The agricultural revolution as environmental catastrophe: Implications for health and lifestyle in the Holocene     

Clark Spencer Larsen   《Quaternary International》2006,150(1):12

One of the most fundamental developments in the history of our species—and one having among the most profound impacts on landscapes and the people occupying them—was the domestication of plants and animals. In addition to altering landscapes around the globe from the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene, the shift from foraging to farming resulted in negative and multiple consequences for human health. Study of human skeletal remains from archaeological contexts shows that the introduction of grains and other cultigens and the increase in their dietary focus resulted in a decline in health and alterations in activity and lifestyle. Although agriculture provided the economic basis for the rise of states and development of civilizations, the change in diet and acquisition of food resulted in a decline in quality of life for most human populations in the last 10,000 years.  相似文献   

Palaeomagnetism and magnetomineralogy of a Holocene lake sediment from Vågsøy,western Norway     

Reidar Løvlie  Eiliv Larsen 《Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors》1981,27(2):143-150

Stable remanent directions encountered in three oriented lake-sediment cores, covering 6 m of gyttja deposits, reveal declination swings with amplitudes of the order of ± 50°. Anomalously low inclinations, scattered around the horizontal in the upper 2 m of core, is attributed to compressional disturbances of the alignment of magnetic grains during the coring procedure. Four ¹⁴C dates obtained (1250, 1940, 4600 and 6330 y B.P.) have enabled a correlation with features ‘c’–‘g’ of the British Geomagnetic Master Curve). For the older part of the curve, features ‘h’ and ‘i’, the correlation is questionable. Magneto-mineralogical parameters and qualitative chemical analysis of individual grains by secondary X-ray emission analysis reveal the presence of pure magnetite grains. Scanning electron micrographs show a dominant proportion of concoidal slightly elongated grains (10–80 μm). A few almost-perfect octahedral magnetite crystals can be related to outcrops of augen gneisses in the vicinity confirming a detrital origin of these grains.  相似文献   

The 1996 and 1998 subglacial eruptions beneath the Vatnajökull ice sheet in Iceland: contrasting geochemical and geophysical inferences on magma migration     

O. Sigmarsson  H. R. Karlsson  G. Larsen 《Bulletin of Volcanology》2000,61(7):468-476

87 Sr/⁸⁶Sr (0.70322) and δ ¹⁸O ( ∼2.9‰), whereas significantly lower and higher values, respectively, are found in samples from the Bárdarbunga volcanic system (0.70307 and 3.8‰). These results strongly indicate that the Gjálp magma originated from the Grímsv?tn magma system. The 1996 magma is of an intermediate composition, representing a basaltic icelandite formed by 50% fractional crystallization of a tholeiite magma similar in composition to that expelled by the 1998 Grímsv?tn eruption. The differentiation that produced the Gjálp magma may have taken place in a subsidiary magma chamber that last erupted in 1938 and would be located directly beneath the 1996 eruption site. This chamber was ruptured when a tectonic fracture propagated southward from Bárdarbunga central volcano, as indicated by the seismicity that preceded the eruption. Our geochemical results are therefore not in agreement with lateral magma migration feeding the 1996 Gjálp eruption. Moreover, the results clearly demonstrate that isotope ratios are excellent tracers for deciphering pathways of magma migration and permit a clear delineation of the volcanic systems beneath Vatnaj?kull ice sheet. Received: 1 April 1998 / Accepted: 17 August 1999  相似文献   

Supervised Mineral Classification with Semiautomatic Training and Validation Set Generation in Scanning Electron Microscope Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy Images of Thin Sections     

Harald Flesche  Allan Aasbjerg Nielsen  Rasmus Larsen 《Mathematical Geology》2000,32(3):337-366

This paper addresses the problem of classifying minerals common in siliciclastic and carbonate rocks. Twelve chemical elements are mapped from thin sections by energy dispersive spectroscopy in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Extensions to traditional multivariate statistical methods are applied to perform the classification. First, training and validation sets are grown from one or a few seed points by a method that ensures spatial and spectral closeness of observations. Spectral closeness is obtained by excluding observations that have high Mahalanobis distances to the training class mean. Spatial closeness is obtained by requesting connectivity. Second, class consistency is controlled by forcing each class into 5–10 subclasses and checking the separability of these subclasses by means of canonical discriminant analysis. Third, class separability is checked by means of the Jeffreys–Matusita distance and the posterior probability of a class mean being classified as another class. Fourth, the actual classification is carried out based on four supervised classifiers all assuming multinormal distributions: simple quadratic, a contextual quadratic, and two hierarchical quadratic classifiers. Overall weighted misclassification rates for all quadratic classifiers are very low for both the training (0.25–0.33%) and validation sets (0.65–1.13%). Finally, the number of rejected observations in routine runs is checked to control the performance of the SEM image acquisition and the classification. Although the contextual classifier performs marginally best on the validation set, the simple quadratic classifier is chosen in routine classifications because of the lower processing time required. The method is presently used as a routine petrographical analysis method at Norsk Hydro Research Centre. The data can be approximated by a Poisson distribution. Accordingly, the square root of the data has constant variance and a linear classifier can be used. Near orthogonal input data, enable the use of a minimum distance classifier. Results from both linear and quadratic minimum distance classifications are described briefly.  相似文献   

