Geomorphic and dendroecological impacts of slushflows in central Gaspé Peninsula (Québec, Canada)

Slushflows are rare phenomena in southeastern Canada. Here we report for the first time the occurrence of slushflows in a subalpine environment in eastern Canada (Mt. Albert, Gaspé Peninsula, Québec). Because nothing is known of their frequency- magnitude in the area, we reconstructed the chronology of slushflow events over the past century using dendrogeomorphic techniques based on impact scars, reaction wood and traumatic resin ducts. Slushflows contributed to the formation of a tongue-shaped accumulation of 17900 m² at the outlet of a firstorder drainage basin. The slushflow boulder tongue was composed of heterogeneous-sized, angular and unoriented clasts, which are markedly different from the sediments of an adjacent alluvial fan. Although movements were initiated above the subalpine forest limit, slushflows induced forest fragmentation along the treed slope. Three slushflow events were identified over the past century, in 1925, 1964 and 1988, respectively, which indicate exceptional initiation conditions and considerable geomorphic activity of individual events.     

Segregation and Residential Mobility of Vietnamese Immigrants in Brisbane,Australia

The study focuses on residential mobility propensities of Vietnamese immigrants in the city of Brisbane, Australia, as a principal force contributing to the persistence or change of ethnic residential segregation over time. Using 1990 survey data, discrete-time logit models are estimated to assess the effects of locational, contextual, and personal characteristics on the likelihood of changing residence within the city. The results indicate that locational variables operate in such a way that the most dominant Vietnamese neighborhood in Brisbane increases its prominence even further, while secondary Vietnamese clusters are likely to weaken. The results also indicate that initial settlement conditions are important for the first move only, whereas personal attributes contribute to variations in mobility propensities primarily in the second move. This implies that the composition of the immigrant population potentially influences the speed at which changes in ethnic residential patterns will occur in urban areas.     

A scoping review on the multiplicity of scale in spatial analysis

Journal of Geographical Systems - Scale is a central concept in the geographical sciences and is an intrinsic property of many spatial systems. It also serves as an essential thread in the fabric...     

Depiction of Wild Food Foraging Practices in the Media: Impact of the Great Recession

The practice of gathering and harvesting wild foods has seen renewed interest in recent decades. In addition to contributing to food security and food sovereignty, foraging plays a role in promoting socioecological resilience and creating communities of belonging. However, foraging is generally prohibited by regulations governing public lands in the United States and elsewhere. The growth in food forests suggests public policymakers and land managers’ may be interested in reconsidering this broad prohibition of foraging but require an information base to do so. While a body of research on foraging exists, news media coverage of foraging represents an additional, readily available source of input. As a consequence, framings of foraging in media coverage likely influence managers’ deliberations on this practice. The current paper uses automated content analysis to understand how the practice of gathering and consuming wild foods is framed in print and digital news media, and how these depictions have varied in a 15-year period that includes the Great Recession. Our results show that prevalent framings of foraging represent it variously as a self-provisioning practice or a source of luxury commodities and experiences, with economic uncertainty appearing to affect the frequency of each framing by news media sources. Given managers’ ease of access to them, these distinct framings may influence future regulatory landscapes of foraging.     

An indicator-based approach to assess village-level social and biophysical vulnerability of agriculture communities in Uttarakhand,India

With the growing recognition to myriad forms of current and future threats in the mountain agriculture systems,there is a pressing need to holistically understand the vulnerability of mountain agriculture communities.The study aims to assess the biophysical and social vulnerability of agriculture communities using an indicator-based approach for the state of Uttarakhand,India.A total of 14 indicators were used to capture biophysical vulnerability and 22 for social vulnerability profiles of15285 villages.Vulnerability analysis was done at village level with weights assigned to each indicator using Analytical Hierarchical Process(AHP).The results of the study highlight the presence of very high biophysical vulnerability(0.82 ± 0.10) and high social vulnerability(0.65 ± 0.15) within the state.Based on the results,it was found that incidences of high biophysical vulnerability coincide with presence of intensified agriculture land and absence of dense forest.Higher social vulnerability scores were found in villages with an absence of local institutions(like Self Helping Groups(SHGs)),negligible infrastructure facilities and higher occupational dependence on agriculture.A contrast was observed in the vulnerability scores of villages present in the three different altitudinal zones in the study area,indicating respective vulnerability generating conditions existing in these three zones.Biophysical vulnerability was recorded to be highest in the villages falling in the lower zone and lowest in the upper zone villages;whereas,social vulnerability was found to be highest in the middle zone villages and lowest in lower zone villages.Our study aids policy makers in identifying areas for intervention to expedite agriculture adaptation planning in the state.Additionally,the adaptation programmes in the region need to be more context-specific to accommodate the differential altitudinal vulnerability profiles.     

The Disparate Neighborhood Impacts of the Great Recession: Evidence from Chicago

Abstract

We advance scholarship about how macroeconomic forces differentially manifest themselves across local spaces by developing a holistic conceptual framework and empirical analyses involving multilevel change modeling. Unlike prior work, we examine differential rates of change in neighborhood indicators. We illustrate our approach with Chicago data measuring the crime, housing, and economic domains of neighborhood quality of life over the 2000–2009 period. We find that the local dynamic manifestations of macroeconomic cycles were far more nuanced than have been previously observed. Neighborhood indicators moved along distinct trajectories, sometimes but not necessarily tracking each other or the overall business cycle, and they changed with varied intensities. The Great Recession of 2006–2009 had disparate negative impacts on lower-income and minority-occupied neighborhoods' local job opportunities, home prices, and home foreclosures, though this was not true for credit or crime indicators. Credit indicators performed geographically much differently than in the prior Chicago recession.     

