the oldest handaxes in europe fact or artefact abstract hominin presence is well documented in a number of early pleistocene and early middle pleistocene european localities however the evidence currently available indicates that acheulean handaxes spread in the fluvial basins of western europe during mis 11 400 kyr ago associated with homo heidelbergensis although a number of early middle pleistocene acheulean assemblages have been dated from mis 16 onwards for this reason the magnetostratigraphic dating in southeast spain of two archaeological localities the open air site of solana del zamborino sz and the rock shelter site of cueva negra del estrecho del quipar eq that put back the appearance of handaxes to the early middle pleistocene limit scott and gibert 2009 is of particular interest as the new ages suggest that h heidelbergensis was a contemporary of h antecessor that had the ability to produce levallois debitage and to control fire during the early middle pleistocene transition however we have detected a number of errors in the interpretation of the archaeological assemblage from the first site as well as striking discrepancies with the original faunal lists published for both localities with several large mammal species that are omitted or arbitrarily changed to make the assemblages consistent with the new ages deduced from magnetostratigraphy for this reason we suggest that 1 the finding of reverse polarity in the sediments sampled for paleomagnetism in sz may simply record one of the polarity reversals that took place during the brunhes chron although the use by scott and gibert 2009 of a composite stratigraphic column precludes correlating these levels with a specific reversal and 2 the fauna and tools of eq correspond to the late middle pleistocene sedimentary infillings of this karst site while the samples taken for paleomagnetism belong to a previous sedimentary cycle during the matuyama chron such interpretations would be in better agreement with the age estimates provided by biostratigraphy and also with the currently accepted chronology for the appearance of acheulean industries in western europe

characteristics of a subtropical squall line determined from tamex dual doppler data part ii dynamic and thermodynamic structures and momentum budgets abstract a thermodynamic retrieval method was used to study the dynamical and thermodynamical structure of a subtropical squall line which occurred on 17 may 1987 over the taiwan straits three dimensional wind fields were derived from the dual doppler data based on the methodology presented in part i of this paper subsequently fields of perturbation pressure and temperature were retrieved from the detailed wind field using the three momentum equations results show that the overall structural features of this subtropical squall line are similar to those of a tropical squall line the orientation of the squall line is almost in a north south direction in the lowest layer the gust front is located to the immediate east of the main convective updrafts high pressure occurs behind the gust front with low pressure to its east a buoyancy induced low pressure area lies beneath the convective updraft corresponding to the ascending warm environmental air in the middle and upper layers high pressure forms

estimation of effective porosity using geostatistics and multiattribute transforms a case study the middle eocene kalol formation in the north cambay basin of india is producing hydrocarbons in commercial quantity from a series of thin clastic reservoirs these reservoirs are sandwiched between coal and shale layers and are discrete in nature the kalol formation has been divided into eleven units k i to k xi from top to bottom multipay sands of the k ix unit 2 8 m thick are the main hydrocarbon producers in the study area apart from their discrete nature these sands exhibit lithological variation which affects the porosity distribution low porosity zones are found devoid of hydrocarbons in the available 3d seismic data these sands are not resolved and generate a composite detectable seismic response making reservoir characterization through seismic attributes impossible after proper well to seismic tie the major stratigraphic markers were tracked in the 3d seismic data volume for structural mapping and carrying out attribute analysis the 3d seismic volume was inverted to obtain an aco

a study of a mountain generated precipitation system in northern taiwan during tamex iop 8 abstract the field program tamex taiwan area mesoscale experiment was held during may and june 1987 one of its objectives was to study the cited of terrain on precipitation systems on 7 june 1987 a band of radar echo orientated from north to south developed during the afternoon along the western slope and mountainous area of taiwan island before this system moved eastward toward the pacific ocean in the late afternoon it dumped more than 100 mm of precipitation at a few stations in only a few hours the analysis of radar data from caa radar revealed that the precipitation occurred over western sloped terrain and a mountain plateau in the early afternoon the system was wider than 60 km in the east west direction and the echo top was higher than 10 km the maximum reflectivity was over 50 dbz along the steep slope and near the mountain peak the precipitation system over the mountain area extended eastward with the passage of time meanwhile new echoes continually formed along the western sloped

lower and middle pleistocene human settlements recorded in fluvial deposits of the middle loire river basin centre region france abstract this paper records the findings from c 80 prehistoric sites that have been discovered in the alluvial deposits of the rivers creuse cher and loir tributaries of the middle loire river over the period since 1981 these deposits comprise river terrace aggradations formed during successive glacial interglacial cycles which have recorded climate and environment during quaternary time the systematic dating of these river deposits by electron spin resonance esr applied to optically bleached sedimentary quartz has resulted in the establishment of a chronological framework for the evolution of these rivers during lower and middle pleistocene between 1 7 ma and 130 ka evidence for early palaeolithic mode 1 industries with an in situ context workshops soils in the highest aggradations indicates that hominins were present in the study area near the geographical centre of france 47 n around 1 1 ma examination of the sites indicates that human occupations were located along valley bottom sites during temperate episodes subsequently after a gap of several hundred thousand years industries with handaxes appear in the middle loire basin in the interval between 700 and 600 ka and then continuously from 400 ka these two phases of settlement produced industrial assemblages with clear differences in their responses to the supplies of raw materials and in the modes of making flakes

a tropical squall line observed during the copt 81 experiment in west africa part 1 kinematic structure inferred from dual doppler radar data abstract this paper deals with the analysis of a tropical squall line observed on 22 june 1981 during the copt 81 convection profonde tropicale experiment the present part i is restricted to the study of the kinematic structure of the system which moved in a moderately unstable atmosphere faster than the environmental air at all levels at the observation time the squall line was in a mature stage the explicit description of the airflow within the system was inferred from dual and single doppler radar data the general characteristics of the squall line are found to be very similar to those of tropical squall lines observed during previous experiments such as vhimex or gate a large cloud system composed of an organized convective line ahead of an extensive trailing anvil cloud stratiform rain fast motion and long lasting structure and a well marked gust front signature at ground level the overall airflow presents a three dimensional structure at the leading edge convective scale updrafts a

the first human occupations in southwestern france a revised summary twenty years after the abbeville saint riquier colloquium abstract at the abbeville saint riquier colloquium two regional syntheses for southwestern france were proposed one discussed the northern aquitaine basin delpech et al 1995 the other the southern basin of the garonne and the pyrenean piedmont jaubert and servelle 1996 since then research has focused on the classic sequences of barbas i la micoque and coudoulous i or on little published sites such as lanne darre on the lannemezan plateau colonge 2005a colonge and texier 2005 numerous rescue operations many still in progress and thus only partially published have also been conducted in recent years mainly in geographic zones with diverse pedosedimentary contexts the isle valley champ des debats brenet and folgado 1998 the midi toulousain and the middle adour basin colonge lelouvier bertran and collaborators several university theses have also fully or partially addressed this region turq 1992 millet 2001 mourre 2003 jarry and brenet in progress these works concerning the first occupations in this region up until ois 9 when middle paleolithic industries become fully developed allow revision of the ancient assemblages and presentation of a general synthesis of these industries

a simulation of the development of successive cells along a cold outflow boundary abstract a three dimensional numerical simulation is presented in which five new cells clouds develop in succession over a 4 h period the cells that develop have common characteristics including a lifetime of 40 min they form at 30 min intervals in a convergent region along the cold outflow boundary that is established by previous cells the propagation of the cloud system is several meters per second faster than individual cell movement due to the discrete development of new cells on the right flank of previous ones analysis of the simulation indicates that the most pronounced changes near the surface are due to downdraft development in contrast there is only a weak signature of new updraft development near the surface in the convergence field each new updraft develops along the cold outflow boundary which moves slowly away from the previous cell the air participating in the generation of a new cell appears to have originated 1 1 5 km below cloud base 2 6 km as the cell grows and rain begins

