Geomorphic and hazard vulnerability assessment of recent residential developments on landslide-prone terrain: the case of the Traverse Mountains, Utah, USA

Journal ArticleHomeowners who live near or on steep slopes of the Traverse Mountains along the Wasatch front in southern Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) are at risk where development of "master-planned communities" has been permitted on known landslide deposits since 2001. Some of the largest landslides in the state of Utah are being modified as road construction and residential development progresses. This paper reviewed the setting of the landslide-prone areas and used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial tools to assess the value of local developments built on mapped slide features. Dataset overlays were compiled to determine the vulnerability of residences, and to quantify potential monetary loss from a future landslide event. The key elements at risk include property, as well as the population, economic activities, and public services of a given region. An initial conservative figure calculated for the vulnerability of residents owning property exceeds $500 million for the Traverse Mountains region of Draper City, based on 2007 property values recorded at the Salt Lake County Assessors Office. In developing this area, the failure to consider existing and potential hazards has caused a myriad of tensions among local government officials, planners, financiers, state regulators, consultants, developers, realtors, and homeowners

Interpreting Martian paleoclimates from valley network morphologies: insights from terrestrial analogues in Egypt

Journal ArticleMorphogenetic classification of Martian landforms has provided a context for the inference of surface processes and paleoclimatic conditions on Mars [1][2][3][4][5][6]. The complexity of extensive valley network patterns (Figure 1) suggests that fluvial conditions formerly existed on Mars [7]; however, surface reworking and the lack of absolute age control complicates the precise definition of this time period

The climate and environment of Byzantine Anatolia: Integrating science, history, and archaeology

pre-printThis article, which is part of a larger project, examines cases in which high-resolution archaeological, textual, and environmental data can be integrated with longer-term, low-resolution data to afford greater precision in identifying some of the causal relationships underlying societal change

Utah's geologic and geomorphic terrestrial analogs to Mars: a training ground for future robotic and human missions to Mars

Journal ArticleUtah offers spectacular geologic features and valuable analogue environments and processes for Mars studies. Relatively intact, horizontal strata of the Colorado Plateau are analogous to Mars, where the effects of strong ground motion from earthquakes or impacts are preserved. Within Utah, easily accessible, sedimentary analogue environments lie in close proximity. The lack of vegetative cover is an advantage for remote imaging at various scales by satellite or robotic instruments. The dry, desert climate and modern wind processes of Utah are comparable to Mars and its current surface

OSL chronologies for Aeolian activity in the context of lake-level fluctuations, drainage reorganization and glacial retreat, North-Central Minnesota

Journal ArticleDunes and stratified eolian sedi-ments are a significant component of the postglacial landscape across the mid-continent. During the 1970s, a benchmark study in north-central Minne-sota inferred a period of eolian activity 8,000 ? 5,000 years ago (i.e., the Altithermal Hypsithermal periods), based upon radiocarbon dates on charcoal and organic material preserved within paleosols developed in dunes [1]. We revisited a classic local-ity at Lake Winnibigoshish (N 47?27'; W 94?12'), and sample other dune-forms to hypothesis-test whether eolian landform development occurred dur-ing the middle Holocene. Optical luminescence techniques can better resolve Minnesota's eolian chronologies by directly dating the emplacement of bed forms; sediments are typically oxidized and lack preserved organic materials suitable for 14C dating

Geomorphic evolution of pleistocene Lake Bonneville: temporal implications for surface processes on Mars

Journal ArticlePleistocene Lake Bonneville of the Great Basin offers unparalleled insight into temporal constraints for understanding the development of similar analog environments and processes on Mars. The extensive and well preserved lake system exhibits many intact features that include: prominent shorelines, spits, bay mouth barriers, deltas, gullies, outburst channels, and playa lake features, including patterned grounds and downwind aeolian systems. Although water is recognized as a geomorphic agent on Mars, remotely sensed datasets by themselves have limited utility for inferring how long it took for the formation of specific features. With the Lake Bonneville analog, we can address how long standing water might be geomorphically effective, and infer the rate of development for specific landforms (e.g., coastlines, wavecut terraces, outflow channels, rills)