Trend analysis and ARIMA modelling of pre-monsoon rainfall data for western India

Spatial and temporal variability of rainfall over different seasons influence physical, social and economic parameters. Pre-monsoon (March, April and May – MAM) rainfall over the country is highly variable. Since heat lows and convective rainfall in MAM have an impact on the intensity of the ensuing monsoons, hence the pre-monsoon period was chosen for the study. The pre-whitened Mann Kendall test was used to explore presence of rainfall trend during MAM. The results indicate presence of significant (at 10% level) increasing trend in two stations (Ajmer, Bikaner). The practical significance of the change in rainfall was also explored as percentage changes over long term mean, using Theil and Sen's median slope estimator. Forecast using univariate ARIMA model for pre-monsoon months indicates that there is a significant rise in the pre-monsoon rainfall over the northwest part of the country.     

Gaseous transport and deposition of gold in magmatic fluid: evidence from the active Kudryavy volcano, Kurile Islands

The distribution of gold in high-temperature fumarole gases of the Kudryavy volcano (Kurile Islands) was measured for gas, gas condensate, natural fumarolic sublimates, and precipitates in silica tubes from vents with outlet temperatures ranging from 380 to 870°C. Gold abundance in condensates ranges from 0.3 to 2.4 ppb, which is significantly lower than the abundances of transition metals. Gold contents in zoned precipitates from silica tubes increase gradually with a decrease in temperature to a maximum of 8 ppm in the oxychloride zone at a temperature of approximately 300°C. Total Au content in moderate-temperature sulfide and oxychloride zones is mainly a result of Au inclusions in the abundant Fe–Cu and Zn sulfide minerals as determined by instrumental neutron activation analysis. Most Au occurs as a Cu–Au–Ag triple alloy. Single grains of native gold and binary Au–Ag alloys were also identified among sublimates, but aggregates and crystals of Cu–Au–Ag alloy were found in all fumarolic fields, both in silica tube precipitates and in natural fumarolic crusts. Although the Au triple alloy is homogeneous on the scale of microns and has a composition close to (Cu,Ni,Zn)₃(Au,Ag)₂, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) shows that these alloy solid solutions consist of monocrystal domains of Au–Ag, Au–Cu, and possibly Cu₂O. Gold occurs in oxide assemblages due to the decomposition of its halogenide complexes under high-temperature conditions (650–870°C). In lower temperature zones (<650°C), Au behavior is related to sulfur compounds whose evolution is strongly controlled by redox state. Other minerals that formed from gas transport and precipitation at Kudryavy volcano include garnet, aegirine, diopside, magnetite, anhydrite, molybdenite, multivalent molybdenum oxides (molybdite, tugarinovite, and ilsemannite), powellite, scheelite, wolframite, Na–K chlorides, pyrrhotite, wurtzite, greenockite, pyrite, galena, cubanite, rare native metals (including Fe, Cr, Mo, Sn, Ag, and Al), Cu–Zn–Fe–In sulfides, In-bearing Pb–Bi sulfosalts, cannizzarite, rheniite, cadmoindite, and kudriavite. Although most of these minerals are fine-grained, they are strongly idiomorphic with textures such as gas channels and lamellar, banded, skeletal, and dendrite-like crystals, characteristic of precipitation from a gas phase. The identified textures and mineral assemblages at Kudryavy volcano can be used to interpret geochemical origins of both ancient and modern ore deposits, particularly gold-rich porphyry and related epithermal systems.     

Tectonostratigraphic evolution of the Labrador margin, Atlantic Canada

The Labrador continental margin provides a rich source of data with which to study the relationships between stratigraphy, tectonics and paleoenvironment. We have completed a regional seismic interpretation and integrated this with new biostratigraphic data, based on analyses of palynomorphs from wells in the Hopedale and Saglek Basins which occur on this margin. Our results are summarized in a tectonostratigraphic chart, which displays new and consistent age control for the major lithostratigraphic units and provides more precise evaluation of their depositional and paleoenvironmental history. We have identified and dated six regional unconformities in the wells and we can recognize several others on the seismic data. The older unconformities (Cretaceous) are related to the tectonics of rifting and seafloor spreading, and may delineate the onset of different stages of the rift process. In the Paleocene-Early Eocene, unconformity development was influenced by episodic volcanism due to the passage of the proto-Iceland hotspot to the north and to a major change in spreading direction in the Labrador Sea. Many of these unconformities are also identified in offshore southwest Greenland and the Grand Banks, suggesting widespread controlling mechanisms. During the post-seafloor spreading stage the effects of mass wasting and slumping, and of paleoenvironmental controls on the stratigraphy, were more pronounced. We discuss the petroleum potential of the Hopedale Basin in terms of the structures we see on the seismic data, and highlight the Bjarni Formation, which likely contains the most prospective source and reservoir rocks in this Basin.