probabilistic petrophysical properties estimation integrating statistical rock physics with seismic inversion a joint estimation of petrophysical properties is proposed that combines statistical rock physics and bayesian seismic inversion because elastic attributes are correlated with petrophysical variables effective porosity clay content and water saturation and this physical link is associated with uncertainties the petrophysical properties estimation from seismic data can be seen as a bayesian inversion problem the purpose of this work was to develop a strategy for estimating the probability distributions of petrophysical parameters and litho fluid classes from seismics estimation of reservoir properties and the associated uncertainty was performed in three steps linearized seismic inversion to estimate the probabilities of elastic parameters probabilistic upscaling to include the scale changes effect and petrophysical inversion to estimate the probabilities of petrophysical variables andlitho fluid classes rock physics equations provide the linkbetween reservoir properties and velocities and lin

early european mode 2 and the stone industry from the caune de l arago s archeostratigraphical levels p abstract the stratigraphical complex of the caune de l arago cave site france pyrenees orientales has been systematically excavated for over 40 years in 1981 foraging in the deposits revealed a 15 m thick quaternary infill with artefacts present throughout the stratigraphy all the way down to the basal stalagmitic floor 0 69 ma the infill most of which is correlated to mis 14 13 and 12 has yielded numerous distinct occupation floors exceptionally rich stone implements and animal fossils while some of the levels have also yielded hominin remains attributed to homo heidelbergensis over the years intensive interdisciplinary studies have contributed to defining the characteristics of these middle pleistocene occupations recently excavations have reached the so called p levels attributed to a series of occupation floors accumulated during short term stays by hominin groups during a cold dry phase of mis 14 artefact bearing levels are found intercalated between archeologically sterile sediments relatively rich in carnivore remains among the numerous large pleistocene mammals identified in the p levels horse reindeer and bison are most frequent in artefact yielding floors while argali brought into the cave by carnivores bear and panther remains are common in intercalating levels the study of the p levels stone assemblage provides new information about raw material selectivity technological behaviour and typological characteristics for one of the oldest known western european mode 2 industries it is interesting to consider the precise handiwork and care with which raw materials were selected for the confection of the fine quality instruments typical of the p levels assemblages whose acheulian character is underlined by a relative abundance of symmetrical and remarkably well worked handaxes the p levels industries seem to bear witness to long acquired technological capacities inherited perhaps from earlier african or eurasian populations

seismic inversion using a geostatistical petrophysical and acoustic model interpretation of seismic data for structure and stratigraphy is commonly based on the geological knowledge of the area and the correlation of seismic reflections with well log data however the relation between the seismic image and the well log data is not straightforward being often obscured by the wave propagation phenomenon part of the problem is that reflectivities do not measure the interval properties but result from the property contrasts of consecutive strata seismic inversion provides insight into the interpretation process transforming reflection amplitudes into physically meaningful variations in interval properties which can be directly related to the well log data after appropriate scale considerations

a mis 15 mis 12 record of environmental changes and lower palaeolithic occupation from valle giumentina central italy abstract an integrated geological study including sedimentology stable isotope analysis 18o 13c geochemistry micromorphology biomarker analysis 40ar 39ar geochronology and tephrochronology was undertaken on the quaternary infill of the valle giumentina basin in central italy which also includes an outstanding archaeological succession composed of nine human occupation levels ascribed to the lower and middle palaeolithic 40ar 39ar dating and other palaeoenvironmental and tephrochronological data constrain the sedimentary history of the whole succession to the mis 15 mis 12 interval between 618 13 ka and 456 2 ka palaeoenvironmental proxies suggest that over this time interval of about 150 ka sedimentary and pedogenic processes were mainly influenced by climatic changes in particular by the pulsing of local mountain glaciers of the majella massif specifically the valle giumentina succession records glacio fluvial and lacustrine sedimentation during the colder glacial periods and pedogenesis and or alluvial sedimentation during the warmer interglacial and or interstadial periods during this interval tectonics played a negligible role as a driving factor of local morphogenesis and sedimentation whereas the general regional uplift experienced in the middle pleistocene led to capture of the basin and its definitive extinction after mis 12 these data substantially improve previous knowledge of the chronology and sedimentary evolution of the succession providing for the first time a well constrained chronological and palaeoenvironmental framework for the archaeological and human palaeoecological record of valle giumentina

seismic guided estimation of log properties part 1 a data driven interpretation methodology seismic data are routinely and effectively used to estimate the structure of reservoir bodies but often play no role in the essential task of estimating the spatial distribution of reservoir or rock properties yet for a long time we have been using attributes or other features of seismic data to gain useful clues in the interpretation process since the 1960s we have known that reflection amplitude is sensitive to the thickness of thin beds in the 1970s bright spots were discovered to be useful in forecasting the presence of gas sands then in the 1980s amplitude variation with offset avo analysis was identified as an even more refined indicator for gas sands or other situations giving rise to poisson s ratio contrasts other examples exist such as predicting porosity from calibrated acoustic impedance values computed from seismic data

wintertime supercell thunderstorms in a subtropical environment a diagnostic study abstract the present study documents the environment initiation and evolution of three isolated supercell storms on 19 december 2002 as the first case near taiwan reported in the literature mainly using radar data and manual and gridded analyses in a subtropical environment the supercells occurred behind a winter cold front that provided a large west southwesterly vertical wind shear of 6 4 10 3 s 1 at 0 3 km this combined with weak to moderate instability cape 887 j kg 1 above the shallow surface cold air to yield a favorable environment for supercells an approaching upper level jet ulj at 200 hpa also provided strong shear through deep layers farther aloft prior to storm initiation significant daytime solar heating occurred over the mountain slopes along the coast of southeastern china leading to development of local circulation and onshore upslope winds resulting in convergence and uplifting three storms were initiated about 80 km inland around 1400 lst near the peaks of local terr

prediction of effective porosity from seismic attributes using locally linear model tree algorithm in this study a locally linear model tree algorithm was used to optimize a neuro fuzzy model for prediction of effective porosity from seismic attributes in one of iranian oil fields located southwest of iran valid identification of effective porosity distribution in fractured carbonate reservoirs is extremely essential for reservoir characterization these high accuracy predictions facilitate efficient exploration and management of oil and gas resources the multi attribute stepwise linear regression method was used to select five out of 26 seismic attributes one by one these attributes introduced into the neuro fuzzy model to predict effective porosity the neuro fuzzy model with seven locally linear models resulted in the lowest validation error moreover a blind test was carried out at the location of two wells that were used neither in training nor validation the results obtained from the validation and blind test of the model confirmed the ability of the proposed algorithm in predicting the effective porosity in the end the performance of this neuro fuzzy model was compared with two regular neural networks of a multilayer perceptron and a radial basis function and the results show that a locally linear neuro fuzzy model trained by a locally linear model tree algorithm resulted in more accurate porosity prediction than standard neural networks particularly in the case where irregularities increase in the data set the production data have been also used to verify the reliability of the porosity model the porosity sections through the two wells demonstrate that the porosity model conforms to the production rate of wells comparison of the locally linear neuro fuzzy model performance on different wells indicates that there is a distinct discrepancy in the performance of this model compared with the other techniques this discrepancy in the performance is a function of the correlation between the model inputs and output in the case where the strength of the relationship between seismic attributes and effective porosity decreases the neuro fuzzy model results in more accurate prediction than regular neural networks whereas the neuro fuzzy model has a close performance to neural networks if there is a strong relationship between seismic attributes and effective porosity the effective porosity map presented as the output of the method shows a highporosity area in the centre of zone 2 of the ilam reservoir furthermore there is an extensive high porosity area in zone 4 of sarvak that extends from the centre to the east of the reservoir

the interaction of simulated squall lines with idealized mountain ridges abstract numerical simulations of squall lines traversing sinusoidal mountain ridges are performed using the advanced regional prediction system cloud resolving model precipitation and updraft strength are enhanced through orographic ascent as a squall line approaches a ridge the simulated squall line then weakens as it descends the ridge because some of the cold pool is blocked by the terrain resulting in less lift along the gust front and weaker convective cells the flow within the cold pool accelerates slightly and the depth of the cold air decreases owing to upstream blocking transitioning the flow in the cold pool head from subcritical to supercritical then back to subcritical at the bottom of the ridge a hydraulic jump forms when the flow transitions the second time enabling the development of a new convective line downwind of the mountain these new updrafts grow and eventually replace the older updrafts that weakened during descent this process results in the discrete propagation of a squ

