Description: Publication date: Available online 19 January 2018 Source: Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies Author(s): Alfonso Rivera, Lucila Candela Study region Global scale. Study focus This paper highlights the main outputs and outcomes of the Internationally Shared Aquifer Resources Management Initiative (ISARM, 2000–2015) of UNESCO on the global scale. We discuss the lessons learned, what is still relevant in ISARM, and what we consider irrelevant and why. We follow with discussion on the looming scenarios and the next steps following the awareness on transboundary aquifers (TBAs) as identified by ISARM. New insights for the region This analysis emphasizes the need for more scientific data, widespread education and training, and a more clearly defined role for governments to manage groundwater at the international level. It describes the links, approach and relevance of studies on TBAs to the UN Law of Transboundary Aquifers and on how they might fit regional strategies to assess and manage TBAs. The study discusses an important lesson learned on whether groundwater science can solve transboundary issues alone. It has become clear that science should interact with policy makers and social entities to have meaningful impacts on TBAs. Bringing together science, society, law, policy making, and harmonising information, would be important drivers and the best guidance for further assessments. ISARM can still make contributions, but it could be redesigned to support resolving TBAs issues which, in addition to science (hydrogeology), require considering social, political, economic and environmental factors. ISARM can increase its international dimension in the continents that still lag behind the assessment and shared management of TBAs, such as Asia and Africa.

Description: This brochure is designed for scientists and engineers of upcoming drilling projects and explains the key steps and important challenges in planning and executing continental scientific drilling.

Description: In July 2007 GFZ hosted ILP’s first Potsdam Conference, titled “Frontiers in Integrated Solid Earth Sciences”. The results of this meeting were presented in an over 400 pages large Springer book, the first volume of a new series on the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE). In October 2010 ILP’s Second Potsdam Conference took place, entitled “Solid Earth – Basic Science for the Human Habitat”, again in Potsdam. More than 70 scientists from more than 20 states worldwide came together and shared their results, ideas and visions. This time, in September 2015, ILP’s 35th birthday was the motivation for “Celebrating Excellence in Solid Earth Sciences”. Together with more than 50 scientists, members of the ILP Task Forces and Coordinating Committees, the ILP bureau and ILP’s office came together for three days in September.

Description: The Collisional Orogeny in the Scandinavian Caledonides (COSC) scientific drilling project focuses on mountain building processes in a major mid‐Paleozoic orogen in western Scandinavia and its comparison with modern analogues. The project investigates a subduction‐generated complex (Seve Nappes) and how these in part under ultra‐high pressure conditions metamorphosed outer continental margin and continent‐ocean transition zones (COT) assemblages were emplaced onto the Baltoscandian platform and there influenced the underlying allochthons and the basement in a section provided by two fully cored 2.5 km deep drill holes. This operational report concerns the first drill hole, COSC‐1 (ICDP 5054‐1‐A), drilled from early May to late August 2014. It sampled a thick section of the lower part of the Seve Complex and was planned to penetrate its basal thrust zone into the underlying lower grade metamorphosed allochthon. The drill hole reached a depth of 2495.8 m and nearly 100 % core recovery was achieved. Although planning was based on existing geological mapping and new high‐resolution seismic surveys, the drilling resulted in some surprises: the Lower Seve Nappe proved to be composed of rather homogenous gneisses, with only subordinate mafic bodies and its basal thrust zone was unexpectedly thick (〉 800 m). The drill hole did not penetrate the bottom of the thrust zone. However, lower grade metasedimentary rocks were encountered in the lowermost part of the drill hole together with garnetiferous mylonites tens of metres thick. The tectonostratigraphic position is still unclear and geological and geophysical interpretations are under revision. The compact gneisses host only 8 fluid conducting zones of limited transmissivity between 300 m and total depth. Downhole measurements suggest an uncorrected average geothermal gradient of ~20°C/km. The drill core was documented on‐site and XRF scanned off site. During various stages of the drilling, the borehole was documented by comprehensive downhole logging. This operational report provides an overview over the COSC‐1 operations from drilling preparations to the sampling party and describes the available datasets and sample material.

