Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne remove blooms of the invasive green algaCaulerpa brachypus formaparvifolia (Harvey) cribb from coral reefs off Northern Palm Beach County, Florida

Coral reefs worldwide are under stress from a variety of anthropogenic activities that can alter or inhibit recovery from catastrophic physical disturbances such as hurricanes. On coral reefs off southeast Florida, land-based nutrient pollution contributed to a successful invasion ofCaulerpa brachypus fornaparvifolia that dominated (up to 90% cover) reefs between January 2003 and August 2004. In September 2004, physical effects from Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne removed virtually all of theC. brachypus from the affected reefs. In July 2005, small patches ofC. brachypus began to re-emerge and the area was affected again by Hurricane Wilma in October 2005. Although these hurricanes provided temporary relief from theC. brachypus invasion, the future of these reefs is uncertain because of competition with other opportunistic macroalgae and biota that may respond to the combination of newly created space and continued nutrient stress.     

When hazard avoidance is not an option: lessons learned from monitoring the postdisaster Oso landslide,USA

On 22 March 2014, a massive, catastrophic landslide occurred near Oso, Washington, USA, sweeping more than 1 km across the adjacent valley flats and killing 43 people. For the following 5 weeks, hundreds of workers engaged in an exhaustive search, rescue, and recovery effort directly in the landslide runout path. These workers could not avoid the risks posed by additional large-scale slope collapses. In an effort to ensure worker safety, multiple agencies cooperated to swiftly deploy a monitoring and alerting system consisting of sensors, automated data processing and web-based display, along with defined communication protocols and clear calls to action for emergency management and search personnel. Guided by the principle that an accelerating landslide poses a greater threat than a steadily moving or stationary mass, the system was designed to detect ground motion and vibration using complementary monitoring techniques. Near real-time information was provided by continuous GPS, seismometers/geophones, and extensometers. This information was augmented by repeat-assessment techniques such as terrestrial and aerial laser scanning and time-lapse photography. Fortunately, no major additional landsliding occurred. However, we did detect small headscarp failures as well as slow movement of the remaining landslide mass with the monitoring system. This was an exceptional response situation and the lessons learned are applicable to other landslide disaster crises. They underscore the need for cogent landslide expertise and ready-to-deploy monitoring equipment, the value of using redundant monitoring techniques with distinct goals, the benefit of clearly defined communication protocols, and the importance of continued research into forecasting landslide behavior to allow timely warning.

     

The age of carbonatites,kimberlites and lamprophyres from southern West Greenland: recurrent alkaline magmatism during 2500 million years

Alkaline rocks were intruded into the Precambrian basement in southern West Greenland during at least five separate episodes. The Tupertalik carbonatite intrusion was emplaced around or before 2650 m.y.; it is now metamorphosed in granulite facies but is recognisable by its trace element content. Lamprophyre dykes were intruded at ca. 1800 m.y. and again at ca. 1200 m.y. At ca. 600 m.y. the Sarfartôq carbonatite intrusion and extensive kimberlite dykes were emplaced in the Holsteiborg-Strømfjord region. At 225-115 m.y. the Qaqarssuk carbonatite complex was emplaced in the Sukkertoppen region, and numerous lamprophyre and kimberlite dykes were emplaced between Fishenasset and Ivigtut. All these episodes are correlatable with contemporaneous alkaline activity in Canada and Scandinavia and substantiate the periodicity of carbonatite emplacement. The Mesozoic suite of intrusions is related to rifting prior to continental break-up and the formation of the North Atlantic Ocean. The Eocambrian suite of 600 m.y. is thought to have formed under similar conditions during continental break-up and the formation of the Iapetus ocean.     

Early Proterozoic isotopic ages in the East Greenland Caledonian fold belt

Rb-Sr whole rock isochron ages of 1950 m.y. and 1725 m.y. obtained on rock units of the Hagar migmatite sheet indicate that it is an early Proterozoic gneiss complex and not part of a mobile Caledonian infrastructure. New isotopic ages and recent fieldwork give no support to the concept of mobile Caledonian migmatitic masses rising into the suprastructure as envisaged in the classic stockwerke model for the East Greenland Caledonian fold belt. However, K-Ar mineral ages ranging from 415–462 m.y. indicate a significant Caledonian thermal event. Relationships between the Hagar sheet and bordering metasediments are discussed, including evidence for a middle Proterozoic group of sediments metamorphosed before deposition of the late Precambrian Petermann Series and Eleonore Bay Group.     

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987111000181

This study investigates the mechanism of formation of convection plumes of mushroom shape in sub-solidus mantle and their prediction.The seismic-tomographic images of columnar structures of several hundreds kilometers in diameter have been reported by several researchers,while the much cherished mushroom-shaped plume heads could only be found in computational geodynamics(CGD) models and simple small-scale laboratory analogue simulations.Our theory of transient instability shows that the formation of conv...     