new 40ar 39ar stratigraphic and palaeoclimatic data on the isernia la pineta lower palaeolithic site molise italy abstract the archaeological deposits of isernia la pineta are a milestone in the european context being composed of very rich and large sized occupation layers the archaeological remains are characterised by the use of anvils in a very opportunistic and rapid way to produce a large number of flakes and residual cores usually of very small size the lithic instruments are associated with remains of large mammals which give a clear indication of the diet they are represented by bison schoetensacki freudenberg stephanorhinus hundsheimensis toula elephas palaeoloxodon namadicus falconer e cautley ursus deningeri von reichenau hippopotamus cf antiquus desmarest sus scrofa l hemitragus cf bonali harle e stehlin megaceroides solilhacus robert cervus elaphus cf acoronatus beninde dama dama cf clactoniana falconer capreolus sp and panthera leo fossilis von reichenau the rodent fauna is represented by clethrionomys sp pliomys episcopalis mehely pliomys lenki heller microtus aff arvalis pallas microtus brecciensis gieber microtus terricola gr multiplex subterraneus and arvicola cantiana hinton the insectivores are talpa sp sorex cf runtonensis hinton and crocidura sp two main archaeological layers have been identified the lower one sector i layer 3c rests on a phytoclastic travertine passing laterally to a phytohermal travertine which generated a small step in the watercourse a sandy silt layer of lacustrine environment layer 3b deposited inside travertine pools and very limited phytostromatolitic travertine sediments cover this layer the second occupation layer layer 3a rests on these sediments as well as on the travertines cross bedded fine gravelly sands cover the deposits and are interlayered with tuffs very rich in pyroxene and sanidine the latter gave 40ar 39ar ages of 610 10 and 606 2 ka 2 error this layer is covered by cross bedded gravels weathered by a thick alfisols with a well expressed bt horizon the uppermost part of the series is composed of gravels and colluvia containing another pyroclastic layer sanidines of this layer yield scattered ar ar ages with a main population at about 504 14 ka a maximum age of 474 3 ka is inferred for this layer the isernia travertines are not associated with hot water springs and indicate that the area was frequented at the end of an interglacial period the new ages demonstrate that the human frequentation occurred at the beginning of the middle pleistocene

numerical simulation of an intense squall line during 10 11 june 1985 pre storm part ii rear inflow surface pressure perturbations and stratiform precipitation abstract an intense rear inflow jet surface pressure perturbations and stratiform precipitation associated with a squall line during 10 11 june 1985 are examined using a three dimensional mesoscale nested grid model it is found that the large scale baroclinity provides favorable and deep rear to front flow within the upper half of the troposphere and the mesoscale response to convective forcing helps enhance the trailing extensive rear inflow however latent cooling and water loading are directly responsible for the generation of the descending portion of the rear inflow the role of the rear inflow is generally to produce convergence ahead and divergence behind the system and thus assist the rapid acceleration of the leading convection when the prestorm environment is convectively favorable and the rapid dissipation of the convection when encountering unfavorable conditions in this case study the rear inflow jet appears to have caused the splitting of the surface wake low as well as the organized

numerical simulation of a midlatitude squall line in two dimensions abstract a two dimensional anelastic cloud model was used in attempts to numerically replicate the observed structure of a midlatitude squall line initial conditions were adapted from observations of the 22 may 1976 oklahoma line model simulations were made with and without considering the ice phase of water these model storms have within the constraints of the model s geometry replicated the basic multicellular character and general line normal airflow typical of these lines in addition the structure and intensity of the subcloud cold air pool and the propagation speeds developed by the storms appear to be reasonable further it was found that the initial conditions chosen resulted in model storms which were not only long lasting but also essentially repetitive indicating that a state of quasi equilibrium had been attained the storms did not decay because the environmental conditions ahead of the storms were favorable and essentially unchanged during the course of the simulations the inclusio

africa and iberia in the pleistocene abstract the strait of gibraltar would logically seem to be a major point of contact between africa and europe yet controversy about possible trans gibraltar human movements in the lower middle and even upper pleistocene has reigned for over a century and continues to do so imbricated with biogeographical arguments about faunal transfers and the creation of hominid niches in iberia the problem of the relationships between africa and iberia is one of the knottiest in stone age prehistory did early homo h ergaster erectus or antecessor cross into iberia from the maghreb as has long been argued on the basis of general archeological similarities this old hypothesis still unproven is made somewhat more plausible by the re dating of the site of ain hanech in algeria and in particular by the spectacular lower pleistocene fossil and artifactual discoveries at atapuerca in north central spain and less securely in the guadix baza basin of granada middle pleistocene contacts remain problematic with direct peopling of iberia from northwest africa during the mid upper pleistocene seeming ironically to be out of the question as southern spain and portugal were one of the last refugia of neanderthals using mousterian technology despite proximity to the putative source of anatomical modernity and cultural superiority similarly despite years of speculation on a migrationist cause for the similarity between tanged points in the aterian of north africa and in the solutrean of mediterranean spain and portugal the chronological and archeological data solidly disprove this seductive hypothesis for the upper pleistocene it is only in the terminal paleolithic that with clear evidence of marine fishing and probable navigation a credible case can be made for trans gibraltar human contacts

oldest human expansions in eurasia favouring and limiting factors 1 introductionon november 26e28 2008 an international conference wasorganised at the museum national d histoire naturelle paris france the topic was the oldest human expansions in eurasia under theaspect of the factors which could favour or limit the humansettlements while fossil human remains are scarce in eurasia lithicassemblages suggest at least two phases of human settlement or and techno cultural spread from africa to eurasia the rst one attested by mode 1 lithic industries is observed at dmanisi georgia at 1 8 ma in asia in china and pakistan around 2 ma and in europe for example in spain since 1 2e1 4 ma at orce atapuerca in italy monte poggiolo ca 1 ma pirro nord at least1 3 ma and in france pont de lavaud le vallonnet around 1 ma some dates in china and indonesia support the idea of earliersettlementsincontinentalandislandasiathanineurope whiletheoldest tool kit in africa dates to 2 6 ma kada gona ethiopia a second phase is marked by the appearance of new tools especially handaxes and cleavers these large tools do occur inafrica around 1 6e1 7 ma konso ethiopia kokiselei kenya andaround 1 4e1 2 ma in the middle east ubeidiya israel they areconsideredasthe rstindicatorsofacheuliantradition ormode2 consisting in shaping large tools on akes or blocks these toolsappear outside africa with different time lags according togeographical areas in asia the rst ones occur around 1 2 ma isampur india and then become more signi cant with anincreasing number of sites around 800 ka in eastern asia e china and south eastern asia ngebung java in western and southerneurope acheuliansitesonlyappeararound600e700ka asattestedbythe recent discoveriesin centreregion france la noira in chervalley and they become more numerous from 500 ka onwards inspain atapuerca galeria ambrona in italy visogliano castel diguido in northern and southern france somme river terraces caune de l arago in the european continent assemblages withbifaces characteristic of acheulian onlyoccurin a geographical areastretching from southern europe to great britain however theyare lacking in central europe and the rhine river is considered asa frontier but they do exist in the caucasus near the central asianborder while they are unknown further east in tadjikistan these two waves of populating probably include numerousarrivals and we do not know whether these arrivals led each timeto a permanentsettlement particularlyif the hominin groups weresmall and geographically dispersed this time lag between asia and europe regarding the peoplingphases and their consequences is debated today within the scien ti c community what could be the migratory paths from africa toboth asia and europe or from africa to asia then to europe whomoved homo antecessor homo heidelbergensis were there somecontacts between distinct human groups rather than shiftingpopulations these questions also concern the diffusion modalitiesof technical traditions and the effect of climatic and environmentalconditions on human movements the latter could explain chro nological lags and restriction of human settlements to some areasonly however it has to be kept in mind that convergencephenomena could also happen at a regional scale in the tool kits this may be the case for acheulian people the present state of knowledge on the earth s climatic storyduringthelasttwomillionyearsshowslocalphenomenacombinedto global changes for example increase of glaciations around800ka whenclimaticcyclesshiftedtothe100kaperiodicity astheeccentricity parameter of terrestrial orbit became more importantthan the obliquity of earth s axis earlier periodicity of 41 ka mis20 characterised by strong marine regression took place at thesame time as the matuyamaebrunhes geomagnetic inversion 780 ka and is considered as an accurate chronological marker recent results of various research teams contribute to builta more complete and precise picture of the past the betterknowledge of the palaeoenvironment allows a new appraisalregarding the spread of technical behaviours in relation to theenvironmental context highlighted by new issues concerningafrica some major questions were discussed during the conference 1 the geographical dispersal of each type of lithic industry 2 the chronological gaps in the hominin settlements in thevarious areas of eurasia 3 the periods when climatic or topographic variations had animportant role favouring or limiting the human expansion insome regions

