The effects of climate changes on aquifer storage and river baseflow

Abstract

The effects of changes in climate on aquifer storage and groundwater flow to rivers have been investigated using an idealized representation of the aquifer/river system. The generalized aquifer/river model can incorporate spatial variability in aquifer transmissivity and is applied with parameters characteristic of Chalk and Triassic sandstone aquifers in the United Kingdom, and is also applicable to other aquifers elsewhere. The model is run using historical time series of recharge, estimated from observed rainfall and potential evaporation data, and with climate inputs perturbed according to a number of climate change scenarios. Simulations of baseflow suggest large proportional reductions at low flows from Chalk under high evaporation change scenarios. Simulated baseflow from the slower responding Triassic sandstone aquifer shows more uniform and less severe reductions. The change in hydrological regime is less extreme for the low evaporation change scenario, but remains significant for the Chalk aquifer.     

Footwall dip of a core complex detachment fault: thermobarometric constraints from the northern Snake Range (Basin and Range,USA)

Low‐angle detachment faults are common features in areas of large‐scale continental extension and are typically associated with metamorphic core complexes, where they separate upper plate brittle extension from lower plate ductile stretching and metamorphism. In many core complexes, the footwall rocks have been exhumed from middle to lower crustal depths, leading to considerable debate about the relationship between hangingwall and footwall rocks, and the role that detachment faults play in footwall exhumation. Here, garnet–biotite thermometry and garnet–muscovite–biotite–plagioclase barometry results are presented, together with garnet and zircon geochronology data, from seven locations within metapelitic rocks in the footwall of the northern Snake Range décollement (NSRD). These locations lie both parallel and normal to the direction of footwall transport to constrain the pre‐exhumation geometry of the footwall. To determine P–T gradients precisely within the footwall, the ΔPT method of Worley & Powell (2000) has been employed, which minimizes the contribution of systematic uncertainties to thermobarometric calculations. The results show that footwall rocks reached pressures of 6–8 kbar and temperatures of 500–650 °C, equivalent to burial depths of 23–30 km. Burial depth remains constant in the WNW–ESE direction of footwall transport, but increases from south to north. The lack of a burial gradient in the direction of footwall transport implies that the footwall rocks, which today define a sub‐horizontal datum in the direction of fault transport, also defined a sub‐horizontal datum at depth in Late Cretaceous time. This suggests that the footwall was not tilted about the normal to the fault transport direction during exhumation, and hence that the NSRD did not form as a low‐angle normal fault cutting down through the lower crust. Instead, the following evolution for the northern Snake Range footwall is proposed. (i) Mesozoic contraction caused substantial crustal thickening by duplication and folding of the miogeoclinal sequence, accompanied by upper greenschist to amphibolite facies metamorphism. (ii) About half of the total exhumation was accomplished by roughly coaxial stretching and thinning in Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary time, accompanied by retrogression and mylonitic deformation. (iii) The footwall rocks were then ‘captured’ from the middle crust along a moderately dipping NSRD that soled into the middle crust with a rolling‐hinge geometry at both upper and lower terminations.     

The response of idealized aquifer/river systems to climate change

Abstract

A study of the effect of changes in climate on aquifer storage and river recharge using a simple model of an idealized aquifer/river system shows the combined influence of aquifer properties and climate change scenario on the system response. The study shows that changes in the seasonal distribution of recharge may have a critical effect on low flows in rivers supported by baseflow. However, rivers supported by slowly responding aquifers may show a considerable delay in response to climate change allowing an opportunity for water resources planning over an extended period.     

