Lithic geochemistry of the Claggett marine cyclothem in south-central Saskatchewan

1988 ◽  
Vol 25 (10) ◽  
pp. 1554-1563 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. G. Whittaker ◽  
T. K. Kyser ◽  
W. G. E. Caldwell

Sediments of the Lea Park Formation in south-central Saskatchewan were deposited in the Claggett sea during the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) Claggett marine cycle. Rocks of the Lea Park Formation have remained virtually unaffected by diagenetic alteration; hence, variations in mineralogical and chemical compositions result primarily from changes in the source of detritus. Quartz, feldspar, discrete illite, kaolinite, and chlorite were derived from weathering of the western highlands, whereas illite–smectite (I–S), the dominant clay phase, originated from volcanic ash. Changes in the proportions of these minerals suggest a large-scale volcanic episode during deposition of the Lea Park sediments, an episode that affected not only the detritus delivered to the seaway but also the chemical and isotopic compositions of the sea water itself. δ13C values of organic matter increase with little change in the quantity of organic carbon preserved through both the transgressive and regressive phases of the Claggett cyclothem, unlike other cyclothems in which δ13C values generally decrease through the regressive phase. The increase in δ13C values in the Claggett cyclothem suggests a partial contribution from volcanic emanations to the 13C/12C ratio of the sea. Dissolution of Mg-rich volcanic debris from a major volcanic episode resulted in anomalously high Mg/Ca ratios in the sea and in the shells of molluscs living in the sea at that time. Rocks containing the shells with anomalously high Mg/Ca ratios are not themselves unusually Mg rich, but a general increase in Mg/SiO2 ratios in the rocks points to an increase in volcanic influx. The similarity between the mineralogical composition of the Lea Park Formation in Canada and that of the coeval lower part of the Pierre Shale in the United States indicates that volcanic ash was an important detrital source for both formations.

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (15) ◽  
pp. 5941-5963 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiang Gao ◽  
C. Adam Schlosser ◽  
Pingping Xie ◽  
Erwan Monier ◽  
Dara Entekhabi

Abstract An analogue method is presented to detect the occurrence of heavy precipitation events without relying on modeled precipitation. The approach is based on using composites to identify distinct large-scale atmospheric conditions associated with widespread heavy precipitation events across local scales. These composites, exemplified in the south-central, midwestern, and western United States, are derived through the analysis of 27-yr (1979–2005) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) gridded station data and the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). Circulation features and moisture plumes associated with heavy precipitation events are examined. The analogues are evaluated against the relevant daily meteorological fields from the MERRA reanalysis and achieve a success rate of around 80% in detecting observed heavy events within one or two days. The method also captures the observed interannual variations of seasonal heavy events with higher correlation and smaller RMSE than MERRA precipitation. When applied to the same 27-yr twentieth-century climate model simulations from Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the analogue method produces a more consistent and less uncertain number of seasonal heavy precipitation events with observation as opposed to using model-simulated precipitation. The analogue method also performs better than model-based precipitation in characterizing the statistics (minimum, lower and upper quartile, median, and maximum) of year-to-year seasonal heavy precipitation days. These results indicate the capability of CMIP5 models to realistically simulate large-scale atmospheric conditions associated with widespread local-scale heavy precipitation events with a credible frequency. Overall, the presented analyses highlight the improved diagnoses of the analogue method against an evaluation that considers modeled precipitation alone to assess heavy precipitation frequency.


1966 ◽  
Vol 05 (02) ◽  
pp. 67-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. I. Lourie ◽  
W. Haenszeland

Quality control of data collected in the United States by the Cancer End Results Program utilizing punchcards prepared by participating registries in accordance with a Uniform Punchcard Code is discussed. Existing arrangements decentralize responsibility for editing and related data processing to the local registries with centralization of tabulating and statistical services in the End Results Section, National Cancer Institute. The most recent deck of punchcards represented over 600,000 cancer patients; approximately 50,000 newly diagnosed cases are added annually.Mechanical editing and inspection of punchcards and field audits are the principal tools for quality control. Mechanical editing of the punchcards includes testing for blank entries and detection of in-admissable or inconsistent codes. Highly improbable codes are subjected to special scrutiny. Field audits include the drawing of a 1-10 percent random sample of punchcards submitted by a registry; the charts are .then reabstracted and recoded by a NCI staff member and differences between the punchcard and the results of independent review are noted.