reassessing the age of atapuerca td6 spain new paleomagnetic results we carry out a new paleomagnetic study across stratigraphic layer td7 of gran dolina site atapuerca and reassess the existing absolute ages thermoluminescence electron spin resonance obtained at this site the new and more detailed magnetostratigraphic record of the matuyama brunhes boundary combined with absolute ages enables further constraint on the age of the underlying human bearing level or aurora stratum paleomagnetism of the studied silts and sandstones reveals stable dual polarity characteristic remanent magnetization directions a new normal magnetic polarity short interval is found at several consecutive sampling localities in the upper part of td7 providing a new ante quem date for the human bearing sediments of 0 9 ma possibly formed during mis 25

early italy and the colonization of western europe abstract the early phases of human occupation in italy are considered in the context of discussions on the chronology and patterns of hominid dispersal out of africa and into western europe this paper is therefore a synthesis and an evaluation of new data on three interrelated topics a the question of direct contacts between italy and north africa in the lower and middle pleistocene through the sicilian channel b the evidence for the successive dispersal in western europe of two different technical traditions and c the nature and chronology of the earliest human occupation of italy interpretations of bifaces and biface industries are discussed as they are an important aspect of out of africa models hominid presence in italy is documented at the beginning of the middle pleistocene their route of entry apparently not through sicily but from the north in contrast to the ubeidiya and gesher benot ya aqov assemblages in israel the earliest dated biface assemblages in italy with a preliminary date at about 640 70 ka show no specific characteristics that would tie them to the african acheulean evidence for a precedence of core and flake over handaxe industries is ambiguous their interpretation as designating different groups of hominids lacks a sound archaeological basis since faunal exchanges with continental europe are documented throughout the pleistocene the hypothesis of multiple episodes of human migration into italy should be considered however we can neither support it or refute it because the archaeological assemblages do not inform us on specific migration events

a numerical study of a squall line over the taiwan strait during tamex iop 2 abstract a two dimensional numerical cloud model was used to investigate a squall line that occurred over the taiwan strait on 16 may 1987 during tamex taiwan area mesoscale experiment this squall line illustrated multicellular behavior as revealed by many doppler analyses the simulated squall line produced 13 new cells successively in a 6 h simulation thus maintaining itself in a long lasting state the simulation result recaptured many of the interesting features also observed the air in the front to rear inflow was ingested into the squall line system primarily from the low levels in front of the system and accelerated upward and backward over a surface pool of cold air in the system relative frame beneath this front to rear flow a rear to front current developed between 2 and 4 km in altitude it descended into the cold pool near the surface part of this descending air moved forward toward the gust front region and part of it moved backward the relative pressure maximum coincided with the co

barrier jets during tamex abstract a barrier jet is frequently found along the northwestern coast of taiwan in the prefrontal southwesterly flow regime during the taiwan area mesoscale experiment tamex it has a maximum wind speed of 14 m s 1 at approximately 1 km above the surface with a vertical wind shear approximately 10 10 3 s 1 below and 4 10 3 s 1 above that altitude during tamex the southwesterly monsoon flow strengthens over taiwan when the low level pressure trough surface front moves toward the southeastern china coast the barrier jet is a result of the stably stratified airflow past an island obstacle under a small froude number o 1 flow regime during the occurrence of a barrier jet a windward pressure ridge is observed along the southwestern coast due to island blocking in low levels the incoming southwesterly flow decelerates off the southwestern coast and moves around the island along the western coast the deflected airflow accelerates northward with a large cross contour wind component down the p

the pre mousterian industrial complex in europe between 400 and 300 ka interpreting its origin and spatiotemporal variability abstract the author discuss data indicating that the non handaxe non acheulean tradition of small tools and core choppers was present in parts of west eurasia during the early middle pleistocene the period marked by a wide spread of acheulean in west asia and west europe and survived until 400 300 ka and perhaps later in some areas beyond the area of the maximum acheulean distribution in the danube basin and the balkans and to a limited extent north of the danube basin in central europe and in the south of russian plain and northern caucasus in eastern europe the author defines these middle pleistocene assemblages which are totally lacking true acheulean handaxes and debitage resulted from large flake or levallois knapping technologies as the pre mousterian industrial complex the assemblages of pre mousterian complex are variable due to their functional differentiation and other reasons but generally comprise the next three components 1 simple mostly primary and orthogonal and also rare unipolar and centripetal cores with short reduction sequences consisting of flaking of 1 3 flakes from one platform followed by the core rotation or discard 2 flake tools which are made mostly but not exclusively on small sized flakes with beveled platforms and include varieties of simple side scrapers denticulates notches thick end scrapers awls and convergent pieces as well as small numbers of tools with flat ventral retouch or bifacial retouched edges and 3 large sized tools are always present and include mostly unifacial choppers and more rare chopping tools and proto bifaces or pointed choppers with partial bifacial processing the author discuss that the hominids that produced lithic industries of pre mousterian complex acquired a high behavioural plasticity to settle in most uncomfortable within western eurasia forested and forest steppe environments with cold winters in central and eastern europe the hominids developed tool inventories well suited for bone and woodworking made real wooden throwing spears and composite tools with wooden hafts that are found in schoningen in contrast to the acheulean complex in west europe and west asia assemblages of pre mousterian complex do not show a transition temporally being placed now during mis 8 mis 7 between c 300 200 ka in both the regions toward the middle palaeolithic or mousterian technology in contrast to the acheulean to middle palaeolithic transition which is associated with final neanderthalization of h heidelbergensis and the origin of h neanderthalensis the assemblages of pre mousterian complex disappear with the spread of early middle paleolithic neanderthals

diagnosed characteristics of precipitation systems over taiwan during the may june 1987 tamex abstract characteristics of mei yu precipitating cloud systems over taiwan during the may june 1987 taiwan area mesoscale experiment tamex have been studied using sounding surface precipitation and radar data vertical motion has been computed over the island at 6 h intervals from 13 may to 15 june using a modification of the kinematic method that takes into account the mountainous lower boundary within a four station sounding polygon two primary characteristics of the precipitation have been found first the major rainfall event were linked to the passage of midlatitude disturbances and typically consisted of both deep convective and stratiform components deep convection was primarily prefrontal or frontal while the stratiform precipitation was postfrontal presumably in association with overrunning and orographic lifting second there was a pronounced diurnal variability in the rainfall vertical motion heating q1 and moistening q2 profiles have been used to define the character of the pr

numerical simulation of thunderstorm outflow dynamics part i outflow sensitivity experiments and turbulence dynamics abstract in this first paper of a two part series a two dimensional numerical model is developed and used to investigate the dynamics of thunderstorm outflows by focusing only on the outflow and using essentially inviscid equations and high spatial resolution we are able to explicitly represent important physical processes such as turbulent mixing to simplify interpretation of the results the model atmosphere used in all experiments is calm and dry adiabatic this approach allows us to establish basic characteristics of modeled outflows in simple physical settings and provides a foundation for future studies using more realistic environments all simulated outflows are initialized by prescribing a controlled horizontal flux of cold air into the model domain through a lateral boundary in a series of sensitivity tests we examine three parameters of the cold air source region 1 the vertical temperature deficit profile 2 the magnitude of the temperature deficit and 3 the cold air depth by hol