Bonneville basin analogues for large lake processes & chronologies of geomorphic development on Mars

Journal ArticlePleistocene Lake Bonneville was a large (~50,000 sq km) terrestrial closed lake system in Utah, USA that developed during the Last Glacial Maximum (~20 ka BP), and persisted at highstand until a catastrophic outburst flood event ~17.4 ka cal BP and warming climate significantly lowered its volume [1]. Lake Bonneville and its modern relict Great Salt Lake (fig. 1) is one of the most extensive, well preserved, and best dated lake systems on Earth and can serve as an analogue for deducing the style of development and age of similar features imaged on Mars [2]. Lake Bonneville exhibits prominent shorelines, spits, bay mouth barriers, deltas, gullies, outburst channels, and playa lake features, including patterned grounds and downwind aeolian systems, all of which are features inferred from imagery of Mars landforms

Geobiology and sedimentology of the hypersaline Great Salt Lake, Northern Utah, USA: analogues for assessing watery environments on Mars?

Journal ArticleThe hypersaline Great Salt Lake (GSL) of northern Utah, USA is a critical regional ecosystem that has not been examined in detail from a geobiological perspective. There are presently only a handful of studies on the biota of this shallow water closed-lake system [1]. Despite interest from industries mining the salt and harvesting the brine shrimp, relatively little is known about the lake?s geochemistry, microbial diversity, metabolic activity, and mineralogy, and how these relate together with processes of biosedimentation and fossil preservation

Sourcing river rock and Middle Stone Age artifacts discovered along the Cunene River, Angola-Namibia border [Prospectando rochas fluviais e artefatos do Paleolítico Médio Africano descobertos ao longo do Rio Cunene, fronteira entre Angola e Namíbia]