Erratum to: Early warning of rainfall-induced shallow landslides and debris flows in the USA

The state of knowledge and resources available to issue alerts of precipitation-induced landslides vary across the USA. Federal and state agencies currently issue warnings of the potential for shallow, rapidly moving landslides and debris flows in a few areas along the Pacific coast and for areas affected by Atlantic hurricanes. However, these agencies generally lack resources needed to provide continuous support or to expand services to other areas. Precipitation thresholds that form the basis of landslide warning systems now exist for a few areas of the USA, but the threshold rainfall amounts and durations vary over three orders of magnitude nationwide and over an order of magnitude across small geographic areas such as a county. Antecedent moisture conditions also have a significant effect, particularly in areas that have distinct wet and dry seasons. Early warnings of shallow landslides that include specific information about affected areas, probability of landslide occurrence, and expected timing are technically feasible as illustrated by a case study from the Seattle, WA area. The four-level warning scheme (Null, Outlook, Watch, Warning) defined for Seattle is based on observed or predicted exceedance of a cumulative precipitation threshold and a rainfall intensity–duration threshold combined with real-time monitoring of soil moisture. Based on analysis of historical data, threshold performance varies according to precipitation characteristics, and threshold exceedance corresponds to a given probability of landslide occurrence. Experience in Seattle during December 2004 and January 2005 illustrates some of the challenges of providing landslide early warning on the USA West Coast.     

V. The Central Province

A re‐examination in the field of the lamproites of the Fitzroy Basin, Western Australia, shows that for the most part they occur in concentrically‐zoned plugs occupying diatremes. The zonal distribution of the lamproites in each plug is due to the different rates of cooling in different parts of the plug and the peculiar nature of the lamproite magma (high potash dominant over alumina, absence of soda, and abundance of titania, zirconia, baryta and fluorine) is ascribed to upward gas transfer of these constituents in the diatremes, the parental magma being of peridotitic character.     

Early warning of rainfall-induced shallow landslides and debris flows in the USA

The state of knowledge and resources available to issue alerts of precipitation-induced landslides vary across the USA. Federal and state agencies currently issue warnings of the potential for shallow, rapidly moving landslides and debris flows in a few areas along the Pacific coast and for areas affected by Atlantic hurricanes. However, these agencies generally lack resources needed to provide continuous support or to expand services to other areas. Precipitation thresholds that form the basis of landslide warning systems now exist for a few areas of the USA, but the threshold rainfall amounts and durations vary over three orders of magnitude nationwide and over an order of magnitude across small geographic areas such as a county. Antecedent moisture conditions also have a significant effect, particularly in areas that have distinct wet and dry seasons. Early warnings of shallow landslides that include specific information about affected areas, probability of landslide occurrence, and expected timing are technically feasible as illustrated by a case study from the Seattle, WA area. The four-level warning scheme (Null, Outlook, Watch, Warning) defined for Seattle is based on observed or predicted exceedance of a cumulative precipitation threshold and a rainfall intensity–duration threshold combined with real-time monitoring of soil moisture. Based on analysis of historical data, threshold performance varies according to precipitation characteristics, and threshold exceedance corresponds to a given probability of landslide occurrence. Experience in Seattle during December 2004 and January 2005 illustrates some of the challenges of providing landslide early warning on the USA West Coast.     

Coupling Mesoscale Modelling with a Simple Urban Model: The Lisbon Case Study

The ongoing trend of urbanisation worldwide is leading to a growing requirement for detailed flow and transport parameterisations to be included within numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Such models often employ a simple roughness parameterisation for urban areas, which is not particularly accurate in predicting or assessing the flow and dispersion at street scale. Moreover, this kind of parameterisation offers too poor a representation of the mechanical and thermal forcing exerted by urban areas on the larger scale flow. At present, high computational costs and long simulation running times are among the constraints for the implementation of more detailed urban sub-models within NWP models. To overcome such limitations, a downscaling procedure from the atmospheric flow at the synoptic scale to the neighbourhood scale and below, is presented in this study. This is achieved by means of a simple urban model based on a parameterised formulation of the drag exerted by the building on the airflow. Application of the urban model for estimating spatially-averaged mean wind speed and the urban heat island over a selected neighbourhood area in Lisbon, Portugal, is presented. The results show the capability of the urban model to provide more accurate mean wind and temperature profiles. Moreover, the urban model has the advantage of being cost effective, as it requires small computational resources, and thus is suitable to be adopted in an operational context. The model is simple enough to be also used to assess how the resolving of urban surface processes may affect those at the larger scales.