age and paleoclimatic significance of late holocene lakes in the carson sink nv usa abstract new dating in the carson sink at the termini of the humboldt and carson rivers in the great basin of the western united states indicates that lakes reached elevations of 1204 and 1198 m between 915 and 652 and between 1519 and 1308 cal yr b p respectively these dates confirm morrison s original interpretation lake lahontan geology of the southern carson desert professional paper 40 u s geol survey 1964 that these shorelines are late holocene features rather than late pleistocene as interpreted by later researchers paleohydrologic modeling suggests that discharge into the carson sink must have been increased by a factor of about four and maintained for decades to account for the 1204 m lake stand the hydrologic effects of diversions of the walker river to the carson sink were probably not sufficient by themselves to account for the late holocene lake level rises the decadal long period of increased runoff represented by the 1204 m lake is also reflected in other lake records and in tree ring records from the western united states

seismic attenuation in northeastern sonora mexico we studied the attenuation of local and regional earthquake body waves recorded by the seismic network of northeastern sonora mexico red sismica del noreste de sonora resnes the source station paths of the selected data set cover the epicentral region of the may 1887 m w 7 5 sonora earthquake we used the best located earthquakes recorded by resnes between 2003 and 2004 to analyze the spectral amplitude decay of body waves with hypocentral distance the database consists of 44 earthquakes with magnitudes between 1 8 and 3 2 and hypocentral distances between 25 and 150 km we calculated fourier spectral amplitudes from more than 400 records and defined attenuation functions with a nonparametric model by inverting the observed spectral amplitudes at 23 individual frequencies between 0 4 and 63 1 hz we determined regional attenuation curves based on events located more than 100 km northwest of the center of the network and local curves based on earthquakes located near the fault zone that ruptured in the 1887 earthquake the obtained attenuation curves indicate that the spectral amplitudes decay faster in the area of the 1887 rupture than in the surrounding region to analyze the possible sources of attenuation we parameterized the attenuation functions considering three terms one that accounts for geometrical spreading another one for anelastic attenuation and a third for near surface attenuation we found the s wave quality factor q to be similar in both the general region and near the 1887 rupture however in the region of the 1887 rupture the near surface attenuation exceeds the regional average finally in the region of the 1887 rupture the nonparametric attenuation functions and the estimates of q indicate that at between 0 6 and 63 1 hz p waves attenuate more than s waves q p 20 8 f 1 1 whereas q s 83 8 f 0 9

spectral characteristics of the excitation and propagation of lg from underground nuclear explosions in central asia the nonlinear inverse method of xie 1993 is applied to analyze lg spectra from many recent underground nuclear explosions in central asia the analysis simultaneously determines lg seismic moments m0 and corner frequencies fc of events as well as path variable lg q values and their frequency dependences at 1 hz lg q at 1 hz estimated for many paths from the lop nor and balapan test sites to various broadband incorporated institution for seismology chinese digital seismic network and kyrghizstan network stations agree well with path averaged lg coda q values from previously obtained tomographic maps for eurasia this suggests that the lg q values obtained in this inversion have not been significantly affected by focusing defocusing or other effects of three dimensional structural complexities the logarithms of lg m0 values obtained in this study correlate linearly with a slope of about 1 2 with international seismological centre isc body wave magnitudes mb the linear relationship is consistent with a previous empirical relationship found between the logarithm of p wave seismic moments and isc mb values the slope of the linear relationship also suggests that the logarithm of lg m0 is a more direct measure of event size than is mb which for larger events is affected by high frequency amplitude falloff another important finding of this study is that the m0 values for the explosions scale with fc 4 rather than with fc 3 as would be expected if stress drops were constant this is consistent with previous scaling relations derived using lg from earthquake sources and suggests that the difference between lg and local s excitation by the same source types explosion or earthquake may overwhelm that between the excitation of lg by different source types a comparison between lg m0 and fc values obtained using an explosion source model with those obtained using an earthquake source model suggests that the m0 values estimated using the explosion source model are systematically lower by a factor of 0 27 than those estimated using the earthquake source model this occurs even though the data used are the same in the inversions with the two types of source model the factor of 0 27 is therefore due to the source model dependence of the m0 fc estimates the overshoot and lower spectral levels at lower frequencies in the explosion source model tend to reduce both the estimated m0 and fc values this suggests that in any nuclear monitoring program the same type of source model either an earthquake or explosion should always be used to discriminate explosions using lg the source model dependence also suggests that more effort should be made to estimate the amount of overshoot in the lg excitation caused by various source types

