Interpretação tectono-estratigráfica do reservatório Quissamã (Eo-meso-albiano) nos campos de Pampo, Bicudo e Bonito, Bacia de Campos

Hydrocarbon accumulations occur in marine carbonate reservoirs of Quissamã Formation (early to midlle Albian), southwest Campos Basin. We investigated Pampo, Bicudo and Bonito fields, in order to understand the tectono-structural framework of oncolite/bioclast coarse-grained calcarenite reservoir and the calcilutite-marl-shale sealing interval (Late Albian to Turonian). The database of eleven wells from those fields allowed to elaborate structural sections correlating the Macaé Group – both Quissamã reservoir and Outeiro seal, the latter corresponding to the tectonic deepening phase of basin evolution. Based on density and electric logs, it was prepared structural sections of the carbonate reservoirs with consequent identification of porous zones and oil-water contacts. An extensive 3-D seismic database (~300 Km2) allowed to map three reflectors which represent the limiting units of Macaé Group

Review of The Elemental Prairie: Sixty Tallgrass Plants (Watercolors and introduction) by George Olson

The Elemental Prairie provides a general discussion of the Great Plains and the tallgrass prairie for the general reader. Its botanically accurate plant drawings render a beautiful and artistic view into prairie plants. George Olson writes a compelling introduction about "Prairie Elements," painting a graphic verbal description about his trip into the prairie with noted prairie author John Madson. The introduction draws readers into the book and prepares them for John Madson's essay "The Running Country," an eloquent portrayal of the history of the tallgrass prairie. We are led into the hearts and minds of the pioneers who crossed the immense expanse of the Great Plains. Madson's descriptions of prairie plants help us visualize how the Great Plains looked prior to settlement, stirring us to see not only the allure of the prairies, but also the solitude and sometimes the loneliness. Madson mixes his personal experiences with current scientific theory of the formation of the prairies across the region, offering a way of seeing how the present fits into the past.

Book Review of Improved Earth: Prairie Space as Modern Artefact, 1869-1944 by Rod Bantjes

In this short but suggestive study, sociologist Rod Bantjes examines how contending visions of modernity shaped the social and physical landscapes of the Canadian prairies. "[B]oth statesmen and prairie farmers were infused with the modernist spirit of innovation, the will creatively (and destructively) to transform their worlds," Bantjes argues. His provocative view of farmers as agents of modernity reflects recent scholarship that seeks to explore "multiple modernities," or the notion that ideas and practices of modernism must be regarded not as monolithic but rather as contested and multivocal, and must be examined in their historical and geographical contexts.

Review of The Science, Impacts and Monitoring of Drought in Western Canada: Proceedings of the 2004 Prairie Drought Workshop Edited by Dave Sauchyn, Madhav Khandekar, and E. Ray Garnett

Drought is not an unusual phenomenon on the Canadian prairies or the U.S. Great Plains. There were many short-term droughts in the prairies during the 20th century that generally lasted one to two years (e.g., 1961, 1988). The Canadian prairies multi-year drought event (1999-2003+) has been considered similar in severity to the 1930s drought years. The 2004 Prairie Drought Workshop resulted in 76 scientists and resource managers gathering in Calgary, Alberta, to share information on drought science, impacts, and monitoring. Presenters examined the impacts on agriculture, stream flow, forests, and ground water, including potential impacts under a changed climate. Though focused on the Canadian prairies, the information presented could be applied to many parts of the U.S. Great Plains.

Review of Prairie Time: A Blackland Portrait by Matt White

Nowadays, the Blackland Prairies of north Texas are the kind of landscape most people think of as great for subdivisions and strip malls: generally flat, easily bulldozed, and not too far from Dallas-Fort Worth. Prairie Time: A Blackland Portrait traces a similar utilitarian vision of the prairie in 19th-century pioneer descriptions as well: good for plowing, grazing, and-once the buffalo and Native Americans are exterminated-not too far from outposts of commerce. The book serves as an environmental jeremiad for a place too easily seen as useful and thus too often ignored for preservation. Matt White gives readers a context in which to begin to value the Blackland Prairie by combining a heartfelt story with a thorough sense of its ecological wonder, our post-settlement history and its environmental impact on the land, and some remarkable stories of current preservationists working to find and save remnant gems of unplowed prairie.

2006 East Campus Arbor Day Celebration

It cannot be lost on those of us present here today that Nebraska, the land of tall skies and wide prairies, where early settlers saw grass roll to the horizon broken only by the call of the lark, is the home of Arbor Day. Nebraska is, indeed, the tree planter state.

