Rural Reconstruction: Towards a New Synthesis in Canadian History

Recent works in the field of rural history are offering a critical challenge to the historiography of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Canada. The first part of this article draws on a variety of rural studies to outline some problems that arise in the growing discord between recent literature on rural Canada and traditional Canadian historiography. These anomalies are linked to an historical discourse that trivializes and obscures what is arguably the most important institution of rural society: the household. Finally, the author reviews some recent rural studies that explicitly search for ways to give the pre- and post-industrial rural household a conceptual depth that it lacks within the constraints of neoclassical and Marxist 'evolutionist' constructions of the political economy.Les travaux récents dans le domaine de l'histoire rurale mettent en doute l'historiographie du Canada du 19e siècle et du début du 20e siècle. La première partie de l'article est fondée sur diverses études rurales et souligne quelques-uns des problèmes causés par l'écart qui s'agrandit sans cesse entre les ouvrages récents sur le Canada rural et l'historiographie canadienne traditionnelle. Ces anomalies sont reliées à un discours historique qui rend banale et obscure l'institution qui est probablement la plus importante de la société rurale, soit le foyer. Enfin, l'auteur examine certaines études rurales récentes dans lesquelles on cherche explicitement des moyens de donner aux foyers canadiens remontant aux périodes pré-industrielle et post-industrielle, la profondeur conceptuelle qui leur manque, compte tenu des contraintes imposées par les interprétations évolutionnistes néoclassiques et marxistes de l'économie politique

Deposition gradients across mangrove fringes

Observations in a mangrove in the Whangapoua Harbour, New Zealand, have shown that deposition rates are greatest in the fringing zone between the tidal flats and the mangrove forest, where the vegetation is dominated by a cover of pneumatophores (i.e. pencil roots). Current speeds and suspended sediment concentrations dropped substantially across this zone. Near-bed turbulence within the fringe was substantially lower where the pneumatophore canopy was denser, facilitating the enhanced deposition in this zone. However, the near-bed conditions were not the primary control on the instantaneous sediment concentrations at this site. The total deposition across the different zones was the combined result of the reduced near-bed turbulence inside the vegetation and the larger-scale dynamics over the spatially variable vegetation cover, along with other confounding factors such as changing sediment inputs

Quantifying macrodetritus fluxes from a small temperate estuary

Empirical measurements of estuary-to-coast material fluxes usually exclude the fraction of primary production that is exported as macrodetritus (marine plant litter), potentially leaving a gap in our understanding of the role of estuaries as outwelling systems. To address this gap, we sampled water and suspended material seasonally from the mouth of Pepe Inlet, Tairua Estuary, New Zealand. From samples collected hourly over 24 h, we calculated the lateral tidal fluxes (import, export, net flux) of macrodetritus, particulate and dissolved forms of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). Annually, the inlet was a net exporter of N and P (5145 and 362 kg respectively). However, macrodetritus accounted for 87%). Nevertheless, seasonal pulses in the source and supply of macrodetritus may have consequences for the temporal scales over which this resource subsidy affects receiving ecosystems (e.g. intertidal sandflats). These mensurative investigations are useful to inform estuarine nutrient budgets that quantify the ecosystem services provided by temperate estuaries (e.g. contribution to fisheries food webs)

Mapping Status and Conservation of Global At-Risk Marine Biodiversity

To conserve marine biodiversity, we must first understand the spatial distribution and status of at‐risk biodiversity. We combined range maps and conservation status for 5,291 marine species to map the global distribution of extinction risk of marine biodiversity. We find that for 83% of the ocean, \u3e25% of assessed species are considered threatened, and 15% of the ocean shows \u3e50% of assessed species threatened when weighting for range‐limited species. By comparing mean extinction risk of marine biodiversity to no‐take marine reserve placement, we identify regions where reserves preferentially afford proactive protection (i.e., preserving low‐risk areas) or reactive protection (i.e., mitigating high‐risk areas), indicating opportunities and needs for effective future protection at national and regional scales. In addition, elevated risk to high seas biodiversity highlights the need for credible protection and minimization of threatening activities in international waters

Oceanic microplate formation records the onset of India-Eurasia collision

Mapping of seafloor tectonic fabric in the Indian Ocean, using high-resolution satellite-derived vertical gravity gradient data, reveals an extinct Pacific-style oceanic microplate ('Mammerickx Microplate') west of the Ninetyeast Ridge. It is one of the first Pacific-style microplates to be mapped outside the Pacific basin, suggesting that geophysical conditions during formation probably resembled those that have dominated at eastern Pacific ridges. The microplate formed at the Indian-Antarctic ridge and is bordered by an extinct ridge in the north and pseudofault in the south, whose conjugate is located north of the Kerguelen Plateau. Independent microplate rotation is indicated by asymmetric pseudofaults and rotated abyssal hill fabric, also seen in multibeam data. Magnetic anomaly picks and age estimates calculated from published spreading rates suggest formation during chron 21o (~47.3 Ma). Plate reorganizations can trigger ridge propagation and microplate development, and we propose that Mammerickx Microplate formation is linked with the India-Eurasia collision (initial 'soft' collision). The collision altered the stress regime at the Indian-Antarctic ridge, leading to a change in segmentation and ridge propagation from an establishing transform. Fast Indian-Antarctic spreading that preceded microplate formation, and Kerguelen Plume activity, may have facilitated ridge propagation via the production of thin and weak lithosphere; however both factors had been present for tens of millions of years and are therefore unlikely to have triggered the event. Prior to the collision, the combination of fast spreading and plume activity was responsible for the production of a wide region of undulate seafloor to the north of the extinct ridge and 'W' shaped lineations that record back and forth ridge propagation. Microplate formation provides a precise means of dating the onset of the India-Eurasia collision, and is completely independent of and complementary to timing constraints derived from continental geology or convergence histories. © 2015 Elsevier B.V.K.J.M. and R.D.M. were supported by ARC Discovery Project DP130101946 . The CryoSat-2 data were provided by the European Space Agency, and NASA/CNES provided data from the Jason-1 altimeter. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation ( OCE-1128801 ), the Office of Naval Research ( N00014-12-1-0111 ), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ( HM0177-13-1-0008 ) and ConocoPhillips . Version 23 of the global grids of gravity anomaly and VGG can be downloaded from the following ftp site ftp://topex.ucsd.edu/pub/global_grav_1min . All figures were produced using the Generic Mapping Tools ( GMT ) software ( Wessel et al., 2013 ). The open-source plate reconstruction software GPlates ( Boyden et al., 2011 ) was used to compute the distance from the Kerguelen Plume to the initiation point of ridge propagation using different absolute reference frames, and to produce the VGG raster reconstruction in Fig. 3 . Magnetic anomaly picks were accessed from the compilation of Seton et al. (2014) from The Global Seafloor Fabric and Magnetic Lineation Data Base Project website ( http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PT/GSFML/ ). We thank the editor An Yin and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments that improved the manuscript. Appendix

Mercury Bay Coastal Processes Study: Data Report for 2014 & 2015.

Two month-long hydrographic and sedimentation field campaigns were conducted from July 15th, 2014 to August 13th, 2014 and from April 9th, 2015 to May 8th, 2015 within the Mercury Bay-Whitianga Inlet-northern Whitianga Estuary system to fulfill the field data needs of the Waikato Regional Council towards the goal of producing a hydrodynamic model of Mercury Bay. The purpose of this data report is to summarize the instrument deployment locations,durations, and settings that were used during the field campaign. This document also aims to aid the modeler (or other Waikato Regional personnel) in the locating of the desired instrument data files from the accompanying data discs. In all cases, the raw data files have been provided for each instrument. In the instance that a raw data file is in a data format that requires proprietary software from the instrument manufacture to process, an export of the data files to a universally-readable file format has been included (e.g., .txt, .dat, .csv, .etc.) or to a MATLAB file format when necessary. Clarification has been provided for instruments that export data files without headers

The role of mini-grids for electricity access and climate change mitigation in India

Sustainable Development Goal 7 aims to achieve access to sustainable, affordable, reliable, and modern energy for all. Access to electricity is critical for development and economic growth and can support productive livelihoods and power critical community services such as for healthcare and education. Solar mini-grids can offer the most cost-effective option for rural and remote communities not yet connected to the grid and can deliver reliable, high-quality power which is able to serve multiple uses and meet growing demand over time