Millennial-scale shifts in microtidal ecosystems during the Holocene: dynamics and drivers of change from the Po Plain coastal record (NE Italy)     

Veronica Rossi  Giulia Barbieri  Stefano Claudio Vaiani  Marco Cacciari  Luigi Bruno  Bruno Campo  Marco Marchesini  Silvia Marvelli  Alessandro Amorosi 《第四纪科学杂志》2021,36(6):961-979

Framed into a robust stratigraphic context, multivariate analyses on the Holocene palaeobiological record (pollen, benthic foraminifers, ostracods) of the Po coastal plain (NE Italy) allowed the investigation of microtidal ecosystems variability and driving parameters along a 35-km-long land–sea transect. Millennial-scale ecosystem shifts are documented by coeval changes in the meiofauna, reflecting variations in organic matter–water depth (shallow-marine environments) and degree of confinement-salinity (back-barrier settings). In-phase shifts of vegetation communities track unsteady water-table levels and river dynamics in freshwater palustrine areas. Five environmental–ecological stages followed one another crossing four tipping points that mark changes in relative sea level (RSL), climate and/or fluvial regime. At the culmination of Mediterranean RSL rise, after the 8200 event, remarkable growth of peatlands took place in the Po estuary, while low accumulation rates typified the shelf. At the transgressive–regressive turnaround (~7000 cal a bp ), the estuary turned into a delta plain with tidally influenced interdistributary embayments. River flow regime oscillations after the Climate Optimum (post-5000 cal a bp ) favoured isolation of the bays and the development of brackish wetlands surrounded by wooded peatlands. The youngest threshold (~800 cal a bp ), which led to the establishment of the modern delta, reflects a major avulsion of the Po River.  相似文献   

Risk-targeted maps for Romania     

Radu Vacareanu  Florin Pavel  Ionut Craciun  Veronica Coliba  Cristian Arion  Alexandru Aldea  Cristian Neagu 《Journal of Seismology》2018,22(2):407-417

Romania has one of the highest seismic hazard levels in Europe. The seismic hazard is due to a combination of local crustal seismic sources, situated mainly in the western part of the country and the Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source, which can be found at the bend of the Carpathian Mountains. Recent seismic hazard studies have shown that there are consistent differences between the slopes of the seismic hazard curves for sites situated in the fore-arc and back-arc of the Carpathian Mountains. Consequently, in this study we extend this finding to the evaluation of the probability of collapse of buildings and finally to the development of uniform risk-targeted maps. The main advantage of uniform risk approach is that the target probability of collapse will be uniform throughout the country. Finally, the results obtained are discussed in the light of a recent study with the same focus performed at European level using the hazard data from SHARE project. The analyses performed in this study have pointed out to a dominant influence of the quantile of peak ground acceleration used for anchoring the fragility function. This parameter basically alters the shape of the risk-targeted maps shifting the areas which have higher collapse probabilities from eastern Romania to western Romania, as its exceedance probability increases. Consequently, a uniform procedure for deriving risk-targeted maps appears as more than necessary.  相似文献   

Late quaternary speleogenesis and landscape evolution in the northern Apennine evaporite areas          下载免费PDF全文

Andrea Columbu  Veronica Chiarini  Jo De Waele  Russell Drysdale  Jon Woodhead  John Hellstrom  Paolo Forti 《地球表面变化过程与地形》2017,42(10):1447-1459