bayesian estimation in seismic inversion part i principles1 this paper gives a review of bayesian parameter estimation the bayesian approach is fundamental and applicable to all kinds of inverse problems its basic formulation is probabilistic information from data is combined with a priori information on model parameters the result is called the a posteriori probability density function and it is the solution to the inverse problem in practice an estimate of the parameters is obtained by taking its maximum well known estimation procedures like least squares inversion or l 1 norm inversion result depending on the type of noise and a priori information given due to the a priori information the maximum will be unique and the estimation procedures will be stable except in theory for the most pathological problems which are very unlikely to occur in practice the approach of tarantola and valette can be derived within classical probability theory the bayesian approach allows a full resolution and uncertainty analysis which is discussed in part ii of the paper

the acheulean from atapuerca three steps forward one step back abstract in western europe acheulean cultural evidence is well attested by ca 0 5 ma however recent work has proven that it was present earlier at the end of the early pleistocene the timing and mode of the western european acheulean needs still to be investigated and this knowledge appears to be strongly dependent upon data from sites with sufficiently well preserved archeo stratigraphical sequences and or geophysical conditions that guarantee reliable dating the karstic deposits from the sierra de atapuerca burgos spain represent one such case they contain exceptionally long and continuous archeo paleontological deposits that have yielded hominins stone tools and faunal remains from a period covering the late early pleistocene up to the holocene previous work has allowed us to reconstruct the evolution of technology on a local scale from the late early to the middle pleistocene and to situate the appearance of the acheulean more or less simultaneously in the sites of galeria gran dolina td10 and the sima de los huesos at around 0 5 ma after a hiatus of archeological evidence of approximately 300 ka these acheulean assemblages appear in association with hominin fossils that have recently been identified as early members of the neandertal lineage delving further into the description of the acheulean from atapuerca we have recently focused on the technological features that we consider to be of particular evolutionary significance and attempted to identify them in other european key sites of comparable chronologies indeed we identified some internal evolutionary trends which led us to propose that there was a local transition at atapuerca from the acheulean to the early middle paleolithic techno complexes however the chronological setting resulting from the intensive dating programs carried out in the galeria and sima de los huesos sites and especially the correlation of these dates with the ones available from gran dolina td10 confronts us with some apparent paradoxes underlining the need to reconsider the technological interpretation of the lithic technical record from atapuerca while great efforts are being made in dating and analysis at many european middle pleistocene sites as well as in establishing correlations with which to build consistent regional sequences single long continuous and accurately excavated i e over a large surface area archeological successions remain crucial to properly interpret the appearance and evolution of the acheulean throughout europe we further stress the importance of taking into account conditioning factors such as raw material availability environmental constraints and site function issues

reversed magnetic polarity at an early lower palaeolithic site in central italy isernia la pineta central italy is an extensive open air archaeological site of early lower palaeolithic aspect radiometric and palaeomagnetic dating place it in the matuyama reversed epoch hence before 0 73 myr its early date stratified context abundant stone tool industry of choppers and flakes and rich faunal remains make it one of the most important localities for the question of the earliest human colonization of europe the archaeological horizons fig 1 were discovered during recent road building operations at 4 m below surface near the city of isernia upper volturno basin province of molise see fig 2 excavations in 1979 and 1980 carried out in two areas sectors i and ii fig 2 revealed dense scatters of limestone choppers flint flakes and disarticulated bones of large mammals similar occurrences have been found elsewhere in the valley previous accounts1 2 are revised herein

seismic inversion for reservoir properties combining statistical rock physics and geostatistics a review there are various approaches for quantitative estimation of reservoir properties from seismic inversion a general bayesian formulation for the inverse problem can be implemented in two different work flows in the sequential approach first seismic data are inverted deterministically or stochastically into elastic properties then rock physics models transform those elastic properties to the reservoir property of interest the joint or simultaneous work flow accounts for the elastic parameters and the reservoir properties often in a bayesian formulation guaranteeing consistency between the elastic and reservoir properties rock physics plays the important role of linking elastic parameters such as impedances and velocities to reservoir properties of interest such as lithologies porosity and pore fluids geostatistical methods help add constraints of spatial correlation conditioning to different kinds of data and incorporating subseismic scales of heterogeneities

the stone tools from stratigraphical unit 4 of the bois de riquet site lezignan la cebe herault france a new milestone in the diversity of the european acheulian abstract the bois de riquet site located in a basalt quarry at lezignan la cebe l herault france contains two stratigraphical levels that have yielded archeological and paleontological materials level us2 is already known for its rich paleontological record in association with a few basalt stone tools dating to around 1 2 ma level us4 presented here for the first time corresponds to a mudflow event containing stone tools attributed to the acheulian techno complex geomorphological data from the l herault valley region as well as combined paleomagnetic and cosmogenic dating all indicate that the mudflow event most likely occurred at the beginning of the middle pleistocene the industries found within the mudflow are knapped mainly from basalt the assemblage collected so far include flakes and cores knapped from four different raw materials as well as some large flakes 10 cm and a few bifacial tools retouched items and a few very large pieces knapped on basalt blocks interpreted as giant cores in the european context assemblages presenting such features are scarce outside of spain and may indicate an affiliation to an early phase of the acheulian

the early and early middle pleistocene context of human occupation and lowland glaciation in britain and northern europe abstract this paper reviews the stratigraphical and environmental contexts of early human occupation and lowland glaciation in britain and northern europe it highlights the fragmentary nature of most of the critical sequences and the inadequacy of existing stratigraphical frameworks the earliest archaeology known from nw europe has been reported from happisburgh 3 a site on the norfolk coast the flint artefacts from here were recovered from sediments previously assigned to the pastonian stage of the early pleistocene however the mammalian assemblage from happisburgh 3 differs from other local sites attributed to the pastonian indicating a younger age within the early pleistocene the sediments have reversed palaeomagnetic polarity and have palynological features inviting correlation with the leerdam interglacial in the dutch bavelian complex the interglacials of the british cromerian complex are compared and their archaeological record reviewed at most of these sites the archaeology includes hand axes associated with a mammalian assemblage containing the water vole arvicola but at pakefield suffolk a core and flake industry is associated with the ancestral mimomys savini this together with the even older record from happisburgh 3 indicates earlier periods of human occupation than previously known from nw europe at least five temperate episodes with distinct faunal assemblages are now recognized in the british early middle pleistocene but these are unlikely to equate directly with odd numbered stages of the marine isotope record this biostratigraphical framework conflicts with a new glacial stratigraphy for east anglia which proposes glaciations during mis 16 12 10 and 6 evidence is reviewed from sidestrand and trimingham where datable organic sediments occur directly beneath and above the middle pleistocene glacial succession indicating that it was emplaced entirely during the anglian glacial stage mis 12 a new stratigraphical framework is provided ranking british sites in order of relative age which is then compared with a revised scheme for the dutch late early and early middle pleistocene succession the revisions involve the relocation of the waardenburg interglacial interglacial 1 to the bavelian complex and the use of the brunhes matuyama palaeomagnetic reversal to define both the base of the dutch cromerian complex and the early middle pleistocene boundary moreover following recent re interpretation the noordbergum interglacial interglacial iv and glacial c are removed from the cromerian complex and are correlated with mis 11 and mis 12 respectively this scheme imposes greater consistency between the british and dutch successions as well as conformity with guidelines recommended by the international stratigraphic commission