Polymetamorphism, zircon growth and retention of early assemblages through the dynamic evolution of a continental arc in Fiordland, New Zealand

The Marguerite Amphibolite and associated rocks in northern Fiordland, New Zealand, contain evidence for retention of Carboniferous metamorphic assemblages through Cretaceous collision of an arc, emplacement of large volumes of mafic magma, high‐P metamorphism and then extensional exhumation. The amphibolite occurs as five dismembered aluminous meta‐gabbroic xenoliths up to 2 km wide that are enclosed within meta‐leucotonalite of the Lake Hankinson Complex. A first metamorphic event (M1) is manifest in the amphibolite as a pervasively lineated pargasite–anorthite–kyanite or corundum ± rutile assemblage, and as diffusion‐zoned garnet in pelitic schist xenoliths within the amphibolite. Thin zones of metasomatically Al‐enriched leucotonalite directly at the margins of each amphibolite xenolith indicate element redistribution during M1 and equilibration at 6.6 ± 0.8 kbar and 618 ± 25 °C. A second phase of recrystallization (M2) formed patchy and static margarite ± kyanite–staurolite–chlorite–plagioclase–epidote assemblages in the amphibolite, pseudomorphs of coronas in gabbronorite, and thin high‐grossular garnet rims in the pelitic schists. Conditions of M2, 8.8 ± 0.6 kbar and 643 ± 27 °C, are recorded from the rims of garnet in the pelitic schists. Cathodoluminescence imaging and simultaneous acquisition of U‐Th‐Pb isotopes and trace elements by depth‐profiling zircon grains from one pelitic schist reveals four stages of growth, two of which are metamorphic. The first metamorphic stage, dated as 340.2 ± 2.2 Ma, is correlated with M1 on the basis that the unusual zircon trace element compositions indicate growth from a metasomatic fluid derived from the surrounding amphibolite during penetrative deformation. A second phase of zircon overgrowth coupled with crosscutting relationships date M2 to between 119 and 117 Ma. The Early Carboniferous event has not previously been recognized in northern Fiordland, whereas the latter event, which has been identified in Early Cretaceous batholiths, their xenoliths, and rocks directly at batholith margins, is here shown to have also affected the country rock. However, the effects of M2 are fragmentary due to limited element mobility, lack of deformation, distance from a heat source and short residence time in the lower crust during peak P and T. It is possible that many parts of the Fiordland continental arc achieved high‐P conditions in the Early Cretaceous but retain earlier metamorphic or igneous assemblages.     

Spatial and temporal patterns of iceberg rafting (IRD) along the East Greenland margin,ca. 68°N,over the last 14 cal.ka

Twelve 1–2 m, 10-cm-diameter gravity cores collected in 1988 and 1991, from the continental shelf and fjords of East Greenland near Kangerlussuaq Fjord/Trough (ca. 68°N, 32°W), have distinct changes in lithofacies and in the quantity of iceberg rafted (IRD) sediments. These changes are readily observed in X-radiographs of the split cores. We quantify the IRD contribution through grain-size analyses and counting the number of clasts >2 mm from the X-radiographs. Chronological control is provided by acclerated mass spectroscopy ¹⁴C dates on foraminifera. During deglaciation, after 14 cal.ka there was one interval of IRD accumulation ca. 12–13 cal.ka, followed by a brief return to IRD conditions centred at 9 cal.ka. Thereafter, a prominent feature of most cores on the shelf is an increase in IRD accumulation that started ca. 5–6 cal.ka, and which has increased toward the present. Indicators of iceberg rafting, such as the net sand flux and numbers of clasts >2 mm ka⁻¹, follow a power law distribution when graphed against distance from the present East Greenland coast, a measure of the position of the glacier margins. The form of the relationship indicates that there is a dramatic decrease in the supply of sediment from the fjords to the shelf. These relationships are used to estimate changes in the location of the ice margin during the late Quaternary based on a site on the East Greenland slope, Denmark Strait, and to discuss factors that can negate such a simple transfer function. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Petrology of Ocellar Lamprophyres from Western Otago, New Zealand

