A legacy slope failure in Penlee Quarry - a warning to others

PublishedArticlePenlee Quarry is a large quarry in West Cornwall that has been in operation since the late 1880s. It was a major producer of aggregate, but since 2003 under new ownership, quarry operations have concentrated on maintenance and preparatory works for the recovery of armourstone and the eventual construction of a marina. The western face of this quarry was excavated between the 1950s and 1970s and is akin to other legacy slopes found at several older British quarries. The slope is up to 90m in height, has little benching and has shown increasing signs of instability since 2005. Initially instability was evidenced by rockfall and more recently by serious collapses that have indicated the need for appropriate geotechnical design of a new replacement slope. This paper sets out background and historical data and then considers investigations into the underlying mechanisms and rock structures that have contributed to instability and are relevant to the design of measures to overcome the potential for future significant ground movements. Methods to remotely assess the controlling joint sets are discussed and the rationale behind the excavated solution to facilitate future workings is outlined. High, over-steep rock faces with limited, ineffective benching and excessive bench heights that may be found in some older quarries, as at Penlee, are likely to become a matter of increasing concern. In addition the potential for major air blast or flow slide phenomena needs further investigation in these legacy slopes some of which are present in Southwest England

Leading Sheep 2008-2011 WP 261 Final Report.

The second phase of Leading Sheep (2008-2011) aimed to increase the profitability and viability of Queensland wool producers through innovative approaches to extension and technology adoption. It is a partnership between the Department of Employment, Economic Development & Innovation (DEEDI, formerly DPI&F), Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), and AgForce. Leading Sheep supported a regionally specific program model based on four areas of Queensland: South-East (Traprock), Southern Inland (Box/Sandalwood), South-West (Mulga) and, North/Central-West (Mitchell Grass). Each of these regions had a dedicated coordinator, DEEDI extension officer and a regional committee to identify and prioritise issues and then plan, conduct and evaluate events based on these issues

Comparison of the In Vitro Fermentation Characteristic of Fractionated Alfalfa and Sainfoin

Alfalfa and sainfoin leaves were lyophilized and ground (A, S, respectively) or were fractionated into soluble (ASOL, SSOL) and insoluble (AINS, SINS)components and lyophilized and incubated in vitro with diluted ruminal fluid for 24h. Whole leaf and soluble fractions were also incubated with polyethylene glycol 8000 (PEG). Gas production (GP), ammonia concentration [NH3] and volatile fatty acid (VFA) production were lower (P\u3c 0.05) from S and SSOL than from A and ASOL Insoluble fractions differed only in [NH3] (SINS \u3c AINS, P \u3c 0.05). Inclusion of PEG increased (P \u3c 0.05) GP, [NH3] and VFA production from whole leaf and soluble fractions of sainfoin, but not alfalfa. Inactivating the condensed tannins in sainfoin with PEG overcame differences in degradability between these two forages

The Pakaru ‘Pipeline’: Māori and Pasifika Pathways within the Academy

We examine the academic ‘pipeline’ for Māori and Pasifika graduates and illustrate the chronic under-representation of Māori and Pasifika in permanent academic positions in New Zealand universities. We identify areas within higher education where significant opportunities are being lost for the recruitment and retention of Māori and Pasifika. The narratives of Māori and Pasifika post-doctoral researchers, research associates and professional teaching fellows provide further insight into the advantages and disadvantages of these positions. Lastly, we propose a Pacific alternative metaphor ‘Pacific Navigation of Academic Pathways’ based on Pacific navigation, as opposed to the more commonly used term ‘pipeline’, in order to capture the nuances of Pasifika and Māori experiences

