The Role of Pre-existing Structures in the Origin, Propagation and Architecture of Faults in the Main Ethiopian Rift

Four major fault systems oriented N–S to NNE–SSW, NE–SW, E–W and NW–SE are identified from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images and a high resolution digital elevation model (DEM) over the Ethiopian Rift Valley and the surrounding plateaus. Most of these faults are the result of Cenozoic - extensional reactivation of pre-existing basement structures. These faults interacted with each other at different geological times under different geodynamic conditions. The Cenozoic interaction under an extensional tectonic regime is the major cause of the actual volcano-tectonic landscape in Ethiopia. The Wonji Fault Belt (WFB), which comprises the N–S to NNE–SSW striking rift floor faults, displays peculiar propagation patterns mainly due to interaction with the other fault systems and the influence of underlying basement structures. The commonly observed patterns are: curvilinear oblique-slip faults forming lip-horsts, sinusoidal faults, intersecting faults and locally splaying faults at their ends. Fault-related open structures such as tail-cracks, releasing bends and extensional relay zones and fault intersections have served as principal eruption sites for monogenetic Plio-Quaternary volcanoes in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER).     

Obsidian from the northern sector of the Main Ethiopian Rift: implications for archeology

Obsidian is abundant in the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER). Petrological and geochemical features of obsidian from four volcanic centers in the MER, namely Birenti, Dofen, Fentale and Kone, are presented. Compositional and petrological variability is noted among the Dofen and Fentale obsidian, but not in those from Kone and Birenti where each have separate but uniform elemental composition. The Fentale and Kone obsidian were source materials for the artifacts of a number of Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age/Neolithic sites in the region. We have yet to determine whether Dofen and Birenti were sources for archeological artifacts. The study also shows that volcanic episodes from a single center do not necessarily result in compositional variability.     

Long-term drainage evolution in the shoalhaven catchment,southeast highlands,Australia

The long-term evolution of streams in the Shoalhaven catchment of southeast New South Wales has been a contentious issue for decades. Several authors have suggested that the Shoalhaven River was captured at the sharp eastward bend near Tallong: this has been used as evidence for the westward migration of the east Australian divide in this area. Other workers, however, have argued that capture did not occur and that the location of the divide has been stable throughout the Tertiary. A vast sheet of sediments which spread across and infill a palaeovalley network cut into a broad undulating plain in the middle Shoalhaven catchment provides a record of stream behaviour since at least the start of the Tertiary. This record shows that the Shoalhaven River and many of its tributaries have maintained almost the same courses since at least the very Early Tertiary. This provides strong evidence against the capture hypothesis. The record further suggests that during the Paleogene these streams were graded to a level within the southeast Australian highlands; their depths of incision thus cannot be used as evidence for the extent of uplift of the southeast Australian highlands during this time.     

Timings of early crustal activity in southern highlands of Mars:Periods of crustal stretching and shortening

Extensional and compressional structures are globally abundant on Mars. Distribution of these structures and their ages constrain the crustal stress state and tectonic evolution of the planet. Here in this paper, we report on our investigation over the distribution of the tectonic structures and timings of the associated stress fields from the Noachis-Sabaea region. Thereafter, we hypothesize possible origins in relation to the internal/external processes through detailed morphostructural mapping. In doing so, we have extracted the absolute model ages of these linear tectonic structures using crater size-frequency distribution measurements, buffered crater counting in particular. The estimated ages indicate that the tectonic structures are younger than the mega impacts events(especially Hellas) and instead they reveal two dominant phases of interior dynamics prevailing on the southern highlands, firstly the extensional phase terminating around3.8 Ga forming grabens and then compressional phase around 3.5-3.6 Ga producing wrinkle ridges and lobate scarps. These derived absolute model ages of the grabens exhibit the age ca. 100 Ma younger than the previously documented end of the global extensional phase. The following compressional activity corresponds to the peak of global contraction period in Early Hesperian. Therefore, we conclude that the planet wide heat loss mechanism, involving crustal stretching coupled with gravitationally driven relaxation(i.e.,lithospheric mobility) resulted in the extensional structures around Late Noachian(around 3.8 Ga). Lately cooling related global contraction generated compressional stress ensuing shortening of the upper crust of the southern highlands at the Early Hesperian period(around 3.5-3.6 Ga).     

Post‐Palaeozoic uplift history of southeastern Australia revisited: Results from a process‐based model of landscape evolution

Digital elevation models (DEMs) are widely relied upon as representations of the Earth's topographic morphology. The most widely used global DEMs available are ETOPO5, TerrainBase and JGP95E at a 5‐arc‐minute spatial resolution, and the GTOPO30 and GLOBE (version 1) global DEMs at a 30‐arc‐second spatial resolution. This paper presents the results of intercomparisons of these global DEMs over Australia, and with the GEODATA 9‐arc‐second DEM (version 1) of Australia. These DEMs were also compared to an independently produced, altimeter‐derived orthometric height database. This allows not only a totally independent assessment of the quality of these different DEMs over Australia, but also an insight into the ERS‐1 radar altimeter's ability to measure orthometric heights on land. The results of all these comparisons reveal large differences among the DEMs, with the greatest difference between JGP95E and ETOPO5 (mean 49 m, standard deviation ±274 m). The comparison with the altimeter‐derived database shows good agreement with the version 1 GEODATA DEM (mean 2 m, standard deviation ±27 m), thus demonstrating that the altimeter is a viable method for quality assessment of DEMs in lowland regions. A further conclusion is that the representation of the Australian land surface in both the JGP95E and TerrainBase global DEMs is more accurate than the higher resolution GLOBE (version 1) global DEM, even though JGP95E displays a disparity along the 140°E meridian because of the different data sources used in its construction.     

Denudational isostatic rebound of intraplate highlands: The lachlan river valley,Australia

A range of evidence from the Lachlan valley in the southeast Australian highlands is consistent with Neogene isostatic rebound in response to denudational unloading. This evidence is found along the inland edge of the highlands in the transition zone between the highlands proper and the Lachlan's inland alluviated valley and the intracratonic Murray Basin. The amounts and rates of uplift indicated by offsets of suballuvium bedrock profiles and the long profiles of Tertiary valley-filling basalts are consistent with modelling of denudational rebound using known rates of highland denudation and basinal sedimentation, and reasonable crustal properties. The modelling shows that weak to moderately strong strong lithosphere (effective elastic thickness, T_e = 1-25 km) and strong lithosphere (T_e = 100 km) are all consistent with the observed amounts of rebound. Strong lithosphere must be broken, however, to be consistent with the field data. Even in the Australian setting, which is characterized by very low rates of denudation, isostatic rebound in response to denudational unloading must be a significant factor in maintaining highland elevation and must be incorporated in models of long-term landscape evolution. It would be expected that denudational isostatic rebound would be an even more significant component of long-term landscape evolution in areas of higher denudation rates.     

Slope aspect, slope length and slope inclination controls of shallow soils vegetated by sclerophyllous heath—links to long-term landscape evolution

On upland Triassic sandstone slopes of the western Blue Mountains, nonswamp, sclerophyllous heath (shrub-dominated vegetation) on shallow soils is commonly found downslope and adjacent to sclerophyllous forest on deeper soils. Some consider heath—and thus shallow soils—as favouring west-facing slopes, which are expected to experience drier microclimates due to insolation, strong and desiccating winds, and severe summer fires. However, our analysis of extensive areas with heath on shallow soils, based on vegetation and topographic maps, and fieldwork of uplands with various degrees of dissection, suggests that aspect is a poor predictor of shallow soils. Rather, shallow soils and heath are found on short slopes and the lower segments of longer slopes with the latter significantly steeper than forested segments.The shallow–deep soil boundary, marked by contrasting modern vegetation structures, does not signify a catchment area threshold, and correspondingly, the vegetation patterns are not in balance with distributary catchment processes, as short slopes are mantled exclusively by shallow soils. Instead, the soil depth boundary represents the propagation of base-level lowering signals, which takes place not only by the headward retreat of knickpoints but also via increased lowering of slope segments adjacent to drainage lines. This leads to steep slopes immediately adjacent to canyons, narrow gorges, and small steep valleys, that are mantled by shallow, discontinuous soils undergoing rapid erosion. These steep slopes persist in the landscape for ≥ 10 My after upland stream rejuvenation until incision of more weatherable Permian sediments, underlying the Triassic cliff-forming sandstones, triggers rapid lateral expansion of gorges. Once shallowly mantled and steeper slopes adjacent to streams are consumed by gorge widening, slopes adjacent to wide gorge clifflines reflect former upland drainage patterns rather than the redirected flow to rapidly widening gorges. Hence, modern vegetation patterns reflect a significant phase of landform development, perhaps combined with enhanced erosion during the Last Glacial Period that is compounded by a humped soil production function on bedrock.     

