The Strabo Technique

The Strabo technique is a forecasting and planning strategy whose methodology emphasizes the determination of a concensus of opinion from a group of experts. It is a logical extension of the Delphi technique which was developed originally to assist the decision making processes of the American military (Linstone and Turnoff, 1975, p. 10). Many of the early studies employing Delphi were conducted at the RAND Corporation and were primarily concerned with scientific and technological forecasting. The Delphi Technique has since been used in a variety cf studies including the forecasting of many social "indicators\u27\u27 such as human attitudes are values, and the "quality of life". The technique requires individuals within a group to formulate and assess decisions and opinions and, through this process, establish a convergent group consensus

The Late Eocene 187Os / 188Os excursion : chemostratigraphy, cosmic dust flux and the early Oligocene glaciation

Author Posting. © The Authors, 2005. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters 241 (2006): 477-492, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2005.11.035.High resolution records (ca. 100 kyr) of Os isotope composition (187Os/188Os) in bulk sediments from two tropical Pacific sites (ODP Sites 1218 and 1219) capture the complete Late Eocene 187Os/188Os excursion and confirm that the Late Eocene 187Os/188Os minimum, earlier reported by Ravizza and Peucker-Ehrenbrink [Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 210 (2003) 151-165], is a global feature. Using the astronomically tuned age models available for these sites, it is suggested that the Late Eocene 187Os/188Os minimum can be placed at 34.5±0.1 Ma in the marine records. In addition, two other distinct features of the 187Os/188Os excursion that are correlatable among sections are proposed as chemostratigraphic markers which can serve as age control points with a precision of ca. ±0.1 Myr. We propose a speculative hypothesis that higher cosmic dust flux in the Late Eocene may have contributed to global cooling and early Oligocene glaciation (Oi-1) by supplying bio-essential trace elements to the oceans and thereby resulting in higher ocean productivity, enhanced burial of organic carbon and draw down of atmospheric CO2. To determine if the hypothesis that enhanced cosmic dust flux in the Late Eocene was a cause for the 187Os/188Os excursion can be tested by using the paired bulk sediment and leachate Os isotope composition, 187Os/188Os were also measured in sediment leachates. Results of analyses of leachates are inconsistent between the south Atlantic and the Pacific sites, and therefore do not yield a robust test of this hypothesis. Comparison of 187Os/188Os records with high resolution benthic foraminiferal δ18O records across the Eocene-Oligocene transition suggests that 187Os flux to the oceans decreased during cooling and ice growth leading to the Oi-1 glaciation, whereas subsequent decay of ice-sheets and deglacial weathering drove seawater 187Os/188Os to higher values. Although the precise timing and magnitude of these changes in weathering fluxes and their effects on the marine 187Os/188Os records are obscured by recovery from the Late Eocene 187Os/188Os excursion, evidence of the global influence of glaciation on supply of Os to the ocean is robust as it has now been documented in both Pacific and Atlantic records.This study was supported by NSF awards OCE-0118380, EAR-0215297 and EAR-0215297

Source apportionment of atmospheric trace gases and particulate matter: comparison of log-ratio and traditional approaches

In this paper we compare multivariate methods using both traditional approaches, which ignore issues of closure and provide relatively simple methods to deal with censored or missing data, and log-ratio methods to determine the sources of trace constituents in the atmosphere. The data set examined was collected from April to July 2008 at a sampling site near Woods Hole, Massachusetts, along the northeastern United States Atlantic coastline. The data set consists of trace gas mixing ratios (O3, SO2, NOx, elemental mercury [Hgo], and reactive gaseous mercury [RGM]), and concentrations of trace elements in fine (<2.5 μm) particulate matter (Al, As, Ba, Ca, Cd, Ce, Co, Cs, Fe, Ga, Hg, K, La, Mg, Mn, Na, P, Pb, Rb, Sb, Sr, Th, Ti, V, Y, and Zn) with varying percentages of censored values for each species. The data were separated into two subcompositions: s1, which is comprised by RGM and particulate Hg (HgP), which are both highly censored; and s2 which includes all of the trace elements associated with particulate matter except Hg, and the trace gases O3, SO2, NOx, and Hgo. Principal factor analysis (PFA) was successful in determining the primary sources for constituents in s2 using both traditional and log-ratio approaches. Using the traditional approach, regression between factor scores and RGM and particulate Hg concentrations suggested that none of the sources identified during PFA led to positive contributions of either reactive mercury compound. This finding is counter to most conventional thinking and is likely specious, resulting from removal of censored data (up to >80% of the entire dataset) during the analysis. Log-ratio approaches to find relationships between constituents comprising s2 with RGM and HgP (i.e., s1) focused on log-ratio correlation and regression analyses of alr-transformed data, using Al as the divisor. Regression models accounted for large fractions of the variance in concentrations of the two reactive mercury species and generally agreed with conceptualizations about the formation and behavior of these species. An analysis of independence between the subcompositions demonstrated that the behavior of the two constituents comprising s1 (i.e., RGM and HgP) is dependent on changes in s2. Our findings suggest that although problems related to closure are largely unknown or ignored in the atmospheric sciences, much insight can be gleaned from the application of log-ratio methods to atmospheric chemistry data