Paradoxien der Vergänglichkeit

Bauen und Sprechen sind der Zeit unterworfen. Wenn Zeit über sie hinweggegangen ist, werden sie zu Zeichen. Und die Gegenwart muss sich fragen, wie sie mit diesen Zeichen umgehen will: als Vorboten ihres eigenen Vergehens oder als Feinden ihrer momentanen Befindlichkeit. Bauten, die vorgeben, die Zeiten überdauern und der Ewigkeit nahe sein zu können, sind Verwirklichungen eines utopisch-neuzeitlichen Traumes. Alterslose Perfektion fasziniert, aber sie ist nicht der Inbegriff des Menschlichen. Menschen sind auf das Unfertige ausgelegt, es steht für Vergänglichkeit, aber auch für Heimat und Nähe. Das Vergängliche bewegt mehr als das immer-Gleiche; es kann im Geist neue Projekte erzeugen, neue und andere Bauten, keine Kopien der alten. Doch es muss nicht immer so kommen.

High-resolution late-glacial chronology for the Gerzensee lake record (Switzerland): δ18O correlation between a Gerzensee-stack and NGRIP

Oxygen-isotope variations were analyzed on bulk samples of shallow-water lake marl from Gerzensee, Switzerland, in order to evaluate major and minor climatic oscillations during the late-glacial. To highlight the overall signature of the Gerzensee δ18O record, δ18O records of four parallel sediment cores were first correlated by synchronizing major isotope shifts and pollen abundances. Then the records were stacked with a weighting depending on the differing sampling resolution. To develop a precise chronology, the δ18O-stack was then correlated with the NGRIP δ18O record applying a Monte Carlo simulation, relying on the assumption that the shifts in δ18O were climate-driven and synchronous in both archives. The established chronology on the GICC05 time scale is the basis for (1) comparing the δ18O changes recorded in Gerzensee with observed climatic and environmental fluctuations over the whole North Atlantic region, and (2) comparing sedimentological and biological changes during the rapid warming with smaller climatic variations during the Bølling/Allerød period. The δ18O record of Gerzensee is characterized by two major isotope shifts at the onset and at the termination of the Bølling/Allerød warm period, as well as four intervening negative shifts labeled GI-1e2, d, c2, and b, which show a shift of one third to one fourth of the major δ18O shifts at the beginning and end of the Bølling/Allerød. Despite some inconsistency in terminology, these oscillations can be observed in various climatic proxies over wide regions in the North Atlantic region, especially in reconstructed colder temperatures, and they seem to be caused by hemispheric climatic variations.

Response of chironomid assemblages to environmental change during the early Late-glacial at Gerzensee, Switzerland

Prior to ca. 14,660 yr BP, during the early Late-glacial (Oldest Dryas), larval assemblages of Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) in Gerzensee, Switzerland, were dominated by cold stenothermic taxa as well as by taxa typical of subalpine lakes today. This was the coldest period of the entire sequence. After ca. 14,660 yr BP, in the Late Glacial Interstadial (Bølling–Allerød), a temperature increase is recorded by a sharp rise in the oxygen-isotope ratio in lake marl and by an increase in the organic-matter content of the sediments. Changes in the chironomid fauna then are consistent with rising temperatures. This warming trend is interrupted between 14,070 and 13,940 yr BP, coinciding with the GI-1d cold oscillation, but the change in the chironomid assemblage is more consistent with a response to increasing lake depth and density of aquatic macrophytes than falling temperature. A rise in cold-adapted chironomid taxa between 13,840 and 13,710 yr BP suggests that summer air temperatures may have declined. Changes in the chironomid assemblage after 13,710 yr BP suggest a decline in submerged macrophytes coupled with a rise in lake productivity and summer temperature, although the latter is not reflected in the oxygen-isotope record. This suggests that there may have been increasing seasonality during this period when summer temperatures were rising, driven by rising summer insolation, and winters becoming cooler, which is largely reflected in the oxygen-isotope record. A decline in thermophilic chironomids and a rise in cold-adapted taxa after 13,180 yr BP suggest a response to cooling at the beginning of the Gerzensee Oscillation.