The Pakaru ‘Pipeline’: Māori and Pasifika Pathways within the Academy

We examine the academic ‘pipeline’ for Māori and Pasifika graduates and illustrate the chronic under-representation of Māori and Pasifika in permanent academic positions in New Zealand universities. We identify areas within higher education where significant opportunities are being lost for the recruitment and retention of Māori and Pasifika. The narratives of Māori and Pasifika post-doctoral researchers, research associates and professional teaching fellows provide further insight into the advantages and disadvantages of these positions. Lastly, we propose a Pacific alternative metaphor ‘Pacific Navigation of Academic Pathways’ based on Pacific navigation, as opposed to the more commonly used term ‘pipeline’, in order to capture the nuances of Pasifika and Māori experiences

Vertebrate Natural History Notes from Arkansas, 2017

Because meaningful observations of natural history are not always part of larger studies, important pieces of information often are unreported. Small details, however, can fills gaps in understanding and also lead to interesting questions about ecological relationships or environmental change. We have compiled recent observations of foods, reproduction, record size, parasites, and distribution of 30 species of fishes, new records of distribution and parasites of 2 species of amphibians, and new records of distribution, parasites, reproduction and anomalies of 11 species of mammals

Atlantic bluefin tuna : a novel multistock spatial model for asessing population biomass

© The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 6 (2011): e27693, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027693.Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is considered to be overfished, but the status of its populations has been debated, partly because of uncertainties regarding the effects of mixing on fishing grounds. A better understanding of spatial structure and mixing may help fisheries managers to successfully rebuild populations to sustainable levels while maximizing catches. We formulate a new seasonally and spatially explicit fisheries model that is fitted to conventional and electronic tag data, historic catch-at-age reconstructions, and otolith microchemistry stock-composition data to improve the capacity to assess past, current, and future population sizes of Atlantic bluefin tuna. We apply the model to estimate spatial and temporal mixing of the eastern (Mediterranean) and western (Gulf of Mexico) populations, and to reconstruct abundances from 1950 to 2008. We show that western and eastern populations have been reduced to 17% and 33%, respectively, of 1950 spawning stock biomass levels. Overfishing to below the biomass that produces maximum sustainable yield occurred in the 1960s and the late 1990s for western and eastern populations, respectively. The model predicts that mixing depends on season, ontogeny, and location, and is highest in the western Atlantic. Assuming that future catches are zero, western and eastern populations are predicted to recover to levels at maximum sustainable yield by 2025 and 2015, respectively. However, the western population will not recover with catches of 1750 and 12,900 tonnes (the “rebuilding quotas”) in the western and eastern Atlantic, respectively, with or without closures in the Gulf of Mexico. If future catches are double the rebuilding quotas, then rebuilding of both populations will be compromised. If fishing were to continue in the eastern Atlantic at the unregulated levels of 2007, both stocks would continue to decline. Since populations mix on North Atlantic foraging grounds, successful rebuilding policies will benefit from trans-Atlantic cooperation.This work was supported by grants from the TAG A Giant Foundation, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, the Lenfest Ocean Program, Washington, DC, USA, the Canadian Fisheries and Oceans International Governance Strategies Fund and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States

Comparing Brane Inflation to WMAP

We compare the simplest realistic brane inflationary model to recent cosmological data, including WMAP 3-year cosmic microwave background (CMB) results, Sloan Digital Sky Survey luminous red galaxies (SDSS LRG) power spectrum data and Supernovae Legacy Survey (SNLS) Type 1a supernovae distance measures. Here, the inflaton is simply the position of a $D3$-brane which is moving towards a $\bar{D}3$-brane sitting at the bottom of a throat (a warped, deformed conifold) in the flux compactified bulk in Type IIB string theory. The analysis includes both the usual slow-roll scenario and the Dirac-Born-Infeld scenario of slow but relativistic rolling. Requiring that the throat is inside the bulk greatly restricts the allowed parameter space. We discuss possible scenarios in which large tensor mode and/or non-Gaussianity may emerge. Here, the properties of a large tensor mode deviate from that in the usual slow-roll scenario, providing a possible stringy signature. Overall, within the brane inflationary scenario, the cosmological data is providing information about the properties of the compactification of the extra dimensions.Comment: 45 pages 11 figure