 and 9 were established. The longest being a record of the mesonet station Zürich from the period 1864 until 1993 (130 years). Slightly shorter time series for three additional stations in Northern Switzerland were compiled to control the behavior of the longest record and to verify the observed temporal trend. From the location of the four investigated wind records the observational domain was restricted to the part of Switzerland north of the Alps whereas for further meteorological considerations the whole North-Atlantic-European area was included.A negative regional trend in the number of storm days has been observed during the last century. In particular, the period before 1940 has to be interpreted as windier than the following decades. The duration of a storm event also decreased on average. In spite of an increase in cyclonic westwind situations since about 1960 over Europe, Switzerland was hit by fewer storms during the same period. One explanation could be that the whole westwind belt has moved slightly further north where a deepening of the cyclones was observed in recent times. Switzerland is usually situated at the southernmost edge of the particular storm fields and is therefore less influenced by strong gales. Rare exceptions are the cases when a secondary depression directly hits Central Europe, e.g. as happened in February 1990 (storm Vivian).With 11 Figures