Rights or Containment? The politics of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Victoria

Aboriginal cultural heritage protection, and the legislative regimes that underpin it, constitute important mechanisms for Aboriginal people to assert their rights and responsibilities. This is especially so in Victoria, where legislation vests wide-ranging powers and control of cultural heritage with Aboriginal communities. However, the politics of cultural heritage, including its institutionalisation as a scientific body of knowledge within the state, can also result in a powerful limiting of Aboriginal rights and responsibilities. This paper examines the politics of cultural heritage through a case study of a small forest in north-west Victoria. Here, a dispute about logging has pivoted around differing conceptualisations of Aboriginal cultural heritage values and their management. Cultural heritage, in this case, is both a powerful tool for the assertion of Aboriginal rights and interests, but simultaneously a set of boundaries within which the state operates to limit and manage the challenge those assertions pose. The paper will argue that Aboriginal cultural heritage is a politically contested and shifting domain structured around Aboriginal law and politics, Australian statute and the legacy of colonial history.     

Application of drone-captured thermal imagery in aiding in the recovery of meteorites within a snow-covered strewn field

The rapid recovery of meteorites mitigates the exposure of astromaterials to the terrestrial environment and subsequent contamination. Modern fireball observatories have enabled the more accurate triangulation of fireball trajectories, which has aided in the location of strewn fields, in the case of meteorite-producing events. Despite this advancement, most meteorite searches still use manual searching to locate any meteorite falls, which is often labor-intensive and has a slow coverage rate (km² day⁻¹). Recent work has begun exploring the application of drone technology to the recovery of meteorites; however, most of this work has focused on falls in arid environments. Our study examines the utilization of drones with thermal imaging technology to aid in the recovery of meteorites that have fallen on a snow-covered field. We created a simulated strewn field that included meteorite specimens as well as Earth rocks with similar properties (“meteowrongs”). Thermal imagery was utilized to determine whether the thermal contrast between meteorites and snow could aid in the identification of meteorites. We found that the thermal contrast was significant enough that meteorites were readily identifiable within thermal images; however, it was not significant enough to distinguish between the meteorites and the meteowrongs. The utilization of thermal imagery in conjunction with visible imagery has the potential to aid in the rapid recovery of meteorites in snow-covered landscapes.     

The politics of greening unceded lands in the settler city

ABSTRACT

Urban greening is a buzz term in urban policy and research settings in Australia and elsewhere. In a context of settler colonial urbanism, like Australia, a first fact becomes clear: urban greening is always being practiced on unceded Indigenous lands. Recognising this requires some honest reckoning with how this latest urban policy response perpetuates dispossessory settler-colonial structures. In this paper, we listen to the place-based ontologies of the peoples and lands from where we write to inform understanding the city as an always already Indigenous place – a sovereign Aboriginal City. In so doing, the paper tries to practice a way of creating more truthful and response-able urban knowledge practices. We analyse three distinct areas of scholarly research that are present in the contemporary literature: urban greening and green infrastructure; urban political ecology; and more-than-human cities. When placed in relationship of learning with the sovereign Aboriginal City, our analysis finds that these scholarly domains of urban greening work to re-organise colonial power relations. The paper considers what work the practice and scholarship of ‘urban greening’ might need to do in order to become response-able and learn to learn with Indigenous sovereignties and ontologies.     

Über die Installation einer Apparatur für die Analyse des atmosphärischen Kohlensäuregehalts

Zusammenfassung Die im vorläufigen Bericht beschriebene Anlage für die Analyse von atmosphärischem CO₂-Gehalt wurde vervollständigt. Es können nunmehr kontinuierliche Analysen sowie Einzelanalysen mit Gaspipetten ausgeführt werden. Die Arbeitsweise wird beschrieben und einige Resultate werden mitgeteilt. Es kann mit einer Messgenauigkeit von ±0.3 ppm gerechnet werden.

---

Summary The second and the third part of the installation of the equipment for measuring the CO₂ content in the atmospheric air has been accomplished. It is now possible to make continuous local air analysis, and of samples collected in pipettes. The procedure is described and a few results reported. The measurement accuracy lies to within ±0.3 ppm.

---

Riassunto Sono state completate la seconda e la terza parte dell'apparecchiatura per la misura del CO₂ atmosferico. Esse permettono l'analisi continua dell'aria locale e l'analisi di campioni raccolti in pipette; di queste si riporta un esempio. La precisione della misura è di ±0.3 ppm.

---

---

Meteorologisches Institut der Universität Stockholm. Contribution No. 164.     

Meridional tropospheric ozone distribution north of 50° from airplane measurements

Ozone measurements aboard commercial airliners over Scandinavia and on transpolar flights were analyzed for tropospheric ozone concentration. The results confirm a region of enhanced stratospheric-tropospheric exchange around 60° latitude which was expected from Sr-90 fallout measurements.     

Periodicities in blue crab population of Chesapeake Bay

Analysis of the annual blue crab catch in Chesapeake Bay for the years 1922–1976 shows that there are variations with periods of 18.0, 10.7, and 8.6 years. Analysis of Philadelphia air temperatures shows periods of 17.5, 9.8, and 7.4 years. The periods of 18.0 and 17.5 years agree with the 18.6 year period of the Earth-Moon-Sun tidal force, and the periods of 8.6 and 7.4 years agree with the 8.8 year period of the Earth-Moon-Sun tidal force, within experimental error. The periods of 9.8 and 10.7 years, for the temperatures and crabs, respectively, are probably related to the 10.5 year sunspot cycle within experimental error.     

Evidence for the silicate source of relict soils on the Edwards Plateau, central Texas

Relict soils provide insights into Quaternary soil formation and erosion on the Edwards Plateau of central Texas and into soil-forming processes in karst terranes. Late Quaternary climate-driven soil erosion produced a mosaic of thick and thin soils on the Edwards Plateau landscape. Thick soils on uplands of the Edwards Plateau are interpreted to be relicts of a formerly more extensive soil cover that was eroded during the late Pleistocene to middle Holocene. The relict, thick soils are silicate-rich and most commonly overlie the relatively silicate-poor Cretaceous Edwards Limestone, which supports the idea that the thick soils did not form from weathering of the underlying limestone. Other potential sources of silicates for the relict soils include dust, alluvial sediments, and the Del Rio Clay, a stratigraphically higher but locally eroded clay-rich unit. Here we investigate the geographic distribution, texture, clay-sized mineralogy, rare earth element geochemistry, and neodymium isotope composition of the relict soils. We have found that the relict, thick soils are deeply weathered soils that occur dominantly over the Edwards Limestone and have a high clay content and a neodymium isotope composition that is similar to that of the Del Rio Clay. Thus, we propose that in situ weathering of the Del Rio Clay, along with partial weathering of the upper portion of the underlying Edwards Limestone produced thick chert- and clay-rich soils over resistant limestone. In areas like the Edwards Plateau, where pure limestones are interbedded with clay-rich strata, the overlying clay-rich strata must be considered as a possible silicate source to soils on pure limestone bedrock.