This study reconstructs erosion, productivity, fire and vegetation records at Club Lake, in the alpine zone of Kosciusko National Park (the highest mountain region in Australia), and uses them to compare the prehistoric and historic periods. While disturbance in the prehistoric period was found to be minimal and mainly activated by fire, the impact of land uses after European arrival initiated a change in the erosion and fire regime and brought new grazing animals and exotic plant species. These triggered temporal changes in eutrophication and the nature of erosion, and significant vegetation changes. There was a reduction in the stability and persistence of species representation, especially in herbfield vegetation, and little recovery is evident despite the cessation of summer grazing. It is apparent that the area is very sensitive to disturbance by human impact and large fires. 相似文献
Abstract Orthopyroxene-bearing migmatites, exposed at the summit of Cone Peak in the Santa Lucia Range, California, offer an opportunity to explore potential links between granulite facies metamorphism and migmatite formation. Geothermobarometry indicates that the metamorphic temperatures and pressures were in the approximate ranges of 700–750° C and 7.0–7.5 kbar. The rocks at the summit comprise three domains: relatively coarse-grained, leucocratic veins; relatively fine-grained, biotite-enriched zones at the margins of the veins; and a biotite–hornblende-bearing host rock. Orthopyroxene is concentrated in the veins, which have also the highest ratio of anhydrous to hydrous minerals of the three rock types. The composition of the veins, together with their textures and modes, suggest that they formed through anatexis involving a dehydration-melting reaction which consumed hornblende and produced orthopyroxene. Variability in mineralogy and composition indicates that there was some local migration of magma along the veins before their final solidification. The biotite-enriched zones formed either by the concentration of residual biotite at the margins of the vein, or through the metasomatic conversion of hornblende (and/or pyroxene) to biotite, or by a combination of the two processes. Significant differences in the chemistry of the neosome (vein + biotite-enriched zone) and the host rock rule out simple dehydration melting in a local closed system. The model that explains best the mineralogical and chemical patterns involves triggering of melting by an influx of a low- a H2O mixed fluid which added K and Si to and removed Ca from the neosome. 相似文献
A computer-based study of the impact of the proposed Wabo hydroelectric scheme on the Purari River, Papua New Guinea was carried out. The HEC-6 model, Scour and Deposition in Rivers and Reservoirs developed by the Hydrologic Engineering Centre was used to simulate the effect of the dam on sediment transport and erosion in the lower Purari. Two runs with the model were carried out. The first one was used to establish baseline conditions and the second modelled dam impact. Before the study was carried out, data had to be collected on channel geometry, sediment input, river bed material size composition and hydraulic conditions in the river. Supplementary models also had to be developed to fill in gaps in runoff records and to describe flow in the river during power generation. Results of the investigation indicate that limited erosion will occur because of bed-armouring and the river will adjust towards a new equilibrium condition quite rapidly. The sediment output of the river into the Purari delta will change, load in the clay, silt and sand/gravel fractions decreasing by 22, 53 and 78 per cent respectively. 相似文献
AbstractThe Charters Towers Province, of the northern Thomson Orogen, records conversion from a Neoproterozoic passive margin to a Cambrian active margin, as characteristic of the Tasmanides. The passive margin succession includes a thick metasedimentary unit derived from Mesoproterozoic rocks. The Cambrian active margin is represented by upper Cambrian–Lower Ordovician (500–460?Ma) basinal development (Seventy Mile Range Group), plutonism and metamorphism resulting from an enduring episode of arc–backarc crustal extension. Detrital zircon age spectra indicate that parts of the metamorphic basement of the Charters Towers Province (elements of the Argentine Metamorphics and Charters Towers Metamorphics) overlap in protolith age with the basal part of the Seventy Mile Range Group and thus were associated with extensional basin development. Detrital zircon age data from the extensional basin succession indicate it was derived from a far-field (Pacific-Gondwana) primary source. However, a young cluster (<510?Ma) is interpreted as reflecting a local igneous source related to active margin tectonism. Relict zircon in a tonalite phase of the Fat Hen Creek Complex suggests that active margin plutonism may have extended back to ca 530?Ma. Syntectonic plutonism in the western Charters Towers Province is dated at ca 485–480?Ma, close to timing of metamorphism (477–467?Ma) and plutonism more generally (508–455?Ma). The dominant structures in the metamorphic basement formed with gentle to subhorizontal dips and are inferred to have formed by extensional ductile deformation, while normal faulting developed at shallower depths, associated with heat advection by plutonism. Lower Silurian (Benambran) shortening, which affected metamorphic basement and extensional basin units, resulted in the dominant east–west-structural trends of the province. We consider that these trends reflect localised north–south shortening rather than rotation of the province as is consistent with the north–south paleogeographic alignment of extensional basin successions.
KEY POINTS
Northern Tasmanide transition from passive to active margin tectonic mode had occurred by ca 510?Ma, perhaps as early as ca 530?Ma.
Cambro-Ordovician active margin tectonism of the Charters Towers Province (northern Thomson Orogen) was characterised by crustal extension.
Crustal extension resulted in the development of coeval (500–460?Ma) basin fill, granitic plutonism and metamorphism with rock assemblages as exposed across the Charters Towers Province developed at a wide range of crustal levels and expressing heterogeneous exhumation.
Protoliths of metasedimentary assemblages of the Charters Towers Province include both Proterozoic passive margin successions and those emplaced as Cambrian extensional basin fill.
The grounding of the container feeder vessel MV CITA on Newfoundland Rocks, Isles of Scilly, had an effect on the surrounding biota and benthic environment. Included in the CITA's cargo were five 40 ft containers holding pallets of polyester film used in the production of audio and visual recording tapes. The wreckage presented a minor but potentially chronic source of pollution through the delayed release of polythene film, which was left on the seabed as it was considered insufficiently valuable to warrant salvage. The polythene disintegrated and was washed upon the foreshore of Porth Hellick in minute shreds. The adjacent foreshore and two control sites within the islands were analysed using a 5-strand line and vegetation survey with 10 random quadrats within each line to determine the environmental impact of the polythene. 相似文献