development and evaluation of geochemical methods for the sourcing of archaeological maize abstract strontium sr isotope values on bone from deer mice pairs from 12 field sites in the chaco canyon area new mexico were compared with isotope values of synthetic soil waters from the same fields the data indicate that mice obtain sr from near surface sources and that soil samples collected at depths ranging from 25 to 95 cm contain sr that is more accessible to the deep roots of maize thus synthetic soil solutions provide better data for the sourcing of archaeological maize however the sr isotope composition of mice may be more valuable in sourcing archaeological remains of animals such as rabbit turkey and deer in a separate study five native american maize zea mays l ssp mays accessions grown out at new mexico state university agricultural science center farmington new mexico were used to determine if soil water metal pairs partition systematically into cobs and kernels the sampled maize included landraces from three native american groups acoma hopi zuni that still occupy the four corners area two cobs each were picked from 10 plants of each landrace partitioning of the ba mn ba sr ca sr and k rb metal pairs from the soil water to the cob appears to behave in a systematic fashion in addition 51 rare earth element ree pairs also appear to systematically partition from the soil water into cobs however the ratios of the ree dissolved in the soil waters are relatively invariant therefore the distribution coefficients that describe the partitioning of ree from the soil water to the cob may not apply to archeological cobs grown under chemically heterogeneous conditions partitioning of ba rb ba sr mg p and mn p metal pairs from the soil water to kernels also behaves in a systematic fashion given that modern native american landraces were grown under optimal environmental conditions that may not have been duplicated by prehistoric native americans the distribution coefficients obtained in this study should be used with caution

attenuation of multiphase surface waves in the basin and range province part i lg and lg coda summary broad band data recorded by the lawrence livermore laboratory network are used to investigate whether or not lg q and lg coda q have similar values in the basin and range province of north america in order to retrieve spectral estimates of the broad band lg and lg coda signals a hybrid method is used which retains high fidelity at lower frequencies while strongly smoothing the spectral estimates and minimizing the number of spectral points at high frequencies a stochastic approach is used to model the lg signal and ambient noise and to analyse results from two station determinations of lg q in the basin and range the effects of ambient noise frequency dependent station site response and focusing defocusing on lg q inversion are analysed it is shown that after averaging spectral ratios determined from repeated observations over four two station paths a modest site effect will not cause significant errors in the resulting lg q relation using this inversion scheme and spectral ratio estimates averaged over those paths at frequencies between 0 2 and 2 5 hz we obtain the relation qlg f 267 f 56 f0 37 0 06 for the basin and range province further constraints on lg q were obtained from lg coda which due to the natural averaging effect of scattering is insensitive to effects of focusing defocusing to investigate the validity of the single isotropic scattering model for lg coda in the basin and range province we calculated ischrons for scatterers corresponding to later lg coda signals as required by the single scattering model it is found that when significant portions of these isochrons are oceanic lg coda amplitude decay becomes irregular and abnormally slow suggesting a strong scattering reflection effect caused by the rapidly changing crustal structure along the coast applying the single isotropic scattering model to lg coda records with isochrons mostly confined to the continental crust results in q f 275 f 26 f 0 36 0 03 which is nearly identical to our qlg relation this indicates that even in a complicated geological province a joint interpretation of the dynamic properties of lg and lg coda can be successful and fruitful inconsistent lg q and coda q relations found in earlier studies in the basin and range province may be attributed to different settings of parameter trade offs different seismic phases or different dynamic properties being used

the huldremose iron age textiles denmark an attempt to define their provenance applying the strontium isotope system abstract archaeological textiles recovered on two occasions from the huldremose bog denmark represent some of the best preserved and complete garments from the danish iron age 500 bc ad 800 in order to address the question regarding the provenance of the textile s raw material we applied a recently developed method based on strontium isotopes to wool and plant fibres from these ancient garments textile plant fibres from huldremose i find are of non local provenance whereas the wool from which the garment was made stemmed from sheep grazing on glaciomoraine soils developed on cretaceous tertiary carbonate platform sediments widely found in denmark the huldremose ii find consists of an unusually large and well preserved garment which is composed of wool from at least three different provenances one source is again local whereas the other two sources characterized by elevated 87sr 86sr ratios are compatible with geologically older precambrian terrains which are typical for northern scandinavia e g norway or sweden our study suggests that wool and plant fibres were either traded or brought as raw materials for textiles more commonly and over longer distances than previously assumed

development and application of methods used to source prehistoric southwestern maize a review archaeological cobs free of mineral contaminants should be used to source the soils in which they were grown mineral contaminants often contain much higher concentrations of metals than vegetal materials and can alter a cob s apparent metal and heavy isotope content cleaning a cob via immersion in an acid solution for more than a few minutes will result in the incongruent and sometimes complete leaching of metals including strontium sr from the cob when using 87sr 86sr to determine the location of potential agriculture fields it is best to either integrate several depth integrated soil samples or to integrate several vegetation samples from individual fields biologically labile sr in semi arid southwestern soils largely originates from eolian source or sources and usually is not derived from underlying bedrock existing sr isotope data indicate that archaeological cobs from aztec ruins came from either the mesa verde mcelmo dome or totah areas that pueblo bonito and chetro ketl cobs from chaco canyon that predate a d 1130 probably came from the rio chaco corridor and that cobs from chaco canyon that postdate a d 1130 probably came from either the totah or zuni areas

interpretation of high frequency coda at large distances stochastic modelling and method of inversion summary based on previous work a stochastic convolution model is proposed for the lg coda observed at large epicentral distances 200 km coda at these distances differ from local coda in several respects effects of various physical processes such as dispersion scattering and mode conversion on coda at large distances are discussed in detail a spectral ratio method is developed for inversion of lg coda q in which the large variance associated with inversion is greatly reduced the method is also extended to the inversion of seismic source parameters by jointly using lg and its coda we have tested the model and method exhaustively using data from two gdsn stations and found the results to be superior to other methods when those methods used only a small number of stations