Young massive star clusters in M51     

Søren S. Larsen 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2000,319(3):893-901

A search for young massive star clusters (YMCs) in the nearby face-on spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) has been carried out using UBV CCD images from the prime focus camera on the Lick 3-m Shane telescope. The YMC population is found to be quite rich with a specific U -band luminosity     consistent with the high current star formation rate (SFR) of this galaxy. The brightest clusters have     far brighter than any young clusters currently known in the Milky Way and even surpassing the luminosity of the R136 cluster in the 30 Dor complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A few of the YMCs are examined on archive images from the Wide Field Planetary Camera (WF/PC2) on board the Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ), confirming their cluster nature and providing estimates of their effective radii of 2–3 pc. The number of YMCs in M51 is compatible with extrapolation of a power-law luminosity function with exponent ∼−2 from a Milky Way-like population of open clusters. Both the SFR and T _L ( U ) of M51 are similar to those of other cluster-rich spiral galaxies like NGC 1313 and M83.  相似文献   

CHOSEN: A synthesis of hydrometeorological data from intensively monitored catchments and comparative analysis of hydrologic extremes     

Liang Zhang  Edom Moges  James W. Kirchner  Elizabeth Coda  Tianchi Liu  Adam S. Wymore  Zexuan Xu  Laurel G. Larsen 《水文研究》2021,35(11):e14429

Comparative hydrology has been hampered by limited availability of geographically extensive, intercompatible monitoring data on comprehensive water balance stores and fluxes. These limitations have, for example, restricted comprehensive assessment of multiple dimensions of wetting and drying related to climate change and hampered understanding of why widespread changes in precipitation extremes are uncorrelated with changes in streamflow extremes. Here, we address this knowledge gap and underlying data gap by developing a new data synthesis product and using that product to detect trends in the frequencies and magnitudes of a comprehensive set of hydroclimatic and hydrologic extremes. CHOSEN (Comprehensive Hydrologic Observatory Sensor Network) is a database of streamflow, soil moisture, and other hydroclimatic and hydrologic variables from 30 study areas across the United States. An accompanying data pipeline provides a reproducible, semi-automated approach for assimilating data from multiple sources, performing quality assurance and control, gap-filling and writing to a standard format. Based on the analysis of extreme events in the CHOSEN dataset, we detected hotspots, characterized by unusually large proportions of monitored variables exhibiting trends, in the Pacific Northwest, New England, Florida and Alaska. Extreme streamflow wetting and drying trends exhibited regional coherence. Drying trends in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast were often associated with trends in soil moisture and precipitation (Pacific Northwest) and evapotranspiration-related variables (Southeast). In contrast, wetting trends in the upper Midwest and the Rocky Mountains showed few univariate associations with other hydroclimatic extremes, but their latitudes and elevations suggested the importance of changing snowmelt characteristics. On the whole, observed trends are incompatible with a ‘drying-in-dry, wetting-in-wet’ paradigm for climate-induced hydrologic changes over land. Our analysis underscores the need for more extensive, longer-term observational data for soil moisture, snow and evapotranspiration.  相似文献   

Using maps of continuous variation in species compositional turnover to supplement uniform polygon species range maps     

Giovanni Di Virgilio  Shawn W. Laffan 《International journal of geographical information science》2014,28(8):1658-1673

Species ranges are often represented using polygons, with the attendant issues that they show uniform ranges with abrupt boundaries and can overestimate species ranges. We demonstrate that such uniform species ranges can be supplemented by mapping the gradational variation in species turnover across a landscape. Directional variation in species turnover for 15 skink species (Reptilia: Scincidae) and topographic and climatic turnover in south-eastern Australia were measured using directional moving window analyses, rotated through 360°. The resultant species turnover maps were compared with published polygon range maps for two species within the group (Liopholis whitii and L. inornata). We also assessed how the relationships between species and environmental turnover varied in areas of low or high species turnover. Continuous transitions between distinct areas of low and high species turnover were mapped. Low turnover comprised only 19% of the L. whitii polygon species range within the study area extent. These low turnover areas were more densely populated by L. whitii (67% of observations), whereas areas of medium to high turnover contained substantially fewer observations (25%). Regions with the highest species turnover contained only 6% of observations. L. inornata observations were also clustered in low species turnover areas. Averaged climatic and elevation values were higher in low-turnover areas despite their close adjacency to high-turnover zones. The environmental turnover in low species turnover regions was also lower than in high-turnover areas. Correlations between environmental turnover and low species turnover areas were positive, whereas the opposite relationship applied in high species turnover areas. We identified both abrupt and gradual distributional breaks between separate reptile assemblages; an example of the latter is located in the Hunter Valley in the south-eastern coastal region. This break has been mapped using solid, uniform lines in species ranges and thus implicitly as an abrupt break. Environmental conditions may be more favourable to skinks in low-turnover areas. Since L. whitii and other skink species have very large populations in low-turnover areas, other squamate species may also be more likely to occur in these areas. This has potential implications for conservation prioritisation. The turnover maps used here can supplement the information provided about reptile distributions by the equivalent polygon ranges. This approach can be applied to point occurrence data for any taxonomic group or any similar georeferenced diversity data set.  相似文献   