Gypsum beds host the majority of the caves in the north‐eastern flank of the Apennines, in the Emilia Romagna region (Italy). More than six hundred of these caves have been surveyed, including the longest known epigenic gypsum cave systems in the world (Spipola‐Acquafredda, ~11 km). Although this area has been intensively studied from a geological point of view, the age of the caves has never been investigated in detail. The rapid dissolution of gypsum and uplift history of the area have led to the long‐held view that speleogenesis commenced only during the last 130 000 years. Epigenic caves only form when the surface drainage system efficiently conveys water into the underground. In the study area, this was achieved after the dismantling of most of the impervious sediments covering the gypsum and the development of protovalleys and sinkholes. The time necessary for these processes can by constrained by understanding when caves were first formed. The minimum age of karst voids can be indirectly estimated by dating the infilling sediments. U–Th dating of carbonate speleothems growing in gypsum caves has been applied to 20 samples from 14 different caves from the Spipola‐Acquafredda, Monte Tondo‐Re Tiberio, Stella‐Rio Basino, Monte Mauro, and Castelnuovo systems. The results show that: (i) caves have been forming since at least ~600 kyr ago; (ii) the peak of speleogenesis was reached during relatively cold climate stages, when rivers formed terraces at the surface and aggradation caused paragenesis in the stable cave levels; (iii) ~200 000 years were necessary for the dismantling of most of the sediments covering the karstifiable gypsum and the development of a surface mature drainage network. Besides providing a significant contribution to the understanding of evaporite karst evolution in the Apennines, this study refines our knowledge on the timescale of geomorphological processes in a region affected by rapid uplifting. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Ecological assessment to detect imminent change in coral reefs of Admiral Cockburn Land and Sea National Park,Turks and Caicos Islands     

Angela Dikou  Colin Ackerman  Carly Banks  Alex Dempsey  Michael Fox  Meagan Gins  Patricia Hester  Adam Parnes  Stephanie Roach  Jessica Rohde  Cliff Spital  Mackai Tapleshay  Luke Thomas 《Marine Ecology》2009,30(4):425-436

Coral reefs of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCIs) (Caribbean Sea) constitute some of the few pristine coral reef systems in the world and play a crucial role in the islands’ economy because they support rich fisheries catches and tourism development. Ambitious development plans involving increase in fishing and tourism pressures are about to bring changes in coastal zone resources of the TCIs associated with increased sediments and nutrients and reduced predation by herbivorous fish on coral reefs. Understanding change is critical when attempting to protect the resources that these coral reefs support and to adopt proper management strategies. Yet, an environmental assessment program to detect imminent human‐induced changes on the surrounding reefs of the TCIs is lacking. Thus, (i) we obtained baseline data on benthic composition and coral community structure at seven reef sites of representative reefs of the TCIs within the Admiral Cockburn Land and Sea National Park (ACLSNP) of South Caicos Island and (ii) performed a priori statistical power analysis to calculate replication requirements for safely and confidently detecting small (δ = 0.1), medium (δ = 0.3), and large (δ = 0.5) effect sizes for a number of relevant to anticipated changes, univariate, benthic indices and for power β = 0.95. The platforms of the margin reefs studied (9–12 m depth) appeared rather variable regarding benthic composition but quite homogeneous regarding hard coral community structure. Mean percent cover of algal functional groups was 0.1 ± 0.3 (mean ± sd) percent for coralline algae and Halimeda, 0.1 ± 0.6 (mean ± sd) percent for macroalgae, 21.7 ± 33 (mean ± sd) percent for turf algae and 4.8 ± 4.0 (mean ± sd) percent for hard coral cover. The dominant benthic component, however, was carbonate substrate (mean ± sd = 30.4 ± 34.3), thus indicating an accreting reef framework. Mean hard coral density, colony size and recruit density were 5.5 ± 1.8 (mean ± sd) corals per 20‐m line transect, 13.0 ± 2.3 (mean ± sd) cm maximum colony diameter, and 1.3 ± 1.4 (mean ± sd) recruits per square foot, respectively. Due to high natural variance, hard coral colony size and density were practically the most sensitive indices in detecting even small size changes on benthos. Also, the geometric mean of log‐transformed colony size‐frequency distributions of the most abundant hard coral taxa, i.e. Montastrea annularis, Agaricia spp., Siderastrea spp. and Porites asteroides were practically sensitive for the same purpose. We hope that the study will optimize the spatial component of a necessary environmental impact assessment program on coral reefs of the TCIs once the natural spatial variability of the system has been assessed and sensitive, benthic, univariate indices have been identified for representative reference coral reef sites of the TCIs.  相似文献