Refining trace metal temperature proxies in cold-water scleractinian and stylasterid corals

The Li/Mg, Sr/Ca and oxygen isotopic (O) compositions of many marine biogenic carbonates are sensitive to seawater temperature. Corals, as cosmopolitan marine taxa with carbonate skeletons that can be precisely dated, represent ideal hosts for these geochemical proxies. However, efforts to calibrate and refine temperature proxies in cold-water corals (<20 °C) remain limited. Here we present skeletal Li/Mg, Sr/Ca, O and carbon isotope (C) data from live-collected specimens of aragonitic scleractinian corals (Balanophyllia, Caryophyllia, Desmophyllum, Enallopsammia, Flabellum, Lophelia, and Vaughanella), both aragonitic and high-Mg calcitic stylasterid genera (Stylaster and Errina), and shallow-water high-Mg calcite crustose coralline algae (Lithophyllum, Hydrolithon, and Neogoniolithon). We interpret these data in conjunction with results from previously explored taxa including aragonitic zooxanthellate scleractinia and foraminifera, and high-Mg calcite octocorals. We show that Li/Mg ratios covary most strongly with seawater temperature, both for aragonitic and high-Mg calcitic taxa, making for reliable and universal seawater temperature proxies. Combining all of our biogenic aragonitic Li/Mg data with previous calibration efforts we report a refined relationship to temperature: Li/MgAll Aragonite = (). This calibration now permits paleo-temperature reconstruction to better than ±3.4 °C (95% prediction intervals) across biogenic aragonites, regardless of taxon, from 0 to 30 °C. For taxa in this study, aragonitic stylasterid Li/Mg offers the most robust temperature proxy (Li/MgStylasterid (Arag) = ()) with a reproducibility of ±2.3 °C. For the first time, we show that high-Mg calcites have a similar exponential relationship with temperature, but with a lower intercept value (Li/Mg = ()). This calibration opens the possibility of temperature reconstruction using high-Mg calcite corals and coralline algae. The commonality in the relationship between Li/Mg and temperature transcends phylogeny and suggests abiogenic trace metal incorporation mechanism

What the disjunctivist is right about

There is a traditional conception of sensory experience on which the experiences one has looking at, say, a cat could be had by someone merely hallucinating a cat. Disjunctivists take issue with this conception on the grounds that it does not enable us to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. In particular, they think, it does not explain how it can be that experiences gained in perception enable us to be in ‘cognitive contact’ with objects and facts. I develop this chal- lenge to the traditional conception and then show that it is possible to accommo- date an adequate account of cognitive contact in keeping with the traditional conception. One upshot of the discussion is that experiences do not bear the explanatory burden placed upon them by disjunctivists

Ba/Ca of stylasterid coral skeletons records dissolved seawater barium concentrations

The concentration of dissolved barium in seawater ([Ba]SW) is influenced by both primary productivity and ocean circulation patterns. Reconstructing past subsurface [Ba]SW can therefore provide important information on processes which regulate global climate. Previous Ba/Ca measurements of scleractinian and bamboo deep-sea coral skeletons exhibit linear relationships with [Ba]SW, acting as archives for past Ba cycling. However, skeletal Ba/Ca ratios of the Stylasteridae – a group of widely distributed, azooxanthellate, hydrozoan coral – have not been previously studied. Here, we present Ba/Ca ratios of modern stylasterid (aragonitic, calcitic and mixed mineralogy) and azooxanthellate scleractinian skeletons, paired with published proximal hydrographic data. We find that [Ba]SW and sample mineralogy are the primary controls on stylasterid Ba/Ca, while seawater temperature exerts a weak secondary control. [Ba]SW also exerts a strong control on azooxanthellate scleractinian Ba/Ca. However, Ba-incorporation into scleractinian skeletons varies between locations and across depth gradients, and we find a more sensitive relationship between scleractinian Ba/Ca and [Ba]SW than previously reported. Paired Sr/Ca measurements suggest that this variability in scleractinian Ba/Ca may result from the influence of varying degrees of Rayleigh fractionation during calcification. We find that these processes exert a smaller influence on Ba-incorporation into stylasterid coral skeletons, a result consistent with other aspects of their skeletal geochemistry. Stylasterid Ba/Ca ratios are therefore a powerful, novel archive of past changes in [Ba]SW, particularly when measured in combination with temperature sensitive tracers such as Li/Mg or Sr/Ca. Indeed, with robust [Ba]SW and temperature proxies now established, stylasterids have the potential to be an important new archive for palaeoceanographic studies

Predicative Possessives Relational Nouns and Floating Quantifiers

Green (1971) notes the apparent unacceptability of certain quantificational expressions as possessors of singular head nouns. We provide data from a range of English dialects to show that such constructions are not straightforwardly unacceptable, but there are a number of restrictions on their use. We build on Kayne’s (1993; 1994) analysis of English possessives in conjunction with considerations on floating quantifiers to explain both the types of possessive that are permitted in the relevant dialects and their distribution, which is restricted to predicative position

Military maladaptation : counterinsurgency and the politics of failure

Tactical learning is critical to battlefield success, especially in a counterinsurgency. This article tests the existing model of military adaption against a ‘most-likely’ case: the British Army’s counterinsurgency in the Southern Cameroons (1960–61). Despite meeting all preconditions thought to enable adaptation – decentralization, leadership turnover, supportive leadership, poor organizational memory, feedback loops, and a clear threat – the British still failed to adapt. Archival evidence suggests politicians subverted bottom-up adaptation, because winning came at too high a price in terms of Britain’s broader strategic imperatives. Our finding identifies an important gap in the extant adaptation literature: it ignores politics.PostprintPeer reviewe

The BCN Challenge to Compatibilist Free Will and Personal Responsibility

Many philosophers ignore developments in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences that purport to challenge our ideas of free will and responsibility. The reason for this is that the challenge is often framed as a denial of the idea that we are able to act differently than we do. However, most philosophers think that the ability to do otherwise is irrelevant to responsibility and free will. Rather it is our ability to act for reasons that is crucial. We argue that the scientific findings indicate that it is not so obvious that our views of free will and responsibility can be grounded in the ability to act for reasons without introducing metaphysical obscurities. This poses a challenge to philosophers. We draw the conclusion that philosophers are wrong not to address the recent scientific developments and that scientists are mistaken in formulating their challenge in terms of the freedom to do otherwise

Willpower Satisficing

Satisficing Consequentialism is often rejected as hopeless. Perhaps its greatest problem is that it risks condoning the gratuitous prevention of goodness above the baseline of what qualifies as “good enough”. I propose a radical new willpower-based version of the view that avoids this problem, and that better fits with the motivation of avoiding an excessively demanding conception of morality. I further demonstrate how, by drawing on the resources of an independent theory of blameworthiness, we may obtain a principled specification of what counts as “good enough”

Il naturalismo oggi. Abbozzo di una mappa e alcune riflessioni

This paper tries to draw a map of the various versions of naturalism to which the current philosophical debate aims – from the most radical, or ‘hard’ ones, to the mild-est, or liberal ones – and of the different projects of naturalization that are associated to them. In particular, in the first paragraphs, the present article will consider Timothy Williamson’s and Penelope Maddy’s attempts to inherit the demands of naturalism with-out declaring to be a naturalist (Williamson), or without making naturalism an empty slogan or a kind of masked first philosophy (Maddy). In the second part, the connec-tions between epistemological naturalism and ontological or metaphysical naturalism will be analysed. The questions will be: (1) is it possible to be naturalist with regard to epistemology without being naturalist with regard to ontology?; (2) is it possible to be ontologically naturalist without being epistemologically naturalist