Leimavo Revisited: Agrarian Land-Use Change in the Highlands of Madagascar

Describing and explaining land-use change is of critical concern in Madagascar, where land transformations such as deforestation and resulting environmental degradation currently capture widespread attention. While the eastern rain forest recedes in the face of swidden cultivators, the highlands demonstrate more constructive transformations. In this paper I present a case study of land-use change in Leimavo, a small village near Ambositra studied in the 1960s by Jean-Pierre Raison. Here, the twentieth century has seen a gradual reduction in irrigated rice cultivation and cattle husbandry, and a boom in market-oriented orange, vegetable, and grain production. In the long term, a historical landscape of grassy hills has been transformed into a productive cultural landscape with woodlots, anti-erosion benching, rice terraces, fruit groves, and diverse crops. Critical factors determining the trajectory of land-use change include regional population pressure, state policies, market incentives, climate variations, and access to land and water resources. These critical factors, or explanations, are linked in the discussion by the use of a simple heuristic device—the range of choice—as a theoretical framework.     

The effects of wet and dry seasons on concentrations of solutes and phytoplankton biomass in seven Ethiopian rift-valley lakes

The chemical characteristics and phytoplankton biomass (measured as chlorophyll-a concentrations) of seven lakes and one reservoir in the Ethiopian rift-valley were studied during the wet and dry seasons between 1990 and 2000. Mean concentrations of three major plant nutrients (nitrate-nitrogen, soluble reactive phosphorus, and silicate) increased during the wet seasons in four of the seven lakes, presumably as a result of mixing events and input from runoff. The changes in the major nutrient concentrations in the rest of the lakes were variable, but concentrations were usually higher during the dry seasons, most likely as a response to temporal variation in the phytoplankton biomass. pH measurements of the lakes did not show marked differences between the wet and dry seasons. Salinity (measured as conductivity) and total ions seemed to increase during the wet seasons in some of the lakes, possibly as a result of inflows that might carry high concentrations of solutes due to the heavy rains. Chlorophyll-a concentrations were higher during the dry seasons in most lakes except in three relatively more productive lakes. The results suggest that there could be light limitation in some of the Ethiopian rift-valley lakes, and events associated with the wet and dry seasons could bring about contrasting changes in nutrient levels and phytoplankton biomass in lakes, depending on the physical characteristics of the lakes.     

Detection of geothermal anomalies using Landsat 8 TIRS data in Tulu Moye geothermal prospect,Main Ethiopian Rift

Despite the high geothermal potential of the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER), risks associated with the industry and the difficulty of identifying possible targets using ground surveys alone continue to impede the development of geothermal power diligence in Ethiopia. In this paper, we investigate the geothermal potential of the Tulu Moye prospect area in the MER using Landsat 8, which is an important and cost-effective method of detecting geothermal anomalies. Data with a path/row of 168/054 were obtained from the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared (TIR) sensors for October 17, 2014. Based on radiometric calibration, atmospheric correction (with the 6S model) and an NDVI-based threshold method for calculating land surface emissivity, a split-window algorithm was applied to retrieve the land surface temperature (LST) of the study area. Results show LST values ranging from 292.2 to 315.8 K, with the highest values found in barren lands. A comparison of LST between the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat 8 shows a maximum difference of 1.47 K. Anomalous areas were also discovered, where LST was about 3-9 K higher than the background area. We identified seven of these as areas of high geothermal activity in the Tulu Moye prospective geothermal area. Auxiliary data and overlay analysis tools eliminated any non-geothermal influences. The research reveals that the distribution of highy prospective geothermal areas is consistent with the development and distribution of faults in the study area. Magmatism is the thermal source and faults provide conduits for the heat to flow from earth’s interior to the surface, facilitating the presence of geothermal anomalies. Finally, TIR remote sensing methods prove to be a robust and cost-effective technique for detecting LST anomalies in the geologically active area of MER. Moreover, combining TIR remote sensing with knowledge of the structural geology of the area and geothermal mechanisms is an efficient approach to detecting geothermal areas.