Moving from contractor to owner operator: Impact on safety culture; a case study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a change in staffing contractual arrangements, specific training in hazard identification, mentoring of supervisors and the introduction of a robust safety system could improve an organisation\u27s safety culture. How safety conditions change under contracted out labour compared to direct labour and the influence that contracting out has on organisational safety culture is explored. Design/methodology/approach – The study used a case study methodology to detail how the change occurred over a six month period in 2011. As part of the analysis a model of the change process and push-pull factors is offered. Findings – As a result of the change, all areas saw some improvement. Work-related injury statistics dropped significantly, supervisors were clear of their roles, actively monitoring their crews to ensure they worked in a safer manner than before, and staff were actively addressing work-place hazards. With the safety system in place the organisation should be deemed compliant and diligent by the state auditing authorities. This study has also shown that using contractor workers together with in-house workers that are managed under different safety regimes is problematic. The problems don’t occur due to the contractor\u27s safety systems being less robust than the parent company\u27s or that contract workers are themselves less safe; it is the added complexity of managing multiple safety regimes and the lack of trust of the robustness of each system that create conflict. Research limitations/implications – The paper reports on the change process of one mining organisation in Western Australia as a case study from a managerial sample and is thereby limited. Practical implications – This study demonstrates the difficulties in changing safety culture in an underground mining organisation. The paper argues the need for specialised training in identifying hazards by the staff, the mentoring of supervisory staff and the adoption of a robust safety system to support improved safety culture. Originality/value – There is little research conducted in the resources sector researching changes in human resource supply and OHS management, in particular moving from contracted labour to hiring in-house. This case provides an insight into how a change in staffing hiring arrangements, together with specific safety initiatives, has a positive impact on safety performance

Palaeoclimate reconstruction of the last 200 ka in south-eastern Spain, based on proxies of speleothems from Cueva Victoria

In the last decades speleothems have been established as a robust palaeoclimate archive using the U-disequilibrium dating method to construct accurate age-depth models. Advantages in dating methods and high spatial resolution of proxy measurements promote speleothems as an important palaeoclimate archive in high temporal resolution. Proxies such as stable isotopes (δ13C, δ18O) and trace elements can provide new insights into palaeoclimatological changes and changes in vegetation and soil. In addition to other palaeoclimate archives, speleothems occur worldwide in carbonate host rocks can add important information to local and regional palaeoclimate. Several precise 230Th/U-datings on Cueva Victoria speleothems were performed using a multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS). In addition, samples for stable carbon and oxygen isotopes (δ13C, δ18O) were micro milled with high spatial resolution using an isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS). Laser ablation (LA)-ICP-MS technique was used to perform trace element measurements in very high spatial resolution. South-eastern Spain is one of the driest regions in Europe and high temporal resolution palaeoclimate archives are absent in this region, although they could provide important new information on hydrological changes from glacials to interglacials. 230Th/U-dating of Cueva Victoria speleothems shows preferred growth phases during interglacial phases. This indicates more humid conditions in combination with higher temperatures and is also displayed by more negative δ18O values in speleothems. These δ18O values are mainly influenced by temperature, amount effect and the source for rainwater, the proximate sea. Another important speleothem proxy is the carbon isotope composition (δ13C) reflecting vegetation type and microbiological soil activity above the cave. Concordant with δ18O values, δ13C values are more negative within warm phases as a result of a vegetation increase. However, during the Holocene, elevated δ13C values indicate less favourable conditions for the vegetation. High summer insolation during the Holocene (9.7 - 7.8 ka) enhances seasonality and, as a result, summer drought is prolonged and extended to the growing season in springtime, which is in agreement to other Mediterranean palaeoclimate archives. Since the end of the last interglacial during Marine Isotope Stages 5 to 3, climate is strongly influenced by millennial Northern Hemisphere temperature changes by the warm Dansgaard/Oeschger (DO) and cool Heinrich events. Warm DO events are accompanied by humid conditions and an increase in vegetation density, which is reflected by very negative speleothem δ13C and δ18O values. Cold phases, however, show less negative speleothem isotope values or even growth interruptions, which indicate very dry conditions. Cueva Victoria speleothems provide the first robust terrestrial palaeoclimate archive in this semi-arid region and they respond sensitively to changes in palaeoclimate, predominantly during warm phases. Fast changes in stable isotopes (δ13C, δ18O) with respect to Northern Hemisphere climate changes highlight their potential as a proxy for palaeoclimate reconstruction in the semi-arid south-eastern Spain