Author(s):  
Walter D. Mignolo

This book is an extended argument about the “coloniality” of power. In a shrinking world where sharp dichotomies, such as East/West and developing/developed, blur and shift, this book points to the inadequacy of current practices in the social sciences and area studies. It explores the crucial notion of “colonial difference” in the study of the modern colonial world and traces the emergence of an epistemic shift, which the book calls “border thinking.” Further, the book expands the horizons of those debates already under way in postcolonial studies of Asia and Africa by dwelling on the genealogy of thoughts of South/Central America, the Caribbean, and Latino/as in the United States. The book's concept of “border gnosis,” or sensing and knowing by dwelling in imperial/colonial borderlands, counters the tendency of occidentalist perspectives to manage, and thus limit, understanding. A new preface discusses this book as a dialogue with Hegel's Philosophy of History.


Author(s):  
Joshua Kotin

This book is a new account of utopian writing. It examines how eight writers—Henry David Thoreau, W. E. B. Du Bois, Osip and Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Anna Akhmatova, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and J. H. Prynne—construct utopias of one within and against modernity's two large-scale attempts to harmonize individual and collective interests: liberalism and communism. The book begins in the United States between the buildup to the Civil War and the end of Jim Crow; continues in the Soviet Union between Stalinism and the late Soviet period; and concludes in England and the United States between World War I and the end of the Cold War. In this way it captures how writers from disparate geopolitical contexts resist state and normative power to construct perfect worlds—for themselves alone. The book contributes to debates about literature and politics, presenting innovative arguments about aesthetic difficulty, personal autonomy, and complicity and dissent. It models a new approach to transnational and comparative scholarship, combining original research in English and Russian to illuminate more than a century and a half of literary and political history.


2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Matloff ◽  
Angela Lee ◽  
Roland Tang ◽  
Doug Brugge

Despite nearly 12 million Asian Americans living in the United States and continued immigration, this increasingly substantial subpopulation has consistently been left out of national obesity studies. When included in national studies, Chinese-American children have been grouped together with other Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders or simply as “other,” yielding significantly lower rates of overweight and obesity compared to non-Asians. There is a failure to recognize the ethnic diversity of Asian Americans as well as the effect of acculturation. Results from smaller studies of Chinese American youth suggest that they are adopting lifestyles less Chinese and more Americans and that their share of disease burden is growing. We screened 142 children from the waiting room of a community health center that serves primarily recent Chinese immigrants for height, weight and demographic profile. Body Mass Index was calculated and evaluated using CDC growth charts. Overall, 30.1 percent of children were above the 85th we found being male and being born in the U .S. to be statistically significant for BMI > 85th percentile (p=0.039, p=0.001, respectively). Our results suggest that being overweight in this Chinese American immigrant population is associated with being born in the U.S. A change in public policy and framework for research are required to accurately assess the extent of overweight and obesity in Chinese American children. In particular, large scale data should be stratified by age, sex, birthplace and measure of acculturation to identify those at risk and construct tailored interventions.


Author(s):  
Anne Nassauer

This book provides an account of how and why routine interactions break down and how such situational breakdowns lead to protest violence and other types of surprising social outcomes. It takes a close-up look at the dynamic processes of how situations unfold and compares their role to that of motivations, strategies, and other contextual factors. The book discusses factors that can draw us into violent situations and describes how and why we make uncommon individual and collective decisions. Covering different types of surprise outcomes from protest marches and uprisings turning violent to robbers failing to rob a store at gunpoint, it shows how unfolding situations can override our motivations and strategies and how emotions and culture, as well as rational thinking, still play a part in these events. The first chapters study protest violence in Germany and the United States from 1960 until 2010, taking a detailed look at what happens between the start of a protest and the eruption of violence or its peaceful conclusion. They compare the impact of such dynamics to the role of police strategies and culture, protesters’ claims and violent motivations, the black bloc and agents provocateurs. The analysis shows how violence is triggered, what determines its intensity, and which measures can avoid its outbreak. The book explores whether we find similar situational patterns leading to surprising outcomes in other types of small- and large-scale events: uprisings turning violent, such as Ferguson in 2014 and Baltimore in 2015, and failed armed store robberies.


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