orographic effects on a squall line system over taiwan abstract a north south oriented multicellular squall line during the taiwan area mesoscale experiment s tamex intensive observation period 2 was studied using dual doppler radar data as it moved over the island of taiwan over the open ocean it moved eastward at a constant speed 15 5 m s 1 as the squall line encountered taiwan island s complex mountainous areas the leading edge moved slower in the mountain ridge areas than over the valleys as a result its orientation became approximately parallel to the terrain contours in the upper levels the eastward movement of the squall line aloft was less affected by the terrain compared to the low levels as a result the westward tilt of the rising motion at the front became less significant part of the system relative rear to front flow entered the rising branch of the storm s circulation as a result of orographic lifting as illustrated by the trajectory analysis and was enhanced by latent heat release the system relative rear to front flow did

the earliest securely dated hominin fossil in italy and evidence of acheulian occupation during glacial mis 16 at notarchirico venosa basilicata italy the early middle pleistocene site of notarchirico basilicata italy is a 7 m thick fluvially emplaced sedimentary sequence rich in volcanic materials coming from the monte vulture stratovolcano this site consists of 11 archaeological layers some of which have yielded handaxes one femur attributed to homo heidelbergensis was also recovered from an upper level we present in this study new 40ar 39ar and electron spin resonance ages that delimit the time of occupation of notarchirico to between 670 4 ka 14 ka and 614 4 ka 12 ka therefore spanning mainly the glacial marine isotope stage 16 handaxes found in archaeosurface f are now securely dated to between 670 4 ka 14 ka and 661 4 ka 14 ka and prove that hominid populations living in southern italy used acheulian technology as early as the beginning of this stage futhermore we placed the age of the human femur between 661 4 ka 14 ka and 614 4 ka 12 ka this fossil is therefore the oldest middle pleistocene human fossil discovered in italy so far thanks to this new chronological framework notarchirico is now a key site in our understanding of the early acheulian culture in western europe

the lower early middle pleistocene small debitage productions in western europe new data from isernia la pineta t 3c upper volturno basin italy abstract isernia la pineta archaeological site in central italy dated to about 0 6 ma is one of the earliest archaeological sites of the italian peninsula and one of the key sites for the knowledge of human behaviour during the early middle pleistocene in western europe several archaeostratigraphic units have been recognized and systematically excavated core and flake assemblages were studied as a bulk in the eighties of last century with a typo metrical approach not taking into account a precise stratigraphic provenance here we present a review of the lithic collection from the lowermost archaeostratigraphic unit t 3c which is the first techno economic analysis based on the concept of chaine operatoire our results contrast with those from previous studies our analysis demonstrates that the technical criteria employed in small debitage are not opportunistic and unstructured as previously inferred by contrast they correspond to well established mental templates that led knappers 1 to use mainly a discoid method 2 to apply this debitage method regardless of the size and shape of the original matrix 2 to maintain a high productivity and 3 to produce medium sized flakes to be turned into small tools the new data are discussed in the framework of the lower early middle pleistocene technological complexes of western europe calling into question a number of allegations about the first technical traditions that have been previously accepted without reservation

raw material discernment and technological aspects of the barranco leon and fuente nueva 3 stone assemblages orce southern spain lithics from barranco leon and fuente nueva 3 in orce spain respectively 1 3 and 1 2 ma according to paleomagnetic and biochronological criteria provide information about the oldest known european mode 1 assemblages at these sites both located in what were swampy areas close to the eastern shores of the baza paleo lake evidence points towards competition between hominins and hyenas to access large herbivore carcasses abandoned by other carnivores to make their tools hominins collected rocks available nearby such as limestone and flint distinctive groupings of rock type with typo technological elements are clear flint was largely exploited for flake production whereas limestone was reserved for percussion instruments and worked cobbles these spanish sites do not comprise true configured tools knapping strategies were adapted to raw material constraints and initial block form the hard hammer on an anvil technique was frequently used to reduce small cube shaped flint matrixes and some larger limestone pieces technical systems were mainly unidirectional recurrent although polyhedron shaped multiplatform cores were also produced by hard hammer technique while evidence from the near east attests to the presence of mode 2 producing populations as early as 1 4 ma such assemblages do not appear in europe until around 0 7 ma given data from the orce assemblages how might the earliest hominin occupations of europe be interpreted

lower and middle pleistocene human settlements in the middle loire river basin centre region france abstract evidence of earliest human settlements observed in the alluvial formations of the middle loire basin during systematic surveys organised since 1981 many stepped fluvial terraces deposited during the successive interglacial glacial quaternary cycles have been identified in three tributary valleys of the loire river the creuse cher and loir valleys these alluvial remnants were systematically dated by the electron spin resonance esr method applied on optically bleached quartz in order to construct a chronostratigraphical framework for the fluvial systems and the associated archaeological localities four localities containing early palaeolithic industries with mode 1 technology occupied during the lower pleistocene and ten sites characterized by assemblages with handaxes discovered in the middle pleistocene alluvial formations are described in this paper these two sets of localities are characterized by lithic industries with many differences in supply of raw materials and in technical behaviours the results indicate that this area was reached by two separate phases of human settlement one in relation to mode 1 the other to mode 2 with an interval around 400 ka at the end of the lower pleistocene during a period characterized by major climatic degradations

numerical simulations of the barrier jet over northwestern taiwan during the mei yu season orographic effects on the airflow over taiwan under the prevailing southwesterly monsoon flow are studied using the fifth generation pennsylvania state university national center for atmospheric research psu ncar mesoscale model mm5 in particular the orographically induced low level strong winds along the northwestern coast of taiwan are simulated in the absence of radiative forcing thermal forcing from the surface and synoptic forcing the momentum balance for the low level strong winds along the northwest coast of taiwan shows that above the mixed layer the alongshore force balance is dominated by the inertial advection term and the pressure gradient force term the significant lagrangian flow acceleration of the northern branch of the deflected airflow along the northwest coast is mainly related to the pressure gradient force as the airflow moves down the orographically induced pressure ridge along the windward coast even though the alongshore pressure gradient force along the northwest coast is largest at the surface the observed and simulated wind profiles show that the wind speed maximum in the vertical of the barrier jet occurs at a height of 800 m primarily due to frictional retardation in the lowest levels within the well mixed layer the alongshore force balance is a threeway balance between inertial advection pressure gradient force and frictional force normal to the northwest coast the force balance is approximately geostrophic in addition the location and the strength of the orographically induced low level strong winds along the northwest coast of taiwan also depend on the impinging angle and the wind speed of the prevailing winds

seismic controlled nonlinear extrapolation of well parameters using neural networks we present a data driven method of joint inversion of well log and seismic data based on the power of adaptive mapping of artificial neural networks anns we use the ann technique to find and approximate the inversion operator guided by the data set consisting of well data and seismic recordings near the wells then we directly map seismic recordings to well parameters trace by trace to extrapolate the wide band profiles of these parameters using the approximation operator compared to traditional inversions which are based on a few prior theoretical operators our inversion is novel because 1 it inverts for multiple parameters and 2 it is nonlinear with a high degree of complexity we first test our algorithm with synthetic data and analyze its sensitivity and robustness we then invert real data to obtain two extrapolation profiles of sonic log dt and shale content sh the latter a unique parameter of the inversion and significant for the detailed evaluation of stratigraphic traps the hig

pressure and temperature perturbations within a squall line thunderstorm derived from sesame dual doppler data abstract some dynamic and thermodynamic properties of a convective cell within a squall line that occurred on 6 june 1979 were studied based on dual doppler observations the domain under investigation had a horizontal dimension of 27 km 27 km with 12 levels in the vertical the grid spacing used was 1 km vertical velocities were computed from the anelastic continuity equation by integrating downward with variational adjustment fields of deviation perturbation pressure density and virtual temperature were recovered from a three dimensional wind field using the thermodynamic retrieval method these retrieved fields were then subjected to internal consistency checks to determine the level of confidence our findings demonstrate that thermodynamic retrieval is feasible when random errors inherent in the radial wind components are minimized by proper smoothing errors in the computation of vertical velocity can be substantially reduced when a variational approach is used with the anelastic continuity equ

