Ages of the Pliocene-Pleistocene Alexandra and Ngatutura Volcanics, western North Island, New Zealand, and some geological implications

The Alexandra and Ngatutura Volcanics are the two southernmost of the Pliocene-Quaternary volcanic fields of western and northern North Island, New Zealand, northwest of Taupo Volcanic Zone TVZ. The Ngatutura Basalts are an alkalic basaltic field comprising monogenetic volcanoes. The Alexandra Volcanics consist of three basaltic magma series: an alkalic (Okete Volcanics), calcalkalic (Karioi, Pirongia, Kakepuku, and Te Kawa Volcanics), and a minor potassic series. Twenty new K-Arages are presented for the Alexandra Volcanics and 9 new ages for the Ngatutura Basalts. Ages of the Alexandra Volcanics range from 2.74 to 1 .60 Ma, and the ages of all three magma series overlap. Ages of the Ngatutura Basalts range from 1 .83 to 1.54 Ma. Each basaltic field has a restricted time range and there is a progressive younging in age of the basaltic fields of western North Island from the Alexandra Volcanics in the south, to Ngatutura, to South Auckland, and then to the Auckland field in the north. Neither of the Alexandra nor Ngatutura Volcanics shows any younging direction of their volcanic centres or any age pattern within their fields, and there is no systematic variation in age with rock composition. Any correlation of age with degree of erosion of volcanic cones is invalid for these basaltic fields; instead, the degree of erosion may be controlled by the lithology of the cones and possibly by the extent of preservation offered by the thick cover deposits of the Kauroa, Hamilton, and younger tephra beds. Stratigraphic relations have enabled the earliest member of the Kauroa Ash Formation to be dated at 2.3 Ma. This formation represents a series of widespread rhyolitic plinian and ignimbrite eruptions probably derived from TVZ and initiated during the Late Pliocene

Advanced Security Infrastructures for Grid Education

This paper describes the research conducted into advanced authorization infrastructures at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) at the University of Glasgow and their application to support a teaching environment as part of the Dynamic Virtual Organisations in e-Science Education (DyVOSE) project. We outline the lessons learnt in teaching Grid computing and rolling out the associated security authorisation infrastructures, and describe our plans for a future, extended security infrastructure for dynamic establishment of inter-institutional virtual organisations (VO) in the education domain

Towards New Perspectives on Drug Control: A Negotiated Settlement to the War on Drugs

The terms of American drug policy are conceived on the model of the current rhetoric of a war on drugs in which victory must be unconditional, namely, no drug use

Human Rights as the Unwritten Constitution: The Problem of Change and Stability in Constitutional Interpretation

We are, I believe, in the midst of a major jurisprudential paradigm shift from the legal realist-legal positivist paradigm of the legal official as a managerial technocrat ideally seeking the utilitarian goal of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, to a natural law paradigm of rights. This paradigm shift, most dramatically apparent in legal philosophy in the work of Ronald Dworkin, has not yet been fully and fairly articulated; therefore, we cannot be certain of the final form the paradigm will take or of the extent of its influence on thought about and the practice of law. I believe the paradigm to be of quite general significance throughout all areas of the law, but want here to address its relevance to constitutional law in particular where its importance in enabling us to rethink constitutional law in a more profound way is already being felt. The jurisprudence of rights directly challenges the existing state of constitutional theory and practice in the United States. It sharply repudiates the concessive majoritarianism of James B. Thayer\u27s classic article, the value skepticism of Learned Hand, the jaundiced historicism of Alexander Bickel\u27s later writings, and Herbert Wechsler\u27s appeal to the apolitical and amoral ultimacy of neutral principles. In its place, the jurisprudence of rights takes seriously the fundamental normative concepts of human rights, in terms of which the founders thought and the Constitution was designed, in a way in which later constitutional theory, based on utilitarian legal realist premises, does not and cannot