lg magnitudes and yield estimates for underground novaya zemlya nuclear explosions abstract lg wave amplitudes of 30 novaya zemlya underground nuclear explosions as recorded by short period seismographs in denmark finland germany norway spitsbergen and sweden are used to determine m b lg values assuming that the m b lg versus explosion yield relation derived from nevada test site data applies to all continental areas the yields of the explosions are estimated they cover a large range of values from 2 5 to 4900 kt the largest explosion since april 1976 had an estimated yield of 145 kt the m b lg values when subtracted from the m b p values can be used to estimate the m b p bias between two test sites in this way the m b p bias between novaya zemlya and the nevada test site is estimated to be 0 20 magnitude units

lg coda q variation across eurasia and its relation to crustal evolution an extensive set of broadband and short period seismograms from regional seismic events has been used to derive a tomographic image of broad scale variations of lg coda q for most of eurasia the image indicates that lg coda q at a frequency of 1 hz varies between about 200 and 1000 lowest q values 800 are found in four regions the east european shield the siberian shield the indian shield and the southwestern and oldest portion of the altaid belt the pattern of lg coda q variation across eurasia suggests that crustal q in any region is directly proportional to the length of time that has elapsed since the most recent episode of large scale compressional tectonic activity or upper mantle heating that occurred there we interpret the low q as resulting largely from hydrothermal fluids generated by tectonic activity or heating that now reside in cracks and permeable portions of the eurasian crust crustal q increases with time after that activity as fluids are lost to the surface or absorbed by retrograde metamorphism

lg coda q and its relation to the geology and tectonics of the middle east regional seismograms were collected to image the lateral variations of lg coda q at 1 hz q 0 and its frequency dependence in the middle east using a back projection method the data include 124 vertical component traces recorded at 10 stations during the period 1986 1996 the resulting images reveal lateral variations in both q 0 and in the turkish and iranian plateaus a highly deformed and tectonically active region q 0 ranges between about 150 and 300 with the lowest values occurring in western anatolia where extremely high heat flow has been measured the low q 0 values found in this region agree with those found in other tectonically active regions of the world throughout most of the arabian peninsula a relatively stable region q 0 varies between 350 and 450 being highest in the shield area and lowest in the eastern basins all values are considerably lower than those found in most other stable regions low q values throughout the middle east may be caused by interstitial fluids that have migrated to the crust from the upper mantle where they were probably generated by hydrothermal reactions at elevated temperatures known to occur there low q 0 values about 250 are also found in the oman folded zone a region with thick sedimentary deposits varies inversely with q 0 throughout most of the middle east with lower values 0 4 0 5 in the arabian peninsula and higher values 0 6 0 8 in iran and turkey q 0 and are both low in the oman folded zone and western anatolia

propagation of lg waves in the north australian craton influence of crustal velocity gradients abstract aftershocks of three large earthquakes near tennant creek in the northern territory of australia provide a unique opportunity to study regional seismic phases in the north australian craton three portable digital seismographs were operated near the source zone to provide control on earthquake locations and seven recorders formed a line between tennant creek and the seismic array at alice springs which is 430 km to the south eleven earthquakes of sufficient size for analysis were recorded during a one week deployment two months following the main shocks the group velocity observed for lg waves along this profile of 3 7 km sec is at the high end of the normal range and appropriate for a stable continental interior we estimate attenuation in discrete frequency bands by measuring the decay of amplitude as a function of distance from the source and assuming the common r 5 6 relationship for geometrical spreading however this assumption leads to frequency dependent q values q 230 36 f 0 66 0 12 that are abnormally low for a stable continental region the apparent q is also not consistent with other observations such as the high lg group velocity the positive bias in m l estimates obtained for other parts of australia using standard attenuation relations the size of felt areas for large central australian earthquakes nor with the high frequency content of seismic reflection data collected near our profile some crustal models for northern australia derived from seismic refraction work show a gradient zone between 30 and 55 km rather than a sharp moho discontinuity we therefore investigate the effect of gradient zones at the crust mantle transition on the decay of lg amplitudes using synthetic seismograms calculated with the wavenumber integral method the modeling suggests that some of the s wave energy that would be trapped in a crustal wave guide with a sharp lower boundary can leak out in the presence of a gradient and so enhance the attenuation in addition there are focusing effects due to the formation of caustics from the gradient zones which cannot be represented by a single analytic amplitude correction