Responses to rapid warming at Termination 1a at Gerzensee (Central Europe): Primary succession, albedo, soils, lake development, and ecological interactions

The transition from the Oldest Dryas to the Bølling around 14,685 cal yr BP was a period of extremely rapid climatic warming. From a single core of lake marl taken at Gerzensee (Switzerland) we studied the transition in stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon on bulk sediment and charophyte remains, as well as on monospecific samples of ostracods, after Pisidium a; in addition pollen, chironomids, and Cladocera were analyzed. The δ18O record serves as an estimate of mean air temperature, and by correlation to the one from NGRIP in Greenland it provides a timescale. The timing of responses: The statistically significant zone boundaries of the biostratigraphies are telescoped at the rapid increase of about 3‰ in δ18O at the onset of Bølling. Biotic responses may have occurred within sampling resolution (8 to 16 years), although younger zone boundaries are less synchronous. Gradual and longer-lasting responses include complex processes such as primary or secular succession. During the late-glacial interstadial of Bølling and Allerød, two stronger and two weaker cool phases were found. Biological processes involved in the responses occurred on levels of individuals (e.g. pollen productivity), of populations (increases or decreases, immigration, or extinction), and on the ecosystem level (species interactions such as facilitation or competition). Abiotic and biotic interactions include pedogenesis, nitrogen-fixation, nutrient cycling, catchment hydrology, water chemistry of the lake and albedo (controlled by the transition from tundra to forest). For the Swiss Plateau this major change in vegetation induced a change in the mammal fauna, which in turn led to changes in the tool-making by Paleolithic people.

Callus massage after distraction osteogenesis using the concept of lengthening then dynamic plating.

Correction of complex deformities is a challenging procedure. Long-term wearing of a fixator after correction and lengthening are inconvenient and has a high rate of complication. The goals of the surgical treatment in the presented case were: (1) correction of the deformity and lengthening of the left leg by the Taylor spatial frame (TSF, Smith and Nephew, Marl, Germany); (2) reduction in the time the patient wears the TSF by changing the fixation system to a plate (lengthening then plating-LTP) and using a locking compression plate in conjunction with the 5.0 dynamic locking screws in order to accelerate bone healing.

Biotic responses to rapid climatic changes

Qualitative and quantitative changes in fossil flora and fauna have been used in many studies to infer climatic change. Here we ask a different question: how do flora and fauna respond to climatic changes such as rapid warming or cooling? As an independent proxy for paleotemperature we take the ratio of oxygen isotopes in biogenically precipitated lake marl and in ostracod shells. This introductory paper describes the project design and the five sites on an altitudinal transect from 600 m to about 2300 m asl in the western Swiss Alps. As cases of climatic cooling and warming we use the beginning and end of the Younger Dryas as major changes, and the Gerzensee and Preboreal oscillations as minor changes. At the two sites of Gerzensee and Leysin these changes are recorded in stable-isotope ratios, and there the time scales can be derived by correlations to the GRIP ice core (Schwander et al., 2000 and von Grafenstein et al., 2000). Biotic responses to climate changes are treated in individual papers using pollen (Wick, 2000), plant macrofossils (Tobolski and Ammann, 2000), and remains of chironomids (Brooks, 2000), beetles and other insects (Lemdahl, 2000), and chydorid Cladocera (Hofmann, 2000). They are followed by a synthesis focusing on quantification of biotic responses (Ammann et al., 2000). In addition, a reconstruction of summer temperatures for the Allerød and the Younger Dryas at Gerzensee is provided by Lotter et al. (2000).

Geochemistry of basement clasts from sediment core CRP-3 in the ross Sea, Antarctica

Distribution patterns and petrographical and mineral chemistry data are described for the most representative basement lithologies occuring as clast in the c. 824 m thick Tertiary sedimentary sequence at the CRP-3 drillsite. These are granule to bolder grain size clasts of igneous and metamorphic rocks. Within the basement clast assemblage, granitoid pebbles are the predominant lithology. They consist of dominant grey biotic-bearing monzogranite, pink biotite-hornblende monzogranite, and biotite-bearing leucomomonzgranite. Minor lithologies include: actinolite-bearing leucotonalite, microgranite, biotite-hornblende quartz-monzonitic porphyr, and foliated biotic leucomonzogranite. Metamorphic clasts include rocks of both granitic and sedimentary derivation. They include mylonitic biotic orthogneiss, with or without garnet, muscovite-bearing quartzite, sillimanite-biotite paragneiss, biotite meta-sandstone, biotite-spotted schist, biotite-clacite-clinoamphibole meta-feldspathic arenite, biotite-calcite-clinozoisite meta-siltstone, biotite±clinoamphibole meta-marl, and graphite-bearing marble. As in previous CRP drillcores, the ubiquitous occurence of biotite±hornblende monzogranite pebbles is indicative of a local provenance, closely mirroring the dominance of these lithologies in the on-shore basement, where the Cambro-Ordovician Granite Harbour Intrusive Complex forms the most extensively exposed rock unit.

