Multiproxy geochemical analysis of a Panthalassic margin record of the early Toarcian oceanic anoxic event (Toyora area, Japan)

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Lake sedimentological and ecological response to hyperthermals : Boltysh impact crater, Ukraine

Acknowledgements Initial drilling of the Boltysh meteorite crater was funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant NE/D005043/1. The authors are extremely grateful to the valuable scientific contributions of S. Kelley and I. Gilmour. The constructive and critical reviews by M. Schuster and an anonymous reviewer greatly helped to improve this manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin

Maximum rates of climate change are systematically underestimated in the geological record

D.B.K. was supported by NERC Fellowship grant NE/I02089X/1 and W.K. by DFG grant Ki 806/12-1. Jonny Beedell is thanked for his help in data compilation and Michael Joachimski for discussions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Sustainable Grasslands: Resolving Management Options for Livelihood and Environmental Benefits

To help solve the major issues of improving livelihoods and environmental services, grassland research needs to be evaluated within the context of relevant farm systems. Treatments need to show that they not only have significant effects but that they have effects that are meaningful in the context of the relevant farm system. Research often defines an optimum criterion for management that is a single point, but that is difficult to achieve in practice, especially when there are several components in a grassland system that need to be optimised. It is argued that an appropriate criterion for optimising management is a range of values wherein management should aim to maintain the grassland. Typically grasslands comprise many species and appropriate frameworks are needed to determine suitable management practices so that the desirable species dominate. Examples of quantifiable frameworks are presented. A theory of animal production from grassland is then used that shows how optimising stocking rates and then considering the implications can lead to defining managing criteria that create a win-win circumstance for sustaining livestock, household livelihoods and environmental services. Traditionally farmers have thought in terms of the animal carrying capacity on areas of grassland as their main management criteria; which is only a measure of demand. A central component in many relationships is the grassland herbage mass and it is argued that this should be the primary criterion for managing grasslands; herbage mass is a net measure of supply and demand and better links to a wide range of measures of environmental services

The Transformation of Sediment Into Rock : Insights From IODP Site U1352, Canterbury Basin, New Zealand

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the crew of the RV JOIDES Resolution for professional seamanship, excellent drilling, and the scientific support on board. GHB and SCG thank the Australia–New Zealand IODP Consortium (ANZIC), and KMM thanks the Consortium for Ocean Leadership U.S. Science Support Program for partly funding this work. Thanks also to funding agencies of the respective authors, and Mark Lawrence (GNS Science) and Cam Nelson (University of Waikato) for their thoughtful comments on an earlier draft. Karsten Kroeger (GNS Science) helped by providing compaction data for New Zealand basins, and Michelle Kominz (Western Michigan University) provided data on which Figure 8 was developed. Further improvements were the result of thoughtful detailed reviews by Gemma Barrie, Bill Heins, Stan Paxton, Associate Editor Joe Macquaker, and Editor Leslie Melim.Peer reviewedPostprin

Impact of Market Forces on Product Quality and Grassland Condition

Meeting demands for livestock products which are predicted to more than double during the next 20 years, is central to the challenge of feeding the world sustainably. Smallholders will play a key role in achieving global security in animal protein. However, this requires a shift from subsistence to market-oriented farming where production efficiency not the number of livestock is the key focus with the aim of producing ‘more from less’. For grassland-based ruminant production, reducing stocking rate from current unsustainable levels under subsistence management is an essential first step to producing more production and profit from fewer animals. This is made possible in commercial farming by using a combination of new technology, decision-making skills and market development. For example, only after stocking rate is sustainably aligned with forage supply and herd structure is changed to comprise mainly breeding females’ can smallholders reliably use genetics and improved breeding programs to boost profitability by producing higher take-off of products that meet market quality specification. To link effectively with the market smallholders must be confident they can produce the quality products consumers want. Examples from Sunan County, Gansu Province, China, are given of the use of bio-economic modelling base on smallholder available feed supply to identify the best enterprise and management options to produce marketable quality products. However, poorly developed product specifications, poor price transparency, a lack of marketing services and inadequate infrastructure which still pose a major constraint to the transition from subsistence to commercial farming in developing countries requires remedial intervention. The highly integrated Australian sheep production and marketing system is briefly describes as an industry case study of how the combination of investment in R&D to develop new technologies such as Australian Sheep Breeding Values and breeding systems using terminal crosses are used to meet to continuing changing demands of domestic and overseas consumers. This case study provides principles and practices that can be applied to improved production efficiency and marketing in developing countries to facilitate the transition from subsistence to market-oriented ruminant production

Portable X‐ray fluorescence spectroscopy as a tool for cyclostratigraphy

Cyclostratigraphic studies are used to create relative and high‐resolution timescales for sedimentary successions based on identification of regular cycles in climate proxy data. This method typically requires the construction of long high‐resolution datasets. In this study, we have demonstrated the efficacy of portable X‐ray fluorescence spectroscopy (pXRF) as a non‐destructive method of generating compositional data for cyclostratigraphy. The rapidity (100 samples per day) and low cost of pXRF measurements provide advantages over relatively time‐consuming and costly elemental and stable isotopic measurements that are commonly used for cyclostratigraphy. The non‐destructive nature of pXRF also allows other geochemical analyses on the same samples. We present an optimized protocol for pXRF elemental concentration measurement in powdered rocks. The efficacy of this protocol for cyclostratigraphy is demonstrated through analysis of 360 Toarcian mudrock samples from North Yorkshire, UK, that were previously shown to exhibit astronomical forcing of [CaCO3], [S] and δ13Corg. Our study is the first to statistically compare the cyclostratigraphic results of pXRF analysis with more established combustion analysis. There are strong linear correlations of pXRF [Ca] with dry combustion elemental analyzer [CaCO3] (r2=0.7616), and pXRF [S] and [Fe] with dry combustion elemental analyzer [S] (r2=0.9632 and r2=0.9274 respectively). Spectral and cross‐spectral analysis demonstrates that cyclicity previously recognized in [S], significant above the 99.99% confidence level, is present above the 99.92% and 99.99% confidence levels in pXRF [S] and [Fe] data respectively. Cyclicity present in [CaCO3] data above the 99.96% confidence level is also present in pXRF [Ca] above the 98.12% confidence level

Sedimentary evidence for enhanced hydrological cycling in response to rapid carbon release during the early Toarcian oceanic anoxic event

Part of this work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI 12J08818 and 15J08821 to KI. DBK acknowledges recipe of NERC Fellowship NE/I02089X/1 and grants from the Sasakawa Foundation of Great Britain, grant number 4883, and Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, grant number 10960/12369. This study contributes to IGCP 655. We thank M. Ikeda, T. Ohta, K. Suzuki, N. Nishida and K. Kawano for assistance in the field and/or helpful discussion. Fieldwork was carried out with full permission and support from its landowners. S. Nicoara and S. Kurokawa are thanked for analytical assistance. The comments of the Editor (D. Vance) and three reviewers (G. Suan, S. Bodin, and an anonymous reviewer) greatly improved the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin