A reconnaissance of the Corinna-Pieman Heads area-Geomorphology

The area with which this paper is concerned largely comprises a plateau of mature, moderately low relief, the level of which gradually falls to the west, and which terminates on the seaward side in a steep scarp slope. At the foot of this scarp is situated a small and much dissected bench and slightly below this again is a coastal zone, consisting mainly of rocky headlands and sandy bayhead beaches but also, in places, containing dunes and alluvial flats. Traversing and draining part of the area is the Pieman River which, quite apart from being the largest river of the area under consideration is one of the major water courses of Tasmania. The area surveyed is indicated in flgure I, a location map of the area, and this report is the result of a brief period of field work during which traverses were made of typical sections of country, and examination made of the various geomorphological units as determined by previous photo-interpretation of aerial photographs. The units have been mapped upon aerial photographs but there is a certain amount of ground survey information available (Nicolls, K. D. and Taylor, R. personal communication), and full use has been made of this. Much of this paper is occupied with the features displayed within the actual survey area, but there are several pertinent and relevant phenomena to be observed just outside this limited area and these are cited as evidence where suitable and necessary

Erosion Surface and Granitic Morphology in the Sierra de Lihuel Calel, Province of La Pampa, Argentina

Fil: Aguilera, Emilia Yolanda. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Sato, Ana María. Centro de Investigaciones Geológicas (CIG). Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Llambías, Eduardo Jorge. Centro de Investigaciones Geológicas (CIG). Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Tickyj, Hugo. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Universidad Nacional de La Pampa; Argentin

Paleo-landscapes of the Northern Patagonian Massif, Argentina

Fil: Aguilera, Emilia Yolanda. Instituto de Geomorfología y Suelos (IGS). Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Rabassa, Jorge. Laboratorio de Geomorfología y Cuaternario. CADIC. Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego; ArgentinaFil: Aragón, Eugenio. Centro de Investigaciones Geológicas (CIG). Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentin

The granite and glacial landscapes of the Peneda-Gerês National Park

Granite and glacial landforms are presented as the main geomorphological landscape features of the Peneda-Gerês National Park. The park was established in 1971 and it is the only national park and most important protected area in Portugal. The aesthetic attractiveness is supported mainly by the distinct granite landscape of the Gerês and Peneda Mountains, where the post-orogenic Variscan Gerês gran- ite facies occurs. The rugged relief is poorly covered by vegetation, differentiating it from the surrounding moun- tainous areas and the most distinctive landforms are bornhardts, locally named as “medas”. Typical glacial landforms, such as U-shaped valleys, cirques and moraines, express the sheltered character of a low-altitude glaciation, which is of great significance in the context of the Pleistocene glaciation in Southern Europe.This work is co-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund, based on COMPETE 2020 (Programa Operacional da Competitividade e Inter nacionalização), project ICT (UID/GEO/04683/2013) with reference POCI-01-0145- FEDER-007690 and Portuguese national funds pro vided by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi

Hydrogeology of a groundwater sustained montane peatland: Grass Lake, California

Persistently wet conditions are essential to prevent the decomposition of organic material that forms peatlands. Wetlands in areas with a snow-melt dominated precipitation regime and little or no summer precipitation often rely on groundwater to meet late-season water requirements. Past and predicted changes in climate for the Sierra Nevada show a trend towards more winter precipitation falling as rain rather than snow. This is expected to result in reduced late-season water availability and the subsequent degradation of peatlands. Measurements of groundwater levels, stream flow, specific conductance, and peat water retention characteristics are used to quantify aspects of the hydrologic system that supports Grass Lake, south of Lake Tahoe California, the largest peatland in the Sierra Nevada. Water budget calculations using periodic measurements collected throughout the growing season show that groundwater discharge is a significant component of the water balance in the late-summer and fall. Late-season evapotranspiration needs were approximately balanced by groundwater inflow for 2010 (average water year). Groundwater discharge to the peatland dominated the late-season water budget in 2011 (above average water year) and persisted into October. Water retention experiments and field data suggest desaturation of the peatland accounts for approximately 0.5 mm day−1, or roughly 10 % of the estimated evapotranspiration rate

Rapid characterisation of vegetation structure to predict refugia and climate change impacts across a global biodiversity hotspot

Identification of refugia is an increasingly important adaptation strategy in conservation planning under rapid anthropogenic climate change. Granite outcrops (GOs) provide extraordinary diversity, including a wide range of taxa, vegetation types and habitats in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR). However, poor characterization of GOs limits the capacity of conservation planning for refugia under climate change. A novel means for the rapid identification of potential refugia is presented, based on the assessment of local-scale environment and vegetation structure in a wider region. This approach was tested on GOs across the SWAFR. Airborne discrete return Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data and Red Green and Blue (RGB) imagery were acquired. Vertical vegetation profiles were used to derive 54 structural classes. Structural vegetation types were described in three areas for supervised classification of a further 13 GOs across the region.Habitat descriptions based on 494 vegetation plots on and around these GOs were used to quantify relationships between environmental variables, ground cover and canopy height. The vegetation surrounding GOs is strongly related to structural vegetation types (Kappa = 0.8) and to its spatial context. Water gaining sites around GOs are characterized by taller and denser vegetation in all areas. The strong relationship between rainfall, soil-depth, and vegetation structure (R2 of 0.8–0.9) allowed comparisons of vegetation structure between current and future climate. Significant shifts in vegetation structural types were predicted and mapped for future climates. Water gaining areas below granite outcrops were identified as important putative refugia. A reduction in rainfall may be offset by the occurrence of deeper soil elsewhere on the outcrop. However, climate change interactions with fire and water table declines may render our conclusions conservative. The LiDAR-based mapping approach presented enables the integration of site-based biotic assessment with structural vegetation types for the rapid delineation and prioritization of key refugia

Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas): Inselbergs of Central Australia

Uluru and Kata Tjuta are inselbergs standing in isolation in the desert plains of central Australia. Uluru is a beveled bornhardt shaped steeply dipping Cambrian arkose. Kata Tjuta is a complex of domes, each developed by fracture-controlled weathering and erosion of a mass of gently dipping conglomerate, also of Cambrian age. The sedimentary formations strike northwest to southeast and the compartments on which the residuals are formed were compressed as a result of either cross- or interference folding. They were exposed as low hills by the latest Cretaceous and possibly as early as the Triassic, since which time the detailed morphology of the forms shows that they have come to stand higher and higher in the relief as a result of the episodic lowering of the surrounding plains. Their persistence is attributed to reinforcement effects.C. R. Twidalehttp://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/geography/book/978-90-481-3054-