eddy and wave dynamics in the south atlantic as diagnosed from geosat altimeter data almost 3 years of geosat data were analyzed to ascertain the characteristics of the sea surface height variability in the south atlantic the nature of the sea surface height field is shown to be nonstationary heterogeneous and anisotropic in particular the wavenumber spectral characteristics of the sea surface height field such as spectral slopes shape breaks in spectral slopes and energy density values vary with latitude and longitude within the basin the spectral slopes exhibit a spectral dependence approaching k 5 in the high energy areas and k 3 in the low energy areas along track characteristic wavelengths are found to decrease from north 500 km to south 300 km and from west to east the eddy available potential energy exhibits maximum values in the highly energetic eddy shedding regions of the malvinas brazil confluence and the agulhas leakage region mean frequency spectra calculated from time series of sea surface height variability at crossover points reveal evidence of annual and semiannual signatures with energy levels reaching 1000 cm2 in the high energy western and eastern systems these values represent 20 of the energy found for periods of 100 days or less which is the time scale of the mesoscale variability baroclinic rossby waves with periods of 400 500 days are found to propagate away from the eddy shedding region of the agulhas leakage into the atlantic the phase energy of these planetary waves propagates toward the west southwest west northwest from their source near the southern tip of africa correlation functions in space both in the zonal and along track directions and time lag corroborate these findings zonal and meridional wavenumbers were calculated using a simple wavenumber projection technique which takes into a count the anisotropic property of the wave field the resultant wavelengths approximately 250 km are consistent with those calculated from the dispersion relation for baroclinic rossby waves these waves propagate with a group speed of 0 4 cm s 1 and provide a net energy flux from the agulhas leakage into the atlantic toward the western boundary and the equator across 25 s

effect of low q sediments and crustal q on lg attenuation in the united states q values for lg and its coda exhibit significant lateral variations across the united states some of which correlate with known variations in the thickness of shallow sedimentary layers the possibility that all variations in lg attenuation are caused by changes in the thickness of shallow sediments is investigated by computing multi mode synthetic seismograms for crustal models with various thicknesses of low q sediments using crustal velocity and q models obtained in previous studies and reasonable values for the thicknesses and intrinsic q values of sediments in several regions we find that the variation of lg q values between the appalachian and rocky mountains can easily be produced by varying accumulations of sandstone and shale of mesozoic age and younger by contrast throughout most of the western united states neither the low lg q values which have been observed nor the regional variation of those values can be explained by accumulations of low q sediments instead their explanation appears to require low and laterally varying values of q in the crystalline crust

isotope sourcing of prehistoric willow and tule textiles recovered from western great basin rock shelters and caves proof of concept isotope and trace metal analyses were used to determine the origin of plants used to manufacture prehistoric textiles basketry and matting from archaeological sites in the western great basin research focused on strontium 87 sr 86 sr and oxygen 18 o 16 o isotope ratios of willow salix sp and tule schoenoplectus sp the dominant raw materials in great basin textiles the oxygen isotope data indicated that the willow and tule used to produce the textiles were harvested from the banks of rivers or in marshes characterized by flowing water and not from lakes or sinks the strontium isotope data were useful in showing which plants came from the humboldt river and which came from rivers headed in the sierra nevada published by elsevier ltd

carbonate deposition pyramid lake subbasin nevada 4 comparison of the stable isotope values of carbonate deposits tufas and the lahontan lake level record abstract in this paper the fundamental importance of changes in hydrologic balance and hydrologic state on the 18o and 13c values of water and dissolved inorganic carbon dic in lakes of the lahontan basin is illustrated abrupt changes in 18o and 13c values of carbonate deposits tufas from the pyramid lake subbasin nevada coincide with abrupt changes in lake level and hydrologic state minima in lake level at 26 000 15 500 and 12 000 yr b p are associated with relatively heavy 18o and 13c values maxima in the lake level record at 14 000 and 10 500 yr b p are associated with relatively light 18o and 13c values we believe that the correlation between maxima and minima in the lake level and 18o records reflect the fundamental effect of lake level dynamics on the 18o value of lake water evaporation increases the 18o value of lake water whereas streamflow discharge and on lake precipitation decrease the 18o value variation in the 18o value of lake water therefore indicates change in the hydrologic balance increases in 18o accompany decreases in lake volume and decreases in 18o accompany increases in lake volume covariance of 13c and 18o indicates that change in 13c values of dic also accompany change in lake volume we offer the hypothesis first put forward by j a mckenzie that change in the productivity photosynthesis respiration balance is responsible for much of the observed variation in 13c most great basin lakes including lake lahontan experienced changes in hydrologic state during the late wisconsin when a lake becomes hydrologically open the residence time of water decreases the greater the rate of spill the greater the volume of evaporated 18o enriched water removed from the spilling lake and the more negative the 18o value of water remaining in the spilling lake the concentration of dic as well as the concentrations of photosynthesis limiting nutrients e g phosphorus nitrogen silica molybdenum decrease as spill increases increasing rates of spill therefore lead to overall decreases in photosynthetic rates relative to respiration rates and as a consequence the 13c values of dic become more negative

stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen in the truckee river pyramid lake surface water system 3 source of water vapor overlying pyramid lake during 1988 and 1989 a series of water vapor extractions were conducted in the pyramid lake basin to determine the source of moisture that overlies the lake calculations of the isotopic and water vapor balances were made from isotopic and meteorological data from the pyramid lake and reno nevada areas the results indicate that in the warm season most of the moisture that overlies the lake is derived from evaporation as opposed to advected moisture isotopic fluxes at the lake surface can be approximated by climatic data from the lake site which simplifies the calculation of this input in numerical simulations of the isotopic evolution of the lake the stable isotopic composition of a lake is a function of the volume weighted isotopic values of each component of the lake s hydrologic balance researchers have used the stable isotope history of a lake together with the volume weighted isotopic composition of easily measured components of the hydrologic balance to estimate the stable isotope values or amounts of less easily measured components of the hydrologic balance see iaea 1970 1979 it is usually relatively simple to quantify the amounts and isotopic compositions of components of the surface water system and the isotopic composition of groundwater it is often more difficult to quantify the amount and direction of groundwater transport across the sediment water interface and the amount and isotopic composition of lake surface evaporation the isotopic value of water evaporated from a lake is highly dependent on the isotopic value acknowledgments we express our appreciation to those who assisted in sampling including jim davis dan mosley and nancy vucinich special thanks to irving friedman who loaned us the copper traps used for water vapor extraction to carol kendall and tyler coplen who oversaw the isotopic analyses to james ashby who maintained the weather stations and to steve hostetler who extracted the meteorological data from the weather station database and stratified the wind data for the sutcliffc and northshore sites we also thank zell peterman steve hostetler and pieter tans for reviews of earlier versions of this manuscript

radiogenic and stable strontium isotopes in provenance studies a review and first results on archaeological wood from shipwrecks abstract different approaches are used to study wood provenance but most of them are based on tracers in wood that are generally controlled by climatic factors the strontium isotopic ratio 87 sr 86 sr in trees and soils is related to the signature of the local bedrock despite being used in diverse archaeological studies sr isotopes have rarely been used to trace the provenance of archaeological wood and especially wood from shipwrecks in addition recent analytical advances have allowed the detection of mass dependent fractionation of sr isotopes during biogeochemical processes as reflected in the variation of 88 86 sr values between different environmental materials the 88 86 sr values could be used in conjunction with the 87 sr 86 sr isotope ratio to improve constraints on the sources of sr in the archaeological materials being studied this paper discusses the potential and limitations of using both of these sr isotope ratios to trace the provenance of wood from shipwrecks we review the 87 sr 86 sr and 88 86 sr variations in rocks waters soils plants and other living organisms and discuss how to determine the local sr isotopic signature of potential sites we also compile a list of known wood post mortem modifications in seawater possible implications in terms of the modification of the original sr isotope ratios of wood during storage in seawater are illustrated through preliminary observations this paper points out some limitations and perspectives for using sr isotopes in provenancing wood from shipwrecks and suggests future research to test and apply this approach for tracing the origin of archaeological wood

lg coda q and its relation to the structure and evolution of continents a global perspective tomographic maps of lg coda q q lg c variation are now available for nearly the entire african eurasian south american and australian continents as well as for the united states q lg c at 1 hz q 0 varies from less than 200 to more than 1000 and q lg c frequency dependence varies between 0 0 and nearly 1 0 q 0 appears to increase in proportion to the length of time that has elapsed since the most recent major episode of tectonic or orogenic activity in any region a plot of q 0 versus time since that activity indicates that a single q 0 time relation approximates most mean q 0 values those that deviate most from the trend lay in australia the arabian peninsula and the east african rift the increase in q 0 with time may be due to a continual increase in crustal shear wave q q caused by the loss of crustal fluids and reduction of crustal permeability following tectonic or orogenic activity extrapolated values of q lg c at 5 hz using q 0 and values measured at 1 hz and assuming that is constant in all regions between 1 and 5 hz show a similar percentage wise increase with times that has elapsed since the most recent activity other factors that can reduce q 0 in continental regions include thick accumulations of sediment especially sandstone and shale of mesozoic age and younger severe velocity gradients at the crust mantle transition and possibly lateral variations in the depth thickness and severity of those gradients severe and large increases of q in the mid crust of some regions can cause relatively large values of even if the frequency dependence of q is small

a back projection method for imaging large scale lateral variations of lg coda q with application to continental africa summary a new method is developed which uses back projection tomography to regionalize large scale lateral variations of coda q for lg waves which have traversed long continental paths successful use of this method requires precise and stable single trace measurements of lg coda q xie nuttli 1988 the method converges rapidly and requires minimal computer storage it also allows quantitative estimation of resolution and error in imaging lateral variations of coda q the spatial resolution of this method is limited by the uneven spatial coverage of the data base by our limited knowledge of lg coda generation and by the trade off between the stability and the spatial resolution of the coda q inversion the method is applied to a large set of digital lg coda data from africa where large scale lateral variations of lg coda q are found to correlate well with major tectonic features most of africa is stable and like other stable regions has relatively high coda q values the lowest values of coda q are associated with the african rift system other regions of low q values include the atlas mountains and cape fold belt regions of mesozoic and younger deformation the lateral variation of frequency dependence of lg coda q correlates in most regions with that of q at 1 hz our analysis of the spatial resolution of this method indicates that the resolving power of lg coda q imaging is comparable to that of velocity tomography using long period surface waves using empirical approaches we estimate that uncertainties in lg coda q and its power law frequency dependence parameter are less than about 60 and about 0 2 respectively for most of africa