Lacustrine sediments from two setions in northern Greece

We investigated two lignite quarries in northern Greece for orbital and suborbital climate variability. Sections Lava and Vegora are located at the southern and northern boundaries of the Ptolemais Basin, a northwest southeast elongated intramontane basin that contains Upper Miocene to Lower Pliocene lacustrine sediments. Sediments show cyclic alterations of marl-rich (light), and coal-rich or clay-rich (dark) strata on a decimeter to meter scale. First, we established low-resolution ground-truth stratigraphy based on paleomagnetics and biostratigraphy. Accordingly, the lower 67 m and 65 m that were investigated in both sections Vegora and Lava, respectively, belong to the Upper Miocene and cover a time period of 6.85 to 6.57 and 6.46 to 5.98 Ma at sedimentation rates of roughly 14 and 22 cm/ka. In order to obtain a robust and high-resolution chronology, we then tuned carbonate minima (low L* values; high magnetic susceptibility values) to insolation minima. Besides the known dominance of orbital precession and eccentricity, we detected a robust hemi-precessional cycle in most parameters, most likely indicative for monsoonal influence on climate. Moreover, the insolation-forced time series indicate a number of millennial-scale frequencies that are statistically significant with dominant periods of 1.5-8 kyr. Evolutionary spectral analysis indicates that millennial-scale climate variability documented for the Ptolemais Basin resembles the one that is preserved in ice-core records of Greenland. Most cycles show durations of several tens of thousands of years before they diminish or cease. This is surprising because the generally argued cause for Late Quaternary millennial-scale variability is associated with the presence of large ice sheets, which cannot be the case for the Upper Miocene. Possible explanations maybe a direct response to solar forcing, an influence on the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water through the outflow of high-salinity water, or an atmospheric link to the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Pollen profiles from 8 sediment cores from the Degersee, Southern Germany

The discovery of a neolithic pile field in the shallow water near the eastern shore of the Degersee confirmed earlier palynological and sedimentological studies stating that early man was active in the region since more than 6000 years. The already available off-site data were freshly assessed, completed by additional data from old and new cores and the interpretations revised. A common time scale for the off-site data and the on-site data was obtained by AMS dating of terrestrial macro remains of the neolithic section of off-site core De_I+De_H. The ages can thus be parallelled with AMS ages of construction timber on-site. Pollen analyses from all cores provide a further time scale. The continuously and densely sampled pollen profile of the profundal zone embracing the entire Late glacial and Holocene serves as a reference. From the Boreal onwards the relative ages are transformed by AMS ages and varve counts into calibrated and absolute. A transect cored close to the neolithic pile field across the lake marl-platform demonstrates its geological architecture in the shallow water since the Lateglacial. Studies of the microfabric of thin sections of drilled cores and of box cores from the excavations demonstrate that neolithic settlements now at 2-3,5 m water depth had been erected on lake marl freshly fallen dry, thus indicating earlier lake levels dropped by 1.5-2 m. The neolithic section of the highly resolved off-site profile in the lake=s profundal zone has laminated and calcareous zones alternating with massive ones. Assemblages of diatoms and concentrations of trace elements changing simultaneously characterise the calcareous sections as deposits of low lake levels that lasted between some 40 and more than 300 years. The ages of discovered lake shore dwellings fall into calcareous segments with low lake levels. From the end of the Upper Atlantic period (F VII) appear Secondary Forest Cycles in the beech forest, a man-made sequence of repeated vegetational development with an identical pattern: With a decrease of beech pollen appear pollen of grasses, herbs and cultural indicators. These are suppressed by the light demanding hazel and birch, those again by ash, and finally by the shade demanding beech forming a new pollen peak. Seven main Forest Cycles are identified In the upper Neolithic period each comprising some 250, 450 or 800 years. They are subdivided into subcycles that can be broken down by very dense sampling in even shorter cycles of decadal length. Farming settlers have caused minor patchy clearances of the beech-mixed-forest with the use of fire. The phases of clearance coincide with peaks of charcoal and low stands of the lake levels. The Secondary Forest Cycles and the continuous occurrence of charcoal prove a continued occupation of the region. Together with the repeated restoration of the beech climax forest they point to pulsating occupation probably associated with dynamic demography. The synchronism of the many palynological, sedimentological and archaeological data point to an external forcing as the climate that affects comprehensively all these proxies. The fluctuations of the activity of the sun as manifested in the residual d14C go largely along with the proxies. The initial clearances at the begin of the forest cycles are linked to low lake levels and negative values of d14C that point to dry and warm phases of a more continental climate type. The subcycles exist independent from climatic changes, indicating that early man acted largely independent from external forces.