the middle pleistocene site of guado san nicola monteroduni central italy on the lower middle palaeolithic transition abstract the archaeological site of guado san nicola monteroduni central italy under excavation since 2008 is located in the upper volturno valley near the top of a fluvial terrace attributed to the middle pleistocene several anthropic levels have been recognized within a stratigraphic sequence of more than two meters in thickness characterized by alternating gravelly and sandy fluvial layers rich in pyroclastic materials attributable to the end of mis 11 beginning of mis 10 according to the obtained radiometric dates 40 ar 39 ar and esr u series in this paper we discuss the chrono stratigraphic record the paleontological and zooarchaeological data and we provide a detailed techno economic analysis of the lithic industry characterized by the coexistence of handaxes and levallois debitage the site of guado san nicola represents the oldest evidence of the emergence of prepared core technologies in the italian peninsula adding new data to the debate on the lower middle palaeolithic transition in western europe

structural changes of an outer tropical cyclone rain band encountering the topography of northern taiwan this study utilized ground based doppler radar observations to document the detailed structures of an outer tropical cyclone rainband tcr of typhoon longwang 2005 as the rainband passed over the topography of northern taiwan on 1 october 2005 the tcr was oriented northeast southwest and was roughly parallel to the mountain barrier with a higher lower terrain height in its southern northern landfalling segment during the pre landfall stage the tcr was characterized by convective precipitation on its inner side where the front to rear flow met with the rear to front flow to lift air upward with overturning updraft like signatures significant relatively minor changes in the tcr s structures were evident in the southern northern landfalling segment during the landfalling stage in particular the southern landfalling segment exhibited a much stronger front to rear flow that passed through the region of the rainband resulting in the absence of low level organized convergence and a relatively disorganized nature of precipitation this structural change was shown to be closely related to a significant decrease in the cross barrier flow due to the orographic blocking that occurred as easterly ambient winds encountered local high mountains in the vicinity of the rainband segment as the tcr propagated over the western side of the major topography the low level rear to front flow reappeared due to the collapse of low level orographic blocking and the convergence between the front to rear flow and the rear to front flow tended to rebuild a well organized convective circulation along the rainband results from this case study provide insight into processes that contribute to rapid structural changes in a landfalling tcr over mountainous regions

porosity from seismic data a geostatistical approach using a geostatistical technique called cokriging the areal distribution of porosity is estimated first in a numerically simulated reservoir model then in an oil bearing channel sand of alberta canada the cokriging method consistently integrates 3 d reflection seismic data with well measurements of the porosity and provides error qualified linear mean square estimates of this parameter in contrast to traditional seismically assisted porosity mapping techniques that treat the data as spatially independent observations the geostatistical approach uses spatial autocorrelation and crosscorrelation functions to model the lateral variations of the reservoir properties in the simulated model the experimental root mean square porosity error with cokriging is 50 percent smaller than the error in predictions relying on a least squares regression of porosity on seismically derived transit time in the reservoir interval in the alberta reservoir a cross validation study at the wells demonstrates that the co

acoustic impedance inversion pitfalls and some fuzzy analysis this article describes some of the pitfalls which may be encountered when trying to integrate seismic and well log information through seismic acoustic impedance inversion the article is illustrated using the well known stratton 3 d seismic and well log data set available from the bureau of economic geology in austin texas the onshore texas stratton field is comprised of stacked gas reservoirs and produces from frio and vicksburg reservoirs the frio unit is a sediment supply dominated fluvial deltaic system characterized by rapid deposition and high subsidence rates the middle frio considered here is relatively undeformed and flat lying with a gentle north to south elongated subsurface domal closure

the early to middle pleistocene boundary in the baza basin spain abstract the continental vertebrate fauna of cullar baza 1 granada spain occur immediately above the matuyama brunhes polarity boundary and therefore represent an initial record for the middle pleistocene all polarity zones for the late pliocene through middle pleistocene are found in an 80 m section which includes this fossil quarry the existing collection of abundant remains of micro mammals macro mammals and lithic artifacts indicating human activity can now be assigned an earliest middle pleistocene age of 0 75 ma another section 25 km across the neogene baza basin also has the matuyama brunhes polarity boundary however in this case the huescar 1 fossil quarry and the puerto lobo sites are both below the polarity boundary thus representing a record of the late early pleistocene at 0 9 ma differences in micro mammal species across these matuyama brunhes boundaries are significant and justify an approximately coincident biostratigraphic boundary between the biharian and toringian stages

one million years of cultural evolution in a stable environment at atapuerca burgos spain abstract the present paper analyses the evidence provided by three sites sima del elefante gran dolina and galeria located in the trinchera del ferrocarril of the sierra de atapuerca these three sites are cave infillings that contain sediments deposited from approximately 1 2 ma to 200 kyr pollen herpetofauna and small and large mammal remains are used as proxies to obtain a general picture of the environmental changes that occurred at the sierra de atapuerca throughout the one million year period represented at these sites similarly cultural changes are tracked analyzing the evidence of human behavior obtained from the study of several bone and lithic assemblages from these three sites at least three periods with different cultural features involving technology subsistence and behavior are determined from the available evidence the first two periods correspond to the mode 1 technology and homo antecessor the first is dated around 1 2 to 1 0 ma and reflects opportunistic behavior both in technology and subsistence the second period is around 800 kyr bp mode 1 technology is still maintained but subsistence strategies include systematic hunting and the use of base camps the third period is dated between 500 ka and 200 ka and corresponds to the mode 2 technology and the acquisition of directional hunting and other organizational strategies by homo heidelbergensis a transition from mode 2 to mode 3 seems to appear at the end of this time range and may reflect the early phases of a fourth cultural change with regard to the environment our main conclusion is that there was an absence of extremely harsh conditions at atapuerca throughout this time period the presence of mediterranean taxa was constant and the dominant landscape was a savannah like open environment probably with small forest patches an alternation of mediterranean and mesic species as the dominant component of the tree storey was induced by the climatic cycles and steppes spread across the landscape during the drier periods in any case it is not possible to establish clear cut off points separating entirely different environmental episodes our results show no evidence of any relationship between environmental change and cultural change at the sierra de atapuerca

effect of vertical wind shear on numerically simulated multicell storm structure abstract a strictly two dimensional cloud model was used to gauge the effect of vertical wind shear on the mature phase behavior of model simulated multicellular storms extending the previous work of the authors we specifically examined the propagation speed quasi equilibrium behavior storm scale and updraft orientation of the model storms as a function of shear intensity we also considered the precipitation efficiencies of our model storms and applied density current and rotunno klemp weisman theories to our results our previous work revealed that model storms could achieve a mature phase consisting of repetitive multicellular development when certain numerical obstacles were overcome this was referred to as a quasi equilibrium state we found herein that this state was also reached by model storms even when subjected to a very wide range of low level wind shear intensities although the temporal behavior during this stage was clearly dependent on the shear we also found a very systematic rela

esr dating of tooth enamel a comparison with kar dating abstract the reliability of the esr dating of tooth enamel was tested for a famous italian palaeolithic site isernia la pineta already dated by the k ar method esr ages calculated with early uranium uptake model eu linear uranium uptake model lu and us esr model are between 80 and 251 ka the us model with the hypothesis of inverse correlation between esr signal heights and uranium concentration resulted in an age of about 450 ka for one sample these ages are compared with a k ar age of 736 ka

first dated human occupation of italy at 0 85 ma during the late early pleistocene climate transition abstract a candidate for the oldest human occupation site in italy is monte poggiolo where the lithic tool bearing levels are currently dated to 1 ma based on electron spin resonance esr the low analytical precision of 30 at 2 makes it unclear whether the date actually conflicts with a recent reassessment of age constraints on key hominin sites from italy france and spain pointing to a uniformly young timing for the earliest habitation of southern europe during the late early pleistocene climate transition within reverse magnetic polarity subchron c1r 1r 0 988 0 781 ma our new magnetostratigraphic and biostratigraphic results show a sequence of stable normal and reverse polarities in a regional lithostratigraphic context that indicate the monte poggiolo tool bearing site post dates the jaramillo normal polarity subchron most probably occurring at 0 85 ma immediately after the pronounced cooling that culminated with marine isotope stage 22 when the associated regression may have opened new migration routes through the po valley for large mammals and hominins