attenuation of multiphase surface waves in the basin and range province iii inversion for crustal anelasticity summary a combined inversion forward modelling procedure in which the frequency dependence of shear wave internal friction q 1 is allowed to vary with depth was developed and applied to selected rayleigh wave and lg attenuation data in the basin and range province of the south western united states both q and the frequency dependence of lg waves were used to constrain the models many models can explain rayleigh wave and lg data sets within their uncertainties but at 1 hz most have low values of q 50 80 in the upper 8 km of the crust rapidly increasing values to about 1000 at mid crustal depths and decreasing values at greater depths models which include a layer of higher q values 80 150 in the upper few kilometres of the crust overlying a region of lower q values cannot be precluded by the attenuation data of this study assuming that q varies with frequency as f models for which the frequency dependence is low 0 0 0 1 in the upper crust best explain the data of this study in the lower crust that frequency dependence is not well determined but the models which best explain both the fundamental mode and lg data and produce realistic models of q are characterized at 1 hz by high values of both q and its frequency dependence because of that frequency dependence q may be an order of magnitude lower at a period of 100 s 100 than it is at 1 s 1000 investigations of the effects of changing crustal velocity on values for lg q and its frequency dependence indicate that realistic velocity changes cause only small changes in those values and thus are inconsequential to our results the low q values and their constancy with frequency in the uppermost crust can be explained by fluid flow in a network of cracks in brittle rock increasing q with depth to 10 15 km can be explained by the closing of those cracks due to pressure and their enhanced healing with increasing temperature plastic flow at greater depths may contribute further to the dissipation of cracks and to further increases in q decreasing q values at greater depths can be explained as being the result of increasing temperature increasing content of partial melt enhanced dislocation motion or some combination of these effects

holocene multidecadal and multicentennial droughts affecting northern california and nevada abstract continuous high resolution 18 o records from cored sediments of pyramid lake nevada indicate that oscillations in the hydrologic balance occurred on average about every 150 years yr during the past 7630 calendar years cal yr the records are not stationary during the past 2740 yr drought durations ranged from 20 to 100 yr and intervals between droughts ranged from 80 to 230 yr comparison of tree ring based reconstructions of climate change for the past 1200 yr from the sierra nevada and the el malpais region of northwest new mexico indicates that severe droughts associated with anasazi withdrawal from chaco canyon at 820 cal yr bp calendar years before present and final abandonment of chaco canyon mesa verde and the kayenta area at 650 cal yr bp may have impacted much of the western united states during the middle holocene informally defined in this paper as extending from 8000 to 3000 cal yr bp magnetic susceptibility values of sediments deposited in pyramid lake s deep basin were much larger than late holocene 3000 0 cal yr bp values indicating the presence of a shallow lake in addition the mean 18 o value of caco 3 precipitated between 6500 and 3430 cal yr bp was 1 6 less than the mean value of caco 3 precipitated after 2740 cal yr bp numerical calculations indicate that the shift in the 18 o baseline probably resulted from a transition to a wetter 30 and cooler 3 5 c climate the existence of a relatively dry and warm middle holocene climate in the truckee river pyramid lake system is generally consistent with archeological sedimentological chemical physical and biological records from various sites within the great basin of the western united states two high resolution holocene climate records are now available from the pyramid and owens lake basins which suggest that the holocene was characterized by five climatic intervals tic and 18 o records from owens lake indicate that the first interval in the early holocene 11 600 10 000 cal yr bp was characterized by a drying trend that was interrupted by a brief 200 yr wet oscillation centered at 10 300 cal yr bp this was followed by a second early holocene interval 10 000 8000 cal yr bp during which relatively wet conditions prevailed during the early part of the middle holocene 8000 6500 cal yr bp high amplitude oscillations in tic in owens lake and 18 o in pyramid lake indicate the presence of shallow lakes in both basins during the latter part of the middle holocene 6500 3800 cal yr bp drought conditions dominated owens lake desiccated and lake tahoe ceased spilling to the truckee river causing pyramid lake to decline at the beginning of the late holocene 3000 cal yr bp lake tahoe rose to its sill level and pyramid lake increased in volume