Description: Forests worldwide are threatened by various environmental and anthropogenic hazards, especially tropical forests. Knowledge on the impacts of these hazards on forest structure and dynamics has been compiled in empirical studies. However, the results of these studies are often not sufficient for long-term projections and extrapolations to large spatial scales especially for unprecedented environmental conditions, which require both the identification and understanding of key underlying processes. Forest models bridge this gap by incorporating multiple ecological processes in a dynamic framework (i.e. including a realistic model structure) and addressing the complexity of forest ecosystems. Here, we describe the evolution of the individual-based and process-based forest gap model FORMIND and its application to tropical forests. At its core, the model includes physiological processes on tree level (photosynthesis, respiration, tree growth, mortality, regeneration, competition). During the past two decades, FORMIND has been used to address various scientific questions arising from different forest types by continuously extending the model structure. The model applications thus provided understanding in three main aspects: (1) the grouping of single tree species into plant functional types is a successful approach to reduce complexity in vegetation models, (2) structural realism was necessary to analyze impacts of natural and anthropogenic disturbances such as logging, fragmentation, or drought, and (3) complex ecological processes such as carbon fluxes in tropical forests – starting from the individual tree level up to the entire forest ecosystem – can be explored as a function of forest structure, species composition and disturbance regime. Overall, this review shows how the evolution of long-term modelling projects not only provides scientific understanding of forest ecosystems, but also provides benefits for ecological theory and empirical study design.

Description: Differentiating thermokarst basin sediments with respect to the involved processes and environmental conditions is an important tool to understand permafrost landscape dynamics and scenarios and future trajectories in a warming Arctic and Subarctic. Thermokarst basin deposits have complex sedimentary structures due to the variability of Yedoma source sediments, reworking during the Late Glacial to Holocene climate changes, and different stages of thermokarst history. Here we reconstruct the dynamic growth of thermokarst lakes and basins and related changes of depositional conditions preserved in sediment sequences using a combination of biogeochemical data and robust grain-size endmember analysis (rEMMA). This multi-proxy approach is used on 10 sediment cores (each 300–400 cm deep) from two key thermokarst sites to distinguish four time slices that describe the Holocene thermokarst (lake) basin evolution in Central Yakutia (CY). Biogeochemical proxies and rEMMA reveal fine-grained sedimentation with rather high lake levels and/or reducing conditions, and coarse-grained sedimentation with rather shallow lake levels and/or oxidizing (i.e. terrestrial) conditions in relation to distal and proximal depositional and post-sedimentary conditions. Statistical analysis suggests that the biogeochemical parameters are almost independent of thermokarst deposit sedimentology. Thus, the biogeochemical parameters are considered as signals of secondary (post-sedimentary) reworking. The rEMMA results are clearly reflecting grain-size variations and depositional conditions. This indicates small-scale varying depositional environments, frequently changing lake levels, and predominantly lateral expansion at the edges of rapidly growing small thermokarst lakes and basins. These small bodies finally coalesced, forming the large thermokarst basins we see today in CY. Considering previous paleoenvironmental reconstructions in Siberia, we show the initiation of thaw and subsidence during the Late Glacial to Holocene transition between about 11 and 9 cal kyrs BP, intensive and extensive thermokarst activity for the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) at about 7 to 5 cal kyrs BP, severely fluctuating water levels and further lateral basin growth between 3.5 cal kyrs BP and 1.5 cal kyrs BP, and the cessation of thermokarst activity and extensive frost-induced processes (i.e. permafrost aggradation) after about 1.5 cal kyrs BP. However, gradual permafrost warming over recent decades, in addition to human impacts, has led to renewed high rates of subsidence and abrupt, rapid CY thermokarst processes.

Description: In our meeting Dynamic Earth – from Alfred Wegener to today and beyond we will review how Wegener‘s findings evolved into to modern Earth system science including its impact on climate and the Earth surface, and how this system affects our daily life: where humans live, what risks we are exposed to, where we find our resources. In the meeting we will hold sessions that cover the entire geoscience spectrum (from mineral physics over solid earth geodynamics to the climate sciences) and that explore the consequences of Wegeners findings on how humans use our planet today (from energy and mineral resources over georisks to utilisation of the subsurface and materials for modern society). We have invited keynote speakers that are eminent international scientists in these fields. In events open to the general public we will get an account of Wegeners final trip to Greenland on the history of science of his hypothesis.

