The impact of volcanic eruptions on forest ecosystems can be investigated using dendrochronological records. While long-range effects are usually mediated by decreased air temperatures, resulting in frost rings or reduced maximum latewood density, local effects include abrupt suppression of radial growth, occasionally followed by greater than normal growth rates. Annual rings in Mexican mountain pine (Pinus hartwegii Lindl.) on Nevado de Colima, at the western end of the Mexican Neovolcanic Belt, indicate extremely low growth in 1913 and 1914, following the January 1913 Plinian eruption of Volcán de Fuego, 7.7 km to the south. That event, which is listed among the largest explosive eruptions since A.D. 1500, produced ashflow deposits up to 40 m thick and blanketed our study area on Nevado de Colima with a tephra fallout 15–30 cm deep. Radial growth reduction in 1913–14 was ≥30% in 73% of the sampled trees. We geostatistically investigated the ecological impact of the eruption by mapping the decrease in xylem increment and found no evidence of a spatial structure in growth reduction. Little information has been available to date on forest species as biological archives of past environments in the North American tropics, yet this historical case study suggests that treeline tropical sites hold valuable records of prehistoric phenomena, including volcanic eruptions. 相似文献
A gravity and magnetic survey has been carried out with the purpose of investigating geophysical features of the crusts beneath three geological provinces in western Argentina: Cuyo Precordillera, the Sierras Pampeanas of San Juan and La Rioja, and Famatina System, the results of which are displayed in three maps: Bouguer anomaly, total field magnetic anomaly and total field reduced to the pole.
The top and bottom boundaries of the magnetized crust were calculated from power-density spectra of the total-field anomalies from our terrestrial database in 90 2D windows. The depths obtained for the bottom of magnetized crust are assumed to correspond to Curie point depths. The values thus obtained for the Precordillera range between 29 and 40 km, whereas for the Sierras Pampeanas, in the Sierra de Pie de Palo, and other mountain chains along the Bermejo-Desaguadero lineament or Valle Fértil lineament, such depth ranges between 20 and 35 km. These results are consistent with Curie point depths determined on different continental regions in the world.
A map of regional heat flow has been prepared in the present work based on the depth of the Curie point isotherm, which shows that heat flow patterns in Precordillera are different from those found in Sierras Pampeanas.
A significant heat flow extending in Northeast-Southwest direction seems to be directly related to Juan Fernández Ridge trace.
The results of the present investigations also point out a possible relationship between the base of the magnetized crust and the boundary separating the brittle from the ductile crustal regime. 相似文献
The study place is in the Barreirinhas region, Maranhão State, northeastern Brazil. A vegetation transect of 78 km was studied among four vegetation types: Restinga (coastal vegetation), Cerrado (woody savanna), Cerradão (dense woody savanna), and Forest, as well as three forested sites around Lagoa do Caçó, located approximately 10 km of the transect. Soil profiles in this transect were sampled for δ13C analysis, as well as buried charcoal fragments were used for 14C dating. The data interpretation indicated that approximately between 15,000 and ∼9000 14C yr B.P., arboreal vegetation prevailed in the whole transect, probably due to the presence of a humid climate. Approximately between ∼9000 and 4000-3000 14C yr B.P., there was the expansion of the savanna, probably related to the presence of drier climate. From ∼4000-3000 14C yr B.P. to the present, the results indicated an increase in the arboreal density in the area, due to the return to a more humid and probably similar climate to the present. The presence of buried charcoal fragments in several soil depths suggested the occurrence of palaeofires during the Holocene. The vegetation dynamic inferred in this study for northeastern Brazil is in agreement with the results obtained in areas of Amazon region, based on pollen analysis of lake sediments and carbon isotope analysis of soil organic matter (SOM), implying than similar climatic conditions have affected these areas during the late Pleistocene until the present. 相似文献