Holocene volcanic activity at Grímsvötn,Bárdarbunga and Kverkfjöll subglacial centres beneath Vatnajökull,Iceland     

Bergrún Arna Óladóttir  Gudrún Larsen  Olgeir Sigmarsson 《Bulletin of Volcanology》2011,73(9):1187-1208

Assessment of potential future eruptive behaviour of volcanoes relies strongly on detailed knowledge of their activity in the past, such as eruption frequency, magnitude and repose time. The eruption history of three partly subglacial volcanic systems, Grímsvötn, Bárdarbunga and Kverkfjöll, was studied by analysing tephra from soil profiles around the Vatnajökull ice-cap, which extend back to ~7.6 ka. Well known regional Holocene marker tephra (e.g. H3, H4, H5) were utilized to correlate profiles. Stratigraphic positions and geochemical compositions were used for fine-scale correlation of basaltic tephra. Around Vatnajökull ice-cap 345 tephra layers were identified, of which 70% originated from Grímsvötn, Bárdarbunga or Kverkfjöll. The eruption frequency of each volcanic system was estimated; Grímsvötn has been the most active with an average of ~7 eruptions/100 years (range 4–14) during prehistoric time (before ~870 AD); Bárdarbunga has been the second most active with ~5 eruptions/100 years (range 1–8); and Kverkfjöll has remained essentially calm with 0–3 eruptions/100 years but showing periodic activity with repose times of >1000 years. All three volcanic systems experienced lulls in activity from 5 ka to 2 ka, referred to as the “Mid-Holocene low”. This reduced eruption frequency appears to have resulted from a decrease in magma generation and delivery from the mantle plume rather than from changes in ice-load/glacier thickness. In prehistoric time, there was a time lag of 1000–3000 years between a peak of activity at volcanoes directly above the mantle plume versus at volcanoes located in the non-rifting part of the Eastern Volcanic Zone, closer to the periphery of the island. This time-space relationship suggests that a significant future increase in volcanism can be expected there, following increased levels of volcanism above the plume.  相似文献   

Examining the assumptions of integrated coastal management: Stakeholder agendas and elite cooption in Babuyan Islands, Philippines     

Rasmus Klocker Larsen  Jo Marie Acebes 《Ocean & Coastal Management》2011,54(1):10-18

In the Philippines, Integrated Coastal Management (ICM) represents the dominant response to narratives of ecosystem decline. However, there are persistent challenges to implementation, manifested in continued resource degradation, questioning of the exercise of stakeholder involvement and rising resource conflicts. This paper examines the implementation process and how the assumptions embodied in the ICM regime meet the local reality in one group of islands in the Philippine archipelago. The evidence shows how the transformation towards a supposed equilibrium state of coastal ecosystems is undermined in the face of diverging stakeholder agendas. Expected actors are disempowered by the incoherence between the policy owners’ worldview and reality, paving the way for unethical influence from elite alliances. This is coupled with a deepening of the dominance of state, international development banks, foreign aid agencies, and NGOs in promoting their respective interests. In localities such as the Babuyan Islands, when assumptions of ICM collapse it has destructive consequences for fisherfolk and the coastal environment. We conclude that if ICM is to foster an effective and equitable correction of current unsustainable exploitation patterns, then there is a need to institute improved accountability mechanisms in the devolved governance system as well as taking seriously the espoused commitment to stakeholder involvement in determining the goals and assumptions of ICM.  相似文献   

The MJO’s impact on rainfall trends over the Congo rainforest     

Raghavendra  Ajay  Zhou  Liming  Roundy  Paul E.  Jiang  Yan  Milrad  Shawn M.  Hua  Wenjian  Xia  Geng 《Climate Dynamics》2020,54(5):2683-2695

Climate Dynamics - A significant declining trend in rainfall over the Congo basin has been observed over the past three decades. Since the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is a major forcing...  相似文献