late pliocene to early mid pleistocene mammals in eurasia faunal succession and dispersal events abstract four major dispersal events mark european villafranchian and galerian faunas about 3 2 0 4 ma the beginning of the villafranchian is evidenced by the arrival of leptobos and of large cervids and felids the fauna still retains typical forest elements mammut tapirus etc the elephant equus event about 2 5 2 6 ma brought in grassland elements elephant horse while several forest dwellers disappeared the massive arrival of a primitive wolf a large hyaena and leptobos etruscus approximately marks the plio pleistocene boundary wolf event about 1 7 ma this was followed by a new wave of prairie fauna praeovibos leptobos vallisarni allophaiomys canis arnensis a coyote canis falconeri possibly a lycaonid cervalces and hippopotamus also arrived at this time the villafranchian galerian transition saw a total faunal turnover with massive extinctions and new previously unknown adaptations end villafranchian event 1 0 0 9 ma the late pleistocene and living fauna of eurasia took its origin at this time mammalian stratigraphy of asia is more poorly known but faunas are easily correlated with european ones and the end villafranchian event is clearly recognised faunal events are correlated with climatic and physiographic changes late himalayan orogeny

lithostratigraphical correlation of micromammal sites and biostratigraphy of the upper pliocene to lower pleistocene in the northeast guadix baza basin southern spain the plio pleistocene non marine sequence in the northeast guadix baza basin southern spain comprises alluvial and lacustrine deposits baza formation the results of a revised lithostratigraphical correlation between sections from the middle and upper members of the baza formation in the northeast part of the basin supported by detailed mapping is presented the position of micromammal sites in the lithostratigraphical scheme together with the results of intensive palaeontological sampling for small mammal remains has allowed us to develop a high resolution biostratigraphical framework for the area this provides an opportunity to refine the biozonation for the plio pleistocene micromammal faunas and to define faunal events from the late villanyian late pliocene to the early pleistocene on the basis of the lithostratigraphical and biostratigraphical approaches we obtain the following sequence of biozones for the late pliocene to early pleistocene kislangia gusii mimomys cf reidi m oswaldoreigi allophaiomys pliocaenicus and a burgondiae copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

a climatology of warm season cloud patterns over east asia based on gms infrared brightness temperature observations abstract in the present study hourly infrared ir brightness temperatures observed by the geostationary meteorological satellite gms over the region 20 40 n 95 145 e in may august 1998 2001 are used to compile a climatology of warm season cloud precipitation episodes over east asia with a goal to better understand the characteristics of warm season convection and the behavior of these episodes results are compared with those obtained in north america using radar derived data the convection in east asia similar to that in north america is shown to also exhibit coherent patterns and characteristics of propagating events in the longitude time hovmoller space with a preferred phase speed of 10 25 m s 1 considerably faster than warm season synoptic scale waves near the eastern edge of the tibetan plateau convection was most active with a strong diurnal signal peaking in late afternoon or early evening then propagating eastward the zonal span and duration of episodes could reach 3000 km and

tephro stratigraphy and the age of ancient southern italian acheulean settlements the sites of loreto and notarchirico venosa basilicata italy the stratigraphic and chronological positions of the palaeolithic sites of loreto and notarchirico have been revised by adopting a litho tephro stratigraphic approach applied to the deposits of the venosa basin relating them to the evolution of volcanic eruptions of mount vulture the notarchirico tephra dated to around 640 ka is a geological marker of paramount importance in the study of ancient southern italia settlements and identifies the assemblage from level f at notarchirico as one of the oldest acheulean in europe

palaeoenvironment and dating of the early acheulean localities from the somme river basin northern france new discoveries from the high terrace at abbeville carriere carpentier dating the earliest human occupations in western europe and reconstructing links with climatic and environmental constraints is a central issue in quaternary studies amongst the discovery of palaeolithic artefacts ascribed to the early pleistocene in southeast britain and central france the somme basin where the acheulean type site amiens saint acheul is located is a key area for addressing this topic research undertaken over the past 20 years on both quaternary fluvial and loess sequences of this area has provided a unique dataset for the study of the relations between human occupations and environmental variations studies based on an interdisciplinary approach combining sedimentology palaeontology and geochronology have highlighted the impact of the 100 kyrs cycles on terrace formation during the last million years in this terrace system the earliest in situ acheulean settlements known in the 1990s were dated to early mis 12 450 ka but new field discoveries at amiens rue du manege dated to 550 ka significantly increase the age of the oldest human occupation in the area in this context new fieldwork has been undertaken in abbeville at the carriere carpentier site famous for its white marl deposit attributed to the cromerian and in the same terrace level where the former discoveries of abbevillian bifaces were made by d ault du mesnil this research is based on an interdisciplinary approach combining sedimentology paleontology dating esr on quartz and esr u series on teeth and archaeology according to the various bio proxies molluscs large vertebrates small mammals the white marl was deposited during the early part of an interglacial phase in an aquatic slow flowing environment as emphasized by the development of oncoliths and the presence of fish and aquatic molluscs the landscape was composed of a mosaic of open bush and forest areas in which wet and grassy vegetation developed on riverbanks on the basis of terrace stratigraphy esr and esr u series dating results and biostratigraphic data the fluvial deposits of the white marl can be securely attributed to mis 15 in addition some acheulean bifaces were discovered at the base of the slope deposits directly overlying the fluvial sequence these artefacts are most likely coeval with the end of mis 15 or an early stage of mis 14 between 550 and 500 ka and represent together with the artefacts from amiens rue du manege the oldest in situ evidence of acheulean occupation in northern france however no unquestionable artefacts have been discovered in the white marl or in the underlying gravel layer these discoveries contribute to the chronology of the earliest evidence of hominin occupations in north western europe which may be related to homo heidelbergensis

the acheulean workshop of la noira france 700 ka in the european technological context abstract the prehistoric site of la noira located in the cher valley a tributary of the loire river in the center of france has yielded a lithic assemblage composed of large bifacial tools cores and flakes the archaeological level lying on the tertiary lacustrine limestone bedrock was covered and fossilized by a 6 m thick fluvial sandy formation the mean age value of esr dates obtained on bleached fluvial quartz grains sampled in the sandy levels covering the archeological level is 665 55 ka confirming the antiquity of the archaeological assemblage esr dates and the technical characteristics of the assemblage suggest that it is among the oldest sites with bifacial technology in western europe since 2011 following geological and geochronological studies the archaeological level has been excavated over a surface of about 100 m 2 the aim of this paper is to provide new data on the lithic assemblage and to place the lithic patterns of the site in the european technological framework la noira is a workshop site belonging to a key period of time with the earliest evidence of the bifacial technology in europe as for instance levels p q of arago in france or notarchirico in italy contemporaneous with 800 500 ka sites without bifacial technology such as happisburgh pakefield in england or isernia in italy this phase predates the wide scale dissemination of the bifacial technology all over western europe from the mis 12 technological comparisons between these assemblages and a discussion of the diversity of assemblages and technological features point to early episodic arrivals of new traditions in europe against a background of earlier traditions

characteristics of a subtropical squall line determined from tamex dual doppler data part i kinematic structure abstract in this study structural features of a subtropical squall line that occurred on 17 may 1987 over the taiwan straits were investigated using dual doppler data collected during the taiwan area mesoscale experiment tamex fields of the storm relative wind and reflectivity were derived in a horizontal domain of 45 km 25 km using an objective analysis scheme with 1 km grid spacing in all three directions there were ten analysis levels in the vertical ranging from 0 3 to 8 8 km vertical velocities were computed from the anelastic continuity equation by integrating downward with variational adjustment results show that many structural features of a subtropical squall line are similar to those for a fast moving tropical squall line a low level jet llj associated with the frontal system provides the necessary strong shear at lower levels on the front side of the squall line front to rear flow prevails at all levels and is accompanied by shallow rear to front flow on the back of the line ther