Constraining the marine strontium budget with natural strontium isotope fractionations (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr*, δ^88/86Sr) of carbonates, hydrothermal solutions and river waters

We present strontium (Sr) isotope ratios that, unlike traditional 87Sr/86Sr data, are not normalized to a fixed 88Sr/86Sr ratio of 8.375209 (defined as δ88/86Sr = 0 relative to NIST SRM 987). Instead, we correct for isotope fractionation during mass spectrometry with a 87Sr–84Sr double spike. This technique yields two independent ratios for 87Sr/86Sr and 88Sr/86Sr that are reported as (87Sr/86Sr*) and (δ88/86Sr), respectively. The difference between the traditional radiogenic (87Sr/86Sr normalized to 88Sr/86Sr = 8.375209) and the new 87Sr/86Sr* values reflect natural mass-dependent isotope fractionation. In order to constrain glacial/interglacial changes in the marine Sr budget we compare the isotope composition of modern seawater ((87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)Seawater) and modern marine biogenic carbonates ((87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)Carbonates) with the corresponding values of river waters ((87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)River) and hydrothermal solutions ((87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)HydEnd) in a triple isotope plot. The measured (87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)River values of selected rivers that together account for not, vert, similar18% of the global Sr discharge yield a Sr flux-weighted mean of (0.7114(8), 0.315(8)‰). The average (87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)HydEnd values for hydrothermal solutions from the Atlantic Ocean are (0.7045(5), 0.27(3)‰). In contrast, the (87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)Carbonates values representing the marine Sr output are (0.70926(2), 0.21(2)‰). We estimate the modern Sr isotope composition of the sources at (0.7106(8), 0.310(8)‰). The difference between the estimated (87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)input and (87Sr/86Sr*, δ88/86Sr)output values reflects isotope disequilibrium with respect to Sr inputs and outputs. In contrast to the modern ocean, isotope equilibrium between inputs and outputs during the last glacial maximum (10–30 ka before present) can be explained by invoking three times higher Sr inputs from a uniquely “glacial” source: weathering of shelf carbonates exposed at low sea levels. Our data are also consistent with the “weathering peak” hypothesis that invokes enhanced Sr inputs resulting from weathering of post-glacial exposure of abundant fine-grained material

The spatial distribution of aeolian dust and terrigenous fluxes in the tropical Atlantic Ocean since the Last Glacial Maximum

© 2021. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. The flux of terrestrial material from the continents to the oceans links the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere through physical and biogeochemical processes, with important implications for Earth's climate. Quantitative estimates of terrigenous fluxes from sources such as rivers, aeolian dust, and resuspended shelf sediments are required to understand how the processes delivering terrigenous material respond to and are influenced by climate. We compile thorium-230 normalized 232Th flux records in the tropical Atlantic to provide an improved understanding of aeolian fluxes since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). By identifying and isolating sites dominated by aeolian terrigenous inputs, we show that there was a persistent meridional gradient in dust fluxes in the eastern equatorial Atlantic at the LGM, arguing against a large southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone during LGM boreal winter. The ratio of LGM to late-Holocene 232Th fluxes highlights a meridional difference in the magnitude of variations in dust deposition, with sites 700 km away, characterized by 232Th fluxes approximately twice as large as aeolian-dominated sites in the east

A fossil winonaite-like meteorite in Ordovician limestone: A piece of the impactor that broke up the L-chondrite parent body?

AbstractAbout a quarter of all meteorites falling on Earth today originate from the breakup of the L-chondrite parent body ∼470 Ma ago, the largest documented breakup in the asteroid belt in the past ∼3 Ga. A window into the flux of meteorites to Earth shortly after this event comes from the recovery of about 100 fossil L chondrites (1–21 cm in diameter) in a quarry of mid-Ordovician limestone in southern Sweden. Here we report on the first non-L-chondritic meteorite from the quarry, an 8 cm large winonaite-related meteorite of a type not known among present-day meteorite falls and finds. The noble gas data for relict spinels recovered from the meteorite show that it may be a remnant of the body that hit and broke up the L-chondrite parent body, creating one of the major asteroid families in the asteroid belt. After two decades of systematic recovery of fossil meteorites and relict extraterrestrial spinel grains from marine limestone, it appears that the meteorite flux to Earth in the mid-Ordovician was very different from that of today

Seasonal hydrology drives rapid shifts in the flux and composition of dissolved and particulate organic carbon and major and trace ions in the Fraser River, Canada

© The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 12 (2015): 5597-5618, doi:10.5194/bg-12-5597-2015.Rapid changes in the volume and sources of discharge during the spring freshet lead to pronounced variations in biogeochemical properties in snowmelt-dominated river basins. We used daily sampling during the onset of the freshet in the Fraser River (southwestern Canada) in 2013 to identify rapid changes in the flux and composition of dissolved material, with a focus on dissolved organic matter (DOM). Previous time series sampling (at twice monthly frequency) of dissolved inorganic species in the Fraser River has revealed smooth seasonal transitions in concentrations of major ions and tracers of water and dissolved load sources between freshet and base flow periods. In contrast, daily sampling reveals a significant increase in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration (200 to 550 μmol L−1) occurring over a matter of days, accompanied by a shift in DOM optical properties, indicating a transition towards higher molecular weight, more aromatic DOM composition. Comparable changes in DOM composition, but not concentration, occur at other times of year, underscoring the role of seasonal climatology in DOM cycling. A smaller data set of total and dissolved Hg concentrations also showed variability during the spring freshet period, although dissolved Hg dynamics appear to be driven by factors beyond DOM as characterized here. The time series records of DOC and particulate organic carbon (POC) concentrations indicate that the Fraser River exports 0.25–0.35 % of its annual basin net primary productivity. The snowmelt-dominated hydrology, forested land cover, and minimal reservoir impoundment of the Fraser River may influence the DOC yield of the basin, which is high relative to the nearby Columbia River and of similar magnitude to that of the Yukon River to the north. Anticipated warming and decreased snowfall due to climate changes in the region may cause an overall decrease in DOM flux from the Fraser River to the coastal ocean in coming decadesThis work was partially supported by a WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund award to BMV and NSF grants EAR-1226818 to BPE, OCE-0851015 to TIE, BPE, and VG, and OCE-0851101 to RGMS, and support to BPE from Jane and James Orr

Cumulate causes for the low contents of sulfide-loving elements in the continental crust

Despite the economic importance of chalcophile (sulfide-loving) and siderophile (metal-loving) elements (CSEs), it is unclear how they become enriched or depleted in the continental crust, compared with the oceanic crust. This is due in part to our limited understanding of the partitioning behaviour of the CSEs. Here I compile compositional data for mid-ocean ridge basalts and subduction-related volcanic rocks. I show that the mantle-derived melts that contribute to oceanic and continental crust formation rarely avoid sulfide saturation during cooling in the crust and, on average, subduction-zone magmas fractionate sulfide at the base of the continental crust prior to ascent. Differentiation of mantle-derived melts enriches lower crustal sulfide- and silicate-bearing cumulates in some CSEs compared with the upper crust. This storage predisposes the cumulate-hosted compatible CSEs (such as Cu and Au) to be recycled back into the mantle during subduction and delamination, resulting in their low contents in the bulk continental crust and potentially contributing to the scarcity of ore deposits in the upper continental crust. By contrast, differentiation causes the upper oceanic and continental crust to become enriched in incompatible CSEs (such as W) compared with the lower oceanic and continental crust. Consequently, incompatible CSEs are predisposed to become enriched in subduction-zone magmas that contribute to continental crust formation and are less susceptible to removal from the continental crust via delamination compared with the compatible CSEs

Muslim active citizenship in Australia: Socioeconomic challenges and the emergence of a Muslim elite

The most recent national Census demonstrated that Australian Muslims continue to occupy a socioeconomically disadvantaged position. On key indicators of unemployment rate, income, type of occupation and home ownership, Muslims consistently under-perform the national average. This pattern is evident in the last three Census data (2001, 2006 and 2011). Limited access to resources and a sense of marginalisation challenge full engagement with society and the natural growth of emotional affiliation with Australia. Muslim active citizenship is hampered by socioeconomic barriers. At the same time, an increasingly proactive class of educated Muslim elite has emerged to claim a voice for Muslims in Australia and promote citizenship rights and responsibilities. <br /