Western Mediterranean Climate Response to Dansgaard/Oeschger Events: New Insights From Speleothem Records

The climate of the western Mediterranean was characterized by a strong precipitation gradient during the Holocene driven by atmospheric circulation patterns. The scarcity of terrestrial paleoclimate archives has precluded exploring this hydroclimate pattern during Marine Isotope Stages 5 to 3. Here we present stable carbon and oxygen isotope records from three flowstones from southeast Iberia, which show that Dansgaard/Oeschger events were associated with more humid conditions. This is in agreement with other records from the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and western Europe, which all responded in a similar way to millennial‐scale climate variability in Greenland. This general increase in precipitation during Dansgaard/Oeschger events cannot be explained by any present‐day or Holocene winter atmospheric circulation pattern. Instead, we suggest that changes in sea surface temperature played a dominant role in determining precipitation amounts in the western Mediterranean

Speleothem δ13C record suggests enhanced spring/summer drought in south-eastern Spain between 9.7 and 7.8 ka – A circum-Western Mediterranean anomaly?

South-eastern Spain is one of the driest regions in Europe and thus, prone to drought. Terrestrial climate records covering the late Glacial and Holocene from this area are sparse. Here, we present a flowstone record from Cueva Victoria, south-eastern Spain, which covers the late Glacial (15 ka) to the mid-Holocene (7 ka) including the Younger Dryas (YD). Between the onset of the Bølling/Allerød (B/A) and the early Holocene, flowstone δ18O values progressively decrease in accordance with sea-surface temperatures in the Alboran Sea, indicating an increase in precipitation in south-eastern Spain and a supra-regional signal of North Atlantic temperature change. At the same time, decreasing δ13C values suggest progressively increasing precipitation and vegetation density. This trend is interrupted by both colder and drier conditions during the YD. Between 9.7 ± 0.3 and 7.8 ± 0.2 ka, a large positive excursion of the δ13C values indicates a strong reduction in vegetation density, probably as a consequence of very dry spring/summer conditions. In combination with the continuously low speleothem δ18O values and a nearly unchanged growth rate, this suggests increased seasonality (i.e. drier spring/summer conditions, but not a strong reduction in annual precipitation). This is consistent with several other climate records from the Western Mediterranean region, showing that the Western Mediterranean realm (Spain, Italy) experienced pronounced spring/summer drought during this time interval. Interestingly, the timing of this dry period coincided with the African Humid Period. This may be part of a teleconnection with the North African Monsoon via the Hadley cell circulation

Chronology for the Cueva Victoria fossil site (SE Spain): Evidence for Early Pleistocene Afro-Iberian dispersals

Cueva Victoria has provided remains of more than 90 species of fossil vertebrates, including a hominin phalanx, and the only specimens of the African cercopithecid Theropithecus oswaldi in Europe. To constrain the age of the vertebrate remains we used paleomagnetism, vertebrate biostratigraphy and 230Th/U dating. Normal polarity was identified in the non-fossiliferous lowest and highest stratigraphic units (red clay and capping flowstones) while reverse polarity was found in the intermediate stratigraphic unit (fossiliferous breccia). A lower polarity change occurred during the deposition of the decalcification clay, when the cave was closed and karstification was active. A second polarity change occurred during the capping flowstone formation, when the upper galleries were filled with breccia. The mammal association indicates a post-Jaramillo age, which allows us to correlate this upper reversal with the Brunhes–Matuyama boundary (0.78 Ma). Consequently, the lower reversal (N-R) is interpreted as the end of the Jaramillo magnetochron (0.99 Ma). These ages bracket the age of the fossiliferous breccia between 0.99 and 0.78 Ma, suggesting that the capping flowstone was formed during the wet Marine Isotopic Stage 19, which includes the Brunhes–Matuyama boundary. Fossil remains of Theropithecus have been only found in situ ∼1 m below the B/M boundary, which allows us to place the arrival of Theropithecus to Cueva Victoria at ∼0.9–0.85 Ma. The fauna of Cueva Victoria lived during a period of important climatic change, known as the Early-Middle Pleistocene Climatic Transition. The occurrence of the oldest European Acheulean tools at the contemporaneous nearby site of Cueva Negra suggest an African dispersal into SE Iberia through the Strait of Gibraltar during MIS 22, when sea-level was ∼100 m below its present position, allowing the passage into Europe of, at least, Theropithecus and Homo bearing Acheulean technology