The southern part of a lamprophyre dyke swarm from West Otago,New Zealand comprises monchiquites and camptonites. Dykes arecompositionally similar to volatile-rich nephelinite or nephelinebasanite, and contain leucocratic ocelli and irregular veinsegregations of nepheline benmoreite composition. Ocelli arecommonly zoned with an upper globule or centrally disposed coreof analcime-carbonate and an alkali feldspar-kaersutite-richlining. Virtually identical zoning is developed in minerals common toboth lamprophyre host and ocellus. Kaersutite is progressivelyenriched in Fe, Mn, Al_vi, and Na + K, and depleted in Mg, andTi towards the rim. Titanaugite is concentrically zoned to aegirine-augite,and is sector zoned with prism sectors enriched in Ti and Al(and to a lesser extent in Fe and Na) compared to basal sectors.Brown micas are zoned from titanphlogopite cores to titanbiotiteand titaniferous lepidomelane rims. In monchiquites glass occurs as an intersertal phase and asan ocellus infilling. The glass is phonolitic and contrastssharply with the composition of the ultrabasic host, indicatingthat production of extreme differentiates without intermediatecompositions is possible by fractional crystallization. Identicalglass compositions in both lamprophyre groundmass and ocelluspreclude liquid immiscibility. Instead, it is suggested thatocelli are segregations of residual liquids drawn into gas vesiclesas a consequence of reduction of the vapour phase, volume duringcooling. The analcime-carbonate globule within the ocellus isinterpreted as the condensed vapour phase. At Haast River, in the northern part of the swarm the dyke associationof peridotite, camptonite, trachyte, tinguaite, and carbonatiteis readily explained in terms of this model. Fractional crystallizationof camptonite results in phonolitic late stage liquids which,if separated from the lamprophyre host crystallize as sodalitetinguaites, leaving a more ultrabasic residuum whose compositionis equivalent to damkjernitic peridotite. Vesiculation of thecamptonite results in separation of a volatile phase (fluidimmiscibility) which is carbonate and alkali-rich, the sourceof both carbonatites and the agent responsible for fenitization.     

Progressive Metamorphism of Metabasic Rocks from the Haast Schist Group of Southern New Zealand

Progressive mineralogical changes are described for metabasicrocks through a Barrovian-type metamorphic series ranging fromgreenschist to amphibolite facies in the Southern Alps of NewZealand. Wet chemical and electronmicroprobe analyses of coexisting phasesillustrate (a) that chlorite composition becomes progressivelymore Mg-rich towards higher grades. Chlorite and biotite zonechlorites have Mg/Fe <1.00, while in the oligoclase zonethe chlorite Mg/Fe >2.00. (b) Biotite and epidote compositionsshow no systematic variation with metamorphic grade and arecontrolled by bulk rock composition. For epidote, compositionis directly related to oxidation states during metamorphism.(c) Zoning profiles from atoll and normal porphyroblastic almandine-richgarnets are illustrated, and their relationship to compositionalchanges with metamorphic grade discussed, (d) Coexisting compositionsof albite and oligoclase through the garnet zone outline theform of the peristerite solvus. Myrmekitic textures in oligoclaseare ascribed to release of silica during progressive eliminationof albite. Element distribution between coexisting minerals is graphicallyinvestigated. Isogradic samples show very similar element distributions,suggesting general equilibration. Distribution of any elementbetween two phases for the facies series as a whole, however,is clearly influenced by changing concentrations of other ionsin one or both minerals. In particular for pairs containingcalciferous amphibole, the distribution coefficient is dependentupon tetrahedrally co-ordinated Al⁺³ of the amphibole.     

Representation of 3-D elevation in terrain databases using hierarchical triangulated irregular networks: a comparative analysis

3-D terrain representation plays an important role in a number of terrain database applications. Hierarchical Triangulated Irregular Networks (TINs) provide a variable-resolution terrain representation that is based on a nested triangulation of the terrain. This paper compares and analyzes existing hierarchical triangulation techniques. The comparative analysis takes into account how aesthetically appealing and accurate the resulting terrain representation is. Parameters, such as adjacency, slivers, and streaks, are used to provide a measure on how aesthetically appealing the terrain representation is. Slivers occur when the triangulation produces thin and slivery triangles. Streaks appear when there are too many triangulations done at a given vertex. Simple mathematical expressions are derived for these parameters, thereby providing a fairer and a more easily duplicated comparison. In addition to meeting the adjacency requirement, an aesthetically pleasant hierarchical TINs generation algorithm is expected to reduce both slivers and streaks while maintaining accuracy. A comparative analysis of a number of existing approaches shows that a variant of a method originally proposed by Scarlatos exhibits better overall performance.