present day kinematics of the mediterranean a comprehensive overview of gps results i combine recently published gps results to derive a geodetic horizontal velocity field consistent at the scale of the mediterranean and the surrounding alpine belts the velocity field is then used to discuss the boundary conditions around each major deforming area in the mediterranean to describe the main patterns of motion and deformation to critically review the existing kinematics models and to finally point out the main unresolved kinematics questions strain rate in europe north of the alpines belt is dominated by the signature of the glacial isostatic adjustment and tectonic strain remains below the current accuracy of gps results in the western mediterranean deformation is restricted to the betics the alboran and the morrocan rif with west to southwestward motion with respect to iberia which is part of stable europe shortening consistent with the relative nubia eurasia plate motion is found throughout the maghrebides but the distribution of deformation in northern africa remains largely unknown the central mediterranean is dominated by the counter clockwise rotation of the adriatic the junction between the southern adriatic domain and nubia has yet to be firmly established the deformation over a wide area east of the maghrebides in tunisia and the gulf of sirte in libya still remains to be quantified in the eastern mediterranean the velocity field is dominated by a general anti clockwise rotation and a general trend towards the hellenic trench with velocity magnitude increasing with decreasing distances from the trench this trend is observed not only in the aegean and anatolia but also in the southern balkans geodetic results emphasize that the convergence of the nubia and arabia plates towards eurasia directly controls the deformation across only very few segments along the plate boundary zone additional processes are therefore required to explain the observed velocity field and deformation pattern

paired dissolved and particulate phase cu isotope distributions in the south atlantic abstract copper cu is both an essential micronutrient and toxic to photosynthesizing microorganisms at low concentrations its dissolved vertical distribution in the oceans is unusual being neither a nutrient type nor scavenged type element this distribution is attributed to biological uptake in the surface ocean with remineralisation at depth combined with strong organic complexation by dissolved ligands scavenging onto particles and benthic sedimentary input we present coupled dissolved and particulate phase cu isotope data along the uk geotraces south atlantic section alongside higher resolution dissolved and particulate phase cu concentration measurements our dissolved phase isotope data contribute to an emerging picture of homogeneous deep ocean 65cu at about 0 65 relative to nist srm 976 we identify two pools of cu in the particulate phase a refractory lithogenic pool at about 0 and a labile pool accessed via a weak acidic leach at about 0 4 these two pools are comparable to those previously observed in sediments we observe deviations towards lighter 65cu values in the dissolved phase associated with local enrichments in particulate cu concentrations along the continental slopes and in the surface ocean copper isotopes are thus a sensitive indicator of localised particle associated benthic or estuarine cu inputs the measurement of cu isotopes in seawater is analytically challenging and we call for an intercalibration exercise to better evaluate the potential impacts of uv irradiation storage time and different analytical procedures

evidence of large scale deformation patterns from gps data in the italian subduction boundary abstract we present the velocity field in italy derived from over 300 continuous gps stations operated in the 1998 2009 time span the gps network maps the whole country with a mean inter site distance of about 50 km and provides a valuable source of data to study the ongoing deformation processes in the central mediterranean the estimated horizontal and vertical velocity fields show major significant features and also less known second order kinematic features a general uplift characterizes the whole apennines and alpine belts that follow the topographic ridge whereas the po plain shows a gradually increasing subsidence from west to east the apennines belt displays a distinctive extension 50 80 10 9 yr 1 while compressive tectonic regimes characterize northern sicily eastern alps and the northeast front of the northern apennines 25 50 10 9 yr 1 second order deformation patterns on large scale wavelength 100 km have been detected on the accretionary prism of central and southern apennines that are highly correlated with other geophysical data vp anomalies seismic anisotropy etc and related to deep rooted sections 70 100 km marked by different subduction regimes apparently at this scale length the observed deformations are governed by the lithosphere as a whole we interpret these deformations as a result of different subduction mechanisms such as variations of the subduction rollback velocity affecting different segments of the subduction zone and or to mantle flows in proximity of the slab edges further south in central southern sicily we detect a contraction of 1 1 0 2 mm yr that probably accommodates part of the africa eurasia convergence on the outer thrust front of the apennines maghrebides belt this hypothesis agrees with an independent analysis of the seismicity associated to the sicilian basal thrust thought to be still active the itrf2005 estimates of the new gps velocity field are available also in sinex format as supplementary file s1

itrf2008 plate motion model 1 the itrf2008 velocity field is demonstrated to be of higher quality and more precise than past itrf solutions we estimated an absolute tectonic plate motion model made up of 14 major plates using velocities of 206 sites of high geodetic quality far from plate boundaries deformation zones and glacial isostatic adjustment gia regions derived from and consistent with itrf2008 the precision of the estimated model is evaluated to be at the level of 0 3 mm a wrms no gia corrections were applied to site velocities prior to estimating plate rotation poles as our selected sites are outside the fennoscandia regions where the gia models we tested are performing reasonably well and far from gia areas where the models would degrade the fit antarctica and north america our selected velocity field has small origin rate bias components following the three axis x y z respectively 0 41 0 54 0 22 0 64 and 0 41 0 60 95 per cent confidence limits comparing our model to nnr nuvel 1a and the newly available nnr morvel56 we found better agreement with nnr morvel56 than with nnr nuvel 1a for all plates except for australia where we observe an average residual rotation rate of 4 mm a using our selection of sites we found large global x rotation rates between the two models 0 016 ma and between our model and nnr morvel56 of 0 023 ma equivalent to 2 5 mm a at the earth surface

persistent scatterer interferometric synthetic aperture radar for crustal deformation analysis with application to volcan alcedo galapagos 1 while conventