Access routes to high mountain huts facing climate-induced environmental changes and adaptive strategies in the Western Alps since the 1990s     

Jacques Mourey  Ludovic Ravanel  Christophe Lambiel  Joël Strecker  Mattia Piccardi 《Norsk geografisk tidsskrift. Norwegian journal of geography》2019,73(4):215-228

ABSTRACT

In the European Alps, high mountain environments are subject to major impacts resulting from climate change, which strongly affect human activities such as mountaineering. The purpose of the study was to examine changes in access routes to 30 high mountain huts in the Western Alps since the 1990s. Data were derived from the use of two different methods, geo-historical studies and a questionnaire, and were used to identify both the climate-related processes affecting the climbing routes and the strategies implemented by public entities, Alpine clubs, guide companies, and hut keepers to maintain acceptable safety and technical conditions. The case studies revealed issues affecting three access routes and the results from the questionnaire showed that the main processes affecting access routes were loss of ice thickness and retreat from the front of the glaciated areas. Commonly, in situ equipment was installed to facilitate access for mountaineers and/or a part of a route was relocated to a safer area. The authors conclude that in most cases, the measures were effective but they were limited by financial, ethical and legal issues, especially in protected or classified areas that could jeopardise their durability and effectiveness.  相似文献   

Climatic and structural controls on Late-glacial and Holocene rockfall occurrence in high-elevated rock walls of the Mont Blanc massif (Western Alps)     

Xavi Gallach  Julien Carcaillet  Ludovic Ravanel  Philip Deline  Christophe Ogier  Magali Rossi  Emmanuel Malet  David Garcia-Sellés 《地球表面变化过程与地形》2020,45(13):3071-3091

In the Mont Blanc massif (European Western Alps), rockfalls are one of the main natural hazards for alpinists and infrastructure. Rockfall activity after the Little Ice Age is well documented. An increase in frequency during the last three decades is related to permafrost degradation caused by rising air temperatures. In order to understand whether climate exerts a long-term control on rockfall occurrence, a selection of paleo-rockfall scars was dated in the Glacier du Géant basin [>3200 m above sea level (a.s.l.)] using terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides. Rockfall occurrence was compared to different climatic and glacial proxies. This study presents 55 new samples (including replicates) and 25 previously-published ages from nine sampling sites. In total, 62 dated rockfall events display ages ranging from 0.03 ± 0.02 ka to 88.40 ± 7.60 ka. Holocene ages and their uncertainties were used to perform a Kernel density function into a continuous dataset displaying rockfall probability per 100 years. Results highlight four Holocene periods of enhanced rockfall occurrence: (i) c. 7–5.7 ka, related to the Holocene Warm Periods; (ii) c. 4.5–4 ka, related to the Sub-boreal Warm Period; (iii) c. 2.3–1.6 ka, related to the Roman Warm Period; and (iv) c. 0.9–0.3 ka, related to the Medieval Warm Period and beginning of the Little Ice Age. Laser and photogrammetric three-dimensional (3D) models of the rock walls were produced to reconstruct the detached volumes from the best-preserved rockfall scars (≤0.91 ± 0.12 ka). A structural study was carried out at the scale of the Glacier du Géant basin using aerial photographs, and at the scale of four selected rock walls using the 3D models. Two main vertical and one horizontal fracture sets were identified. They correspond respectively to alpine shear zones and veins opened-up during long-term exhumation of the Mont Blanc massif. Our study confirms that climate primarily controls rockfall occurrence, and that structural settings, coincident at both the massif and the rock wall scales, control the rock-wall shapes as well as the geometry and volume of the rockfall events. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Assessing rockfall susceptibility in steep and overhanging slopes using three-dimensional analysis of failure mechanisms     

B. Matasci  G. M. Stock  M. Jaboyedoff  D. Carrea  B. D. Collins  A. Guérin  G. Matasci  L. Ravanel 《Landslides》2018,15(5):859-878

Rockfalls strongly influence the evolution of steep rocky landscapes and represent a significant hazard in mountainous areas. Defining the most probable future rockfall source areas is of primary importance for both geomorphological investigations and hazard assessment. Thus, a need exists to understand which areas of a steep cliff are more likely to be affected by a rockfall. An important analytical gap exists between regional rockfall susceptibility studies and block-specific geomechanical calculations. Here we present methods for quantifying rockfall susceptibility at the cliff scale, which is suitable for sub-regional hazard assessment (hundreds to thousands of square meters). Our methods use three-dimensional point clouds acquired by terrestrial laser scanning to quantify the fracture patterns and compute failure mechanisms for planar, wedge, and toppling failures on vertical and overhanging rock walls. As a part of this work, we developed a rockfall susceptibility index for each type of failure mechanism according to the interaction between the discontinuities and the local cliff orientation. The susceptibility for slope parallel exfoliation-type failures, which are generally hard to identify, is partly captured by planar and toppling susceptibility indexes. We tested the methods for detecting the most susceptible rockfall source areas on two famously steep landscapes, Yosemite Valley (California, USA) and the Drus in the Mont-Blanc massif (France). Our rockfall susceptibility models show good correspondence with active rockfall sources. The methods offer new tools for investigating rockfall hazard and improving our understanding of rockfall processes.  相似文献   

Shocked quartz in polymict impact breccia from the Upper Cretaceous Yallalie impact structure in Western Australia     

Morgan A. Cox  Aaron J. Cavosie  Ludovic Ferrire  Nicholas E. Timms  Phil A. Bland  Katarina Miljkovi&#x;  Timmons M. Erickson  Brian Hess 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2019,54(3):621-637

Yallalie is a ~12 km diameter circular structure located ~200 km north of Perth, Australia. Previous studies have proposed that the buried structure is a complex impact crater based on geophysical data. Allochthonous breccia exposed near the structure has previously been interpreted as proximal impact ejecta; however, no diagnostic indicators of shock metamorphism have been found. Here we report multiple (27) shocked quartz grains containing planar fractures (PFs) and planar deformation features (PDFs) in the breccia. The PFs occur in up to five sets per grain, while the PDFs occur in up to four sets per grain. Universal stage measurements of all 27 shocked quartz grains confirms that the planar microstructures occur in known crystallographic orientations in quartz corresponding to shock compression from 5 to 20 GPa. Proximity to the buried structure (~4 km) and occurrence of shocked quartz indicates that the breccia represents either primary or reworked ejecta. Ejecta distribution simulated using iSALE hydrocode predicts the same distribution of shock levels at the site as those found in the breccia, which supports a primary ejecta interpretation, although local reworking cannot be excluded. The Yallalie impact event is stratigraphically constrained to have occurred in the interval from 89.8 to 83.6 Ma based on the occurrence of Coniacian clasts in the breccia and undisturbed overlying Santonian to Campanian sedimentary rocks. Yallalie is thus the first confirmed Upper Cretaceous impact structure in Australia.  相似文献   

Development of a rain‐on‐snow detection algorithm using passive microwave radiometry          下载免费PDF全文

Caroline Dolant  Alexandre Langlois  Benoit Montpetit  Ludovic Brucker  Alexandre Roy  Alain Royer 《水文研究》2016,30(18):3184-3196

Currently observed climate warming in the Arctic has numerous consequences. Of particular relevance, the precipitation regime is modified where mixed and liquid precipitation can occur during the winter season leading to rain‐on‐snow (ROS) events. This phenomenon is responsible for ice crust formation, which has a significant impact on ecosystems (such as biological, hydrological, ecological and physical processes). The spatially and temporally sporadic nature of ROS events makes the phenomenon difficult to monitor using meteorological observations. This paper focuses on the detection of ROS events using passive microwave (PMW) data from a modified brightness temperature (T_B) gradient approach at 19 and 37 GHz. The approach presented here was developed empirically for observed ROS events with coincident ground‐based PMW measurements in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. It was then tested in Nunavik, Quebec, with the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR‐E). We obtained a detection accuracy of 57, 71 and 89% for ROS detection for three AMSR‐E grid cells with a maximum error of 7% when considering all omissions and commissions with regard to the total number of AMSR‐E passes throughout the winter period. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Clitellate worms (Annelida) in lateglacial and Holocene sedimentary DNA records from the Polar Urals and northern Norway     

Youri Lammers  Charlotte L. Clarke  Christer Ersus  Antony G. Brown  Mary E. Edwards  Ludovic Gielly  Haflidi Haflidason  Jan Mangerud  Emilia Rota  John Inge Svendsen  Inger Greve Alsos 《Boreas: An International Journal of Quaternary Research》2019,48(2):317-329

While there are extensive macro‐ and microfossil records of a range of plants and animals from the Quaternary, earthworms and their close relatives amongst annelids are not preserved as fossils and therefore the knowledge of their past distributions is limited. This lack of fossils means that clitellate worms (Annelida) are currently underused in palaeoecological research, even though they can provide valuable information about terrestrial and aquatic environmental conditions. Their DNA might be preserved in sediments, which offers an alternative method for detection. Here we analyse lacustrine sediments from lakes in the Polar Urals, Arctic Russia, covering the period 24 000–1300 cal. a BP, and NE Norway, covering 10 700–3300 cal. a BP, using a universal mammal 16S rDNA marker. While mammals were recorded using the marker (reindeer was detected twice in the Polar Urals core at 23 000 and 14 000 cal. a BP, and four times in the Norwegian core at 11 000 cal. a BP and between 3600–3300 cal. a BP), worm extracellular DNA ‘bycatch’ was rather high. In this paper we present the first reported worm detection from ancient DNA. Our results demonstrate that both aquatic and terrestrial clitellates can be identified in late‐Quaternary lacustrine sediments, and the ecological information retrievable from this group warrants further research with a more targeted approach.  相似文献   

Best practices for the use of meteorite names in publications     

Philipp R. Heck  Christopher Herd  Jeffrey N. Grossman  Dmitry Badjukov  Audrey Bouvier  Emma Bullock  Hasnaa Chennaoui‐Aoudjehane  Vinciane Debaille  Tasha L. Dunn  Denton S. Ebel  Ludovic Ferrire  Laurence Garvie  Jrme Gattacceca  Matthieu Gounelle  Richard Herd  Trevor Ireland  Emmanuel Jacquet  Robert J. Macke  Tim McCoy  Francis M. McCubbin  Takashi Mikouchi  Knut Metzler  Mathieu Roskosz  Caroline Smith  Meenakshi Wadhwa  Linda Welzenbach‐Fries  Toru Yada  Akira Yamaguchi  Ryan A. Zeigler  Michael Zolensky 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2019,54(7):1397-1400

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The variability of ruthenium in chromite from chassignite and olivine‐phyric shergottite meteorites: New insights into the behavior of PGE and sulfur in Martian magmatic systems          下载免费PDF全文

Raphael J. Baumgartner  Marco L. Fiorentini  David Baratoux  Ludovic Ferrière  Marek Locmelis  Andrew Tomkins  Kerim A. Sener 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2017,52(2):333-350

The Martian meteorites comprise mantle‐derived mafic to ultramafic rocks that formed in shallow intrusions and/or lava flows. This study reports the first in situ platinum‐group element data on chromite and ulvöspinel from a series of dunitic chassignites and olivine‐phyric shergottites, determined using laser‐ablation ICP‐MS. As recent studies have shown that Ru has strongly contrasting affinities for coexisting sulfide and spinel phases, the precise in situ analysis of this element in spinel can provide important insights into the sulfide saturation history of Martian mantle‐derived melts. The new data reveal distinctive differences between the two meteorite groups. Chromite from the chassignites Northwest Africa 2737 (NWA 2737) and Chassigny contained detectable concentrations of Ru (up to ~160 ppb Ru) in solid solution, whereas chromite and ulvöspinel from the olivine‐phyric shergottites Yamato‐980459 (Y‐980459), Tissint, and Dhofar 019 displayed Ru concentrations consistently below detection limit (<42 ppb). The relatively elevated Ru signatures of chromite from the chassignites suggest a Ru‐rich (~1–4 ppb) parental melt for this meteorite group, which presumably did not experience segregation of immiscible sulfide liquids over the interval of mantle melting, melt ascent, and chromite crystallization. The relatively Ru‐depleted signature of chromite and ulvöspinel from the olivine‐phyric shergottites may be the consequence of relatively lower Ru contents (<1 ppb) in the parental melts, and/or the presence of sulfides during the crystallization of the spinel phases. The results of this study illustrate the significance of platinum‐group element in situ analysis on spinel phases to decipher the sulfide saturation history of magmatic systems.  相似文献   

On the occurrence and origin of anthropogenic radionuclides found in a fragment of the Chelyabinsk (LL5) meteorite          下载免费PDF全文

Rebecca Querfeld  Mohammad R. Tanha  Lars Heyer  Franz Renz  Georg Guggenberger  Franz Brandstätter  Ludovic Ferrière  Christian Koeberl  Georg Steinhauser 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2017,52(6):1244-1250

A piece of the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteorite was investigated for its content of anthropogenic radionuclides. In addition to traces of cesium‐137 that had been previously reported for this particular fragment, we found an unusually high amount of strontium‐90, which indicates that the source of this contamination was the Kyshtym accident (1957). A high Sr‐90/Cs‐137 activity ratio is characteristic for Kyshtym‐derived contaminations. Based on the cesium‐137 content in the soil from the finding site, it is estimated that the fragment was contaminated with soil particles in the milligram range upon impact. Investigation of the soil revealed very unusual ferromagnetic characteristics and an iron‐rich chemical composition. Mössbauer spectroscopy indicated the presence of steel components in this soil, suggesting that the investigated meteorite fragment was found in an industrial dumping site rather than natural soil.  相似文献   

Combining shock barometry with numerical modeling: Insights into complex crater formation—The example of the Siljan impact structure (Sweden)          下载免费PDF全文

Sanna Holm‐Alwmark  Auriol S. P. Rae  Ludovic Ferrière  Carl Alwmark  Gareth S. Collins 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2017,52(12):2521-2549

Siljan, central Sweden, is the largest known impact structure in Europe. It was formed at about 380 Ma, in the late Devonian period. The structure has been heavily eroded to a level originally located underneath the crater floor, and to date, important questions about the original size and morphology of Siljan remain unanswered. Here we present the results of a shock barometry study of quartz‐bearing surface and drill core samples combined with numerical modeling using iSALE. The investigated 13 bedrock granitoid samples show that the recorded shock pressure decreases with increasing depth from 15 to 20 GPa near the (present) surface, to 10–15 GPa at 600 m depth. A best‐fit model that is consistent with observational constraints relating to the present size of the structure, the location of the downfaulted sediments, and the observed surface and vertical shock barometry profiles is presented. The best‐fit model results in a final crater (rim‐to‐rim) diameter of ~65 km. According to our simulations, the original Siljan impact structure would have been a peak‐ring crater. Siljan was formed in a mixed target of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks overlaying crystalline basement. Our modeling suggests that, at the time of impact, the sedimentary sequence was approximately 3 km thick. Since then, there has been around 4 km of erosion of the structure.  相似文献