shear wave velocity structure in north america from large scale waveform inversions of surface waves a two step nonlinear and linear inversion is carried out to map the lateral heterogeneity beneath north america using surface wave data the lateral resolution for most areas of the model is of the order of several hundred kilometers the most obvious feature in the tomographic images is the rapid transition between low velocities in the tectonically active region west of the rocky mountains and high velocities in the stable central and eastern shield of north america the model also reveals smaller scale heterogeneous velocity structures a high velocity anomaly is imaged beneath the state of washington that could be explained as the subducting juan de fuca plate beneath the cascades a large low velocity structure extends along the coast from the mendocino to the rivera triple junction and to the continental interior across the southwestern united states and northwestern mexico its shape changes notably with depth this anomaly largely coincides with the part of the margin where no lithosphere is consumed since the subduction has been replaced by a transform fault evidence for a discontinuous subduction of the cocos plate along the middle american trench is found in central mexico a transition is visible from low velocities across the trans mexican volcanic belt tmvb to high velocities beneath the yucatan peninsula two elongated low velocity anomalies beneath the yellowstone plateau and the eastern snake river plain volcanic system and beneath central mexico and the tmvb seem to be associated with magmatism and partial melting another low velocity feature is seen at depths of approximately 200 km beneath florida and the atlantic coastal plain the inversion technique used is based on a linear surface wave scattering theory which gives tomographic images of the relative phase velocity perturbations in four period bands ranging from 40 to 150 s in order to find a smooth reference model a nonlinear inversion based on ray theory is first performed after correcting for the crustal thickness the phase velocity perturbations obtained from the subsequent linear waveform inversion for the different period bands are converted to a three layer model of s velocity perturbations layer 1 25 100 km layer 2 100 200 km layer 3 200 300 km we have applied this method on 275 high quality rayleigh waves recorded by a variety of instruments in north america iris usgs iris ida terrascope rstn sensitivity tests indicate that the lateral resolution is especially good in the densely sampled western continental united states mexico and the gulf of mexico

measurement of frequency dependent lg attenuation in the great basin measurement of the spatial decay of spectral amplitudes of the higher mode seismic surface wave train lg indicates that in the great basin the apparent seismic quality factor q is a function of frequency observations along a 300 km profile recording of a nuclear explosion yield the function q 206 0 68 over the band 0 3 10 0 hz similar analysis using numerous recordings of earthquakes along paths which provide a good average sampling of the great basin crust gives q 214 15 0 54 0 09 for 0 3 5 0 hz if the crustal sampling by lg energy from nuclear explosions surface sources is primarily in the shallow crust as has been suggested then these results indicate a greater frequency dependence of apparent q there than at depth

regional variation of lg coda q in the continental united states and its relation to crustal structure and evolution records from broadband digital stations have allowed us to map regional variations of lg coda q across almost the entire united states using a stacked ratio method we obtained estimates of q 0 lg coda q at 1 hz and its frequency dependence for 218 event station pairs those sets of estimates were inverted using a back projection method to obtain tomographic images showing regional variations of q 0 and q 0 is lowest 250 300 in the california coastal regions and the western part of the basin and range province and highest 650 750 in the northern appalachians and a portion of the central lowlands intermediate values occur in the colorado plateau 300 500 the columbia plateau 300 400 the rocky mountains 450 550 the great plains 500 650 the gulf coastal plain and the southern portion of atlantic coastal plain 400 500 and the portions of the central lowlands surrounding the high q region 500 550 the pattern of q 0 variations suggests that the united states can be divided into two large q provinces one province spans the area from the rocky mountains to the atlantic coast is tectonically stable and exhibits relatively high q 0 the other extends westward from the approximate western margin of the rocky mountains to the pacific coast is tectonically active and exhibits low q 0 the transition from high to low lg coda q in the western united states lies further to the west than does an upper mantle transition for q and electrical resistivity found in earlier studies the difference in q 0 between the western and eastern united states can be attributed to a greater amount of interstitial crustal fluids in the west regions of moderately reduced q within the stable platform often occur where there are accumulations of mesozoic and younger sediments reduced q 0 in the southeastern united states may not be due to anelasticity but may rather be explained by a gradational velocity increase at the crust mantle boundary that causes shear energy to leak into the mantle

lg coda q variations across south america and their relation to crustal evolution nine broadband seismograph stations in south america have provided 389 recordings of lg coda with paths that cover most of the continent lg coda q q0v and frequency dependence values at 1 hz obtained from these records were inverted using back projection tomography to obtain regionalized maps of q0 and the entire western margin of the continent the active andean mountain belt is typified by low q0 250 450 whereas broad regions of high q0 700 1100 span the central brazilian shield and contiguous regions to the north and south intermediate q0 450 700 characterizes the northern patagonia platform and most of the atlantic shield reduced q0 in the atlantic shield may be related to tectonic or igneous activity that occurred during the breakup of gondwanaland during the jurassic period this q distribution is generally consistent with earlier studies where q0 was found to be directly proportional to the time that has elapsed since the most recent episode of major tectonic or orogenic activity in any region reduced q0 in the patagonian platform may however be due to young sediments there

carbonate deposition pyramid lake subbasin nevada 3 the use of 87sr values in carbonate deposits tufas to determine the hydrologic state of paleolake systems abstract sierran rivers that discharge to the lahontan basin have much lower 4 5 87sr values than the humboldt river which drains northeastern nevada the 87sr values of tufas deposited during the last lake cycle were used to determine when humboldt derived sr entered the pyramid lake subbasin prior to 15 000 yr b p the humboldt river flowed to the smoke creek black rock desert subbasin during the recession of lake lahontan the humboldt river diverted to the carson desert subbasin this study has demonstrated that 87sr can be used to determine drainage histories of multi basin lake systems if the 87sr values of rivers that discharge to the basins are sufficiently different