Description: We compare and contrast the ecological impacts of atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns on polar and sub-polar marine ecosystems. Circulation patterns differ strikingly between the north and south. Meridional circulation in the north provides connections between the sub-Arctic and Arctic despite the presence of encircling continental landmasses, whereas annular circulation patterns in the south tend to isolate Antarctic surface waters from those in the north. These differences influence fundamental aspects of the polar ecosystems from the amount, thickness and duration of sea ice, to the types of organisms, and the ecology of zooplankton, fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Meridional flows in both the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans transport heat, nutrients, and plankton northward into the Chukchi Sea, the Barents Sea, and the seas off the west coast of Greenland. In the North Atlantic, the advected heat warms the waters of the southern Barents Sea and, with advected nutrients and plankton, supports immense biomasses of fish, seabirds and marine mammals. On the Pacific side of the Arctic, cold waters flowing northward across the northern Bering and Chukchi seas during winter and spring limit the ability of boreal fish species to take advantage of high seasonal production there. Southward flow of cold Arctic waters into sub-Arctic regions of the North Atlantic occurs mainly through Fram Strait with less through the Barents Sea and the Canadian Archipelago. In the Pacific, the transport of Arctic waters and plankton southward through Bering Strait is minimal. In the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and its associated fronts are barriers to the southward dispersal of plankton and pelagic fishes from sub-Antarctic waters, with the consequent evolution of Antarctic zooplankton and fish species largely occurring in isolation from those to the north. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current also disperses biota throughout the Southern Ocean, and as a result, the biota tends to be similar within a given broad latitudinal band. South of the Southern Boundary of the ACC, there is a large-scale divergence that brings nutrient-rich water to the surface. This divergence, along with more localized upwelling regions and deep vertical convection in winter, generates elevated nutrient levels throughout the Antarctic at the end of austral winter. However, such elevated nutrient levels do not support elevated phytoplankton productivity through the entire Southern Ocean, as iron concentrations are rapidly removed to limiting levels by spring blooms in deep waters. However, coastal regions, with the upward mixing of iron, maintain greatly enhanced rates of production, especially in coastal polynyas. In these coastal areas, elevated primary production supports large biomasses of zooplankton, fish, seabirds, and mammals. As climate warming affects these advective processes and their heat content, there will likely be major changes in the distribution and abundance of polar biota, in particular the biota dependent on sea ice.

Description: Publication date: Available online 1 September 2017 Source: The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Science Author(s): H.A. Bharath, M.C. Chandan, S. Vinay, T.V. Ramachandra Metropolitan cities in India are emerging as major economic hubs with an unprecedented land use changes and decline of environmental resources. Globalisation and consequent relaxations of Indian markets to global players has given impetus to rapid urbanisation process. Urbanisation being irreversible and rapid coupled with fast growth of population during the last century, contributed to serious ecological and environmental consequences. This necessitates monitoring and advance visualisation of spatial patterns of landscape dynamics for evolving appropriate management strategies towards sustainable development approaches. This study visualises the growth of Indian mega cities Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Coimbatore, through Cellular Automata Markov model considering the influence of agent(s) of urban growth through soft computing techniques. CA Markov model is considered to be one of most effective algorithm to visualise the growth of urban spatial structures. Prediction of growth using agent based modelling considering the spatial patterns of urbanisation during the past four decades has provided insights to the urban dynamics. The industrial, infrastructural, socio-economic factors significantly influence the urban growth compared to the biophysical factors. Visualisation of urban growth suggest agents driven growth in the cities and its surroundings with large land use transformations in urban corridors and upcoming Industrial and ear marked developmental zones. Integrating local agents of urban growth help in identifying specific regions of intense growth, likely challenges and provide opportunities for evolving appropriate management strategies towards sustainable cities during the 21st century.

Description: In summer 2017, the ICDP SUSTAIN project (Surtsey Underwater volcanic System for Thermophiles, Alteration processes and INnovative concretes), drilled three cored boreholes (Table 1) through Surtsey at sites ≤10 m from a cored hole obtained in 1979. Drilling through the still hot volcano was carried out with an Atlas Copco CS1000 drill rig, whose components were transported by helicopter to Surtsey and re-assembled on site. The first vertical borehole, SE-02a, was cored in HQ diameter to 152 meters below surface (m b.s.) during August 7-16. It was terminated due to borehole collapse. A second vertical (SE-02b) cored borehole was then drilled in HQ diameter to 192 m during August 19-26. Wireline borehole logging in SE-02b was performed August 26. The anodized NQ-sized aluminum tubing of the Surtsey Subsurface Observatory was installed in SE-02b to 181 m depth on August 27. A third borehole, SE-03, angled 35° from vertical and directed 264°, was drilled from August 28 to September 4 and reached a measured depth of 354 m (~290 m vertical depth) under the eastern crater. The core is HQ diameter to a measured depth of 213 m and NQ diameter from 213-354 m measured depth. The core traverses the deep conduit and intrusions of the volcano to a total vertical depth of 290 m b.s. Seawater drilling fluid for boreholes SE-02a and SE-02b was filtered and doubly UV-sterilized at the drill site. No mud products were employed while coring SE-02a, while small amounts of attapulgite mud were used in SE-02b and SE-03. Core samples for geochemical analyses of pore water and microbiological investigations were collected on site from all three boreholes. About 650 m of core was transported by helicopter to Heimaey, 18 km northeast of Surtsey, to a processing laboratory where the core was scanned, documented, and described. Additional core processing has taken place at the Náttúrufraedistofnun Íslands, the Icelandic Institute of Natural History in Gardabaer, where both the 1979 and 2017 cores are stored.