Vestígios líticos do Paleolítico Médio Africano (PMA) preservados em corredores ribeirinhos como o perene Rio Cunene atesta a presença de atividades pré-históricas ao longo da atual divisa entre Angola e Namíbia. Próximo à Serra Cafema, mais de 30 vestígios líticos preservados em um contexto a céu aberto (plein-air) incluem lascas de quartzito, núcleos e pontas com alguma abrasão e polimento nos gumes, incluindo as primeiras pontas Levallois encontradas nesta região da África. Uma vez que a arqueologia desta região é pobremente conhecida, estas coleções culturais permitem correlações iniciais e fornecem uma base para reconstrução da proveniência, da procura e da produção de artefatos durante o PMA. Para avaliar as potenciais áreas-fonte de matéria-prima nesta região, métodos de contagem de seixos e avaliações composicionais foram conduzidos nos vestígios e no aluvião Quaternário (Qal) do terraço do rio. A fonte primária em potencial mais próxima de quartzito está em afloramentos rochosos localizados dentro de 2 km de distância do sítio, mas áreas-fonte confirmadas não foram identificadas especificamente. Uma hipótese emergente é que o Qal no terraço do Rio Cunene era uma fonte preferida para coleta de quartzito enquanto matéria prima pelos grupos móveis de caçadores-coletores durante o PMA após 225 mil anos atrás.Although many important prehistoric sites are known from South Africa, few comparable contexts have been discovered and documented in the northern Namibia and southern Angola borderlands. During a geomorphic assessment of riparian corridors in Namibia’s Kaokoveld region, Middle Stone Age (MSA in Africa; broadly correlative with European Paleolithic) lithic artifacts were found preserved in unstratified plein air sites located atop a terrace adjacent to the perennial Cunene River. These remains attest to hominin activities along the northern edge of the modern hyperarid Namib Desert, which receives less than 100 mm of rainfall in a year. The location of the archaeological site is quite remote, and is along the eastern perimeter of the hyperarid Cunene erg (sandsea), and downstream of the Marienfluss–Hartmann Valley near Serra Cafema, At the Cafema site (as it is known), more than 30 lithic artifacts are preserved in the Cunene River valley, in context of a former river terrace. The artifacts discovered by a walking survey include quartzite flakes, cores, and points with some edge abrasion and varnish, including the first Levallois-Mousterian points found in this region of Africa. Since the archaeology of this area is poorly known, these cultural assemblages enable initial correlations across the continent, and provide a basis for reconstructing provenience, procurement and tool manufacture during the Middle Pleistocene, the time frame marked by the first appearance and the dispersal of the modern human species Homo sapiens. To assess the potential source areas for lithic raw materials in this region, pebble counting methods and compositional assessment were conducted on the artifacts and Quaternary alluvium (Qal) of the relict river terrace at Cafema. Based on the composition of the artifacts found on the surface, siliceous rock was an important resource for lithic manufacture during the MSA; this is reflected in the observation that quartzite was overwhelmingly the dominant material used in the stone tool manufacture. Quartzite is generally known to be a preferred material for making tools of consistent size, ease of knapping, quality of form-shape, and persistence of edge retention. To define regional procurement areas where hominin may have acquired quartzite raw materials at local (0-5 km), regional (6-20 km) and supra-regional (21-100 km) scales, we examined the geological outcrops in the region to identify potential sources. Due to its remoteness, the geology of this region of southern Africa is not well known, and the available maps are only available at coarse scales of resolution. Geologic outcrops along the Cunene River include some of the world’s oldest rocks dating to the Vaalian ~1760 Ma, and comprise part of a Large Igneous Province (LIP) that stretches across the African continent. The local bedrock outcrops near Cafema include a medium-to-high grade metamorphic complex, granitoids, and surrounding country rock -- these rocks comprise the rugged mountainous terrain incised by the Cunene River. Since quartzite is the dominant clast type occurring as raw material in the river terrace where the MSA artifacts themselves were found, we can conclude that river terrace materials (Qal) themselves were among the likely raw material sources exploited during antiquity. Rounded quartzite boulders and cobbles are present as surface lag, along with the artifacts in the Qal within the relict river terrace at the plein air site. The river terrace itself is the closest source to the observed artifacts.  If the raw material source was alluvial (i.e., within the Qal unit), quartzite river cobbles may have been derived from outcrops located further upstream the Cunene system, which is a large river network that drains a diversity of geologic units. Although it is not possible to identify the precise formation and procurement area of origin, we offer some relative assessments about likely source areas within the region, based on the geology. The specific geologic units that may have contributed quartzite clasts to the Qal river terrace include the (1) Damara Sequence (Nda); and (2) lithologies within the undifferentiated Mokolian unit, which are not well mapped in detail. The closest potential primary sources of quartzite raw materials in Nda rock outcrops (i.e., not alluvium within the Qal terrace at the site) are located within 2 km of the Cafema site. However, confirmed source locales in the past could not be specifically identified in the field. The hypothesis offered is that the Qal alluvial components within the relict terrace of the Cunene River was a preferred source for quartzite lithic raw materials used by mobile hunter-gatherers to make tools during the MSA, sometime after ~225 kya. Cafema is the first MSA site in northern Namibia that is in direct stratigraphic context with a securely dated unit. A replicate OSL-SAR date ~220 kyr has provided initial age constraints on a sandy unit preserved within the cobble-boulder Qal terrace fill, and constrains the maximum age for the overlying archaeological assemblage. These findings advance the reconstruction of this cultural landscape through a geoarchaeological lens, and form a basis for understanding the relict Pleistocene landscape and environment, its plant resources, and proximity to raw material sources within the riparian corridor of the perennial Cunene River.&nbsp

Cellular Models of Aggregation-Dependent Template-Directed Proteolysis to Characterize Tau Aggregation Inhibitors for Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

Copyright © 2015, The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Acknowledgements-We thank Drs Timo Rager and Rolf Hilfiker (Solvias, Switzerland) for polymorph analyses.Peer reviewedPublisher PD