regionalization of crustal coda q in the continental united states a contour map of crustal q sub 0 values for the entire united states is presented based on a scattering model to explain the coda waves of local and near regional earthquakes these coda q sub 0 values are in good agreement with q of lg waves data are obtained from over 250 local earthquakes with most magnitudes between 3 0 and 5 0 recorded by 25 wwssn and 27 lrsm stations throughout the continental united states these two sets of data provide a range of frequencies from 0 5 to 3 5 hz a frequency dependence of q is observed in the range of frequencies considered a power law dependence of the form q q sub 0 f f sub 0 sup eta is assumed the value of frequency dependence eta is found to be maximum in the tectonically active western united states and least in the stable regions of the central and south central united states the lowest q sub 0 values are obtained in the western united states with values ranging from 140 to 200 in the coastal plains average crustal q sub 0 values for the basin and range province vary from 200 to 300 increasing gradually to 400 in the colorado plateau region q sub 0 valuesmore in the columbia plateau vary from 200 to 400 q sub 0 values increase very rapidly along the central and southern rocky mountains from 400 to 800 east of the rocky mountains q sub 0 values increase gradually in the interior plains to a maximum value of around 1300 in the mississippi embayment region farther east q sub 0 values decrease gradually to an almost constant value of 1000 along the appalachian mountains coastal regions of eastern and northeastern united states have a crustal q sub 0 value between 900 to 700 regions of north central and gulf coastal plains show low q sub 0 values ranging from 600 to 400 and less the source factor b f sub p a measure of the intensity of scattering was obtained for several different regions of the continental united states regions of high q sub 0 values exhibit low intensity of scattering less

crustal q structure in the united states from multi mode surface waves determination of q structures are made using a new method which matches observed surface wave spectra with theoretical spectra computed for earthquakes with known fault plane solutions the importance of the method lies in its ability to utilize relatively short paths between a single source and receiver both of which are preferably located within a single geological province the method has been applied to study the regions of the eastern united states the colorado plateau and the basin and range province q models have been obtained through trial and error procedures and with an inversion scheme developed for that purpose models for each region obtained from these two procedures are in good agreement q values in the upper crust as obtained from inversions are 275 for the eastern united states 160 for the colorado plateau and 85 for the basin and range province q values in the lower crust although not well determined must be much higher than upper crustal values in all three regions the conclusions are consistent with those of previous work in which q values in the upper crust of a broad region of the western united states are lower than those of the eastern united states these new results show that substantial variations of q occur in different regions of the western united states the upper crustal q values show an inverse relationship to heat flow values

variability of crustal attenuation in the northeastern united states from lg waves high quality digital seismograms from eight pairs of collocated earthquakes in the northeastern united states were analyzed to determine accurate source spectrum corner frequencies this was accomplished by applying the empirical green s function method to regional pg and lg or sg phases recorded by vertical component seismographs of the u s national seismographic network usnsn and the lamont doherty cooperative seismographic network lcsn stations the frequency band used was 0 5 16 hz for usnsn and 1 30 hz for lcsn records the source spectrum corner frequencies for the eight larger earthquakes of the event pairs magnitudes between mb lg 2 5 4 1 range from about 4 3 to 16 3 hz based on the comer frequencies obtained independently from the empirical green s function analysis sg or lg wave displacement amplitude spectra up to 30 hz were used to determine the crustal average q factors along 87 event station paths these paths crossed diverse tectonic features in the northeastern united states and were in the epicentral distance range of 41 to 1394 km we found that within the northeastern united states the crustal average qlg we obtained was frequency dependent and showed spatial variability which correlated fairly well with the major tectonic features in the region our attenuation measurements indicated low lg attenuation in the adirondack mountains with exposed precambrian grenville basement with qlg 905 f0 40 high lg attenuation in the central appalachian province with qlg 561 586 f0 46 0 47 and an intermediate lg attenuation in northern new england appalachians with q 705 f0 41

pb and sr concentrations and isotopic compositions in prehistoric north american teeth a methodological study abstract we present pb and sr isotopic compositions and elemental concentrations for dentin and enamel from 28 human teeth from 10 locations in the southwestern united states these teeth represent native american communities that were functioning between 300 bce and 1200 ce we wished to assess whether pb isotopic data can extend the interpretations made from sr isotopic data alone and to determine the analytical requirements for doing sr and pb analyses from single samples pb concentrations in our samples are between 0 06 and 48 ppm with sr concentrations between 10 and 3300 ppm 87 sr 86 sr compositions lie between 0 708 and 0 712 pb isotopic compositions are more variable with 206 pb 204 pb ranging between 17 9 and 21 7 isotopic compositions and elemental concentrations for both sr and pb can be determined on samples smaller than 1 mg but there is real heterogeneity between samples of this size neither concentrations nor isotopic compositions are reproducible to within analytical uncertainty in replicate aliquots from individual teeth we cannot determine whether this variability is an in vivo or a diagenetic effect combined pb and sr isotopic data discriminate most locations and the inclusion of pb data provides a stronger basis for archeological interpretations our data suggest that pb is more susceptible to post mortem exchange than sr background isotopic data are needed to characterize pb and sr sources in the study areas pb concentration data for enamel samples indicate a blood pb load of 0 1 0 2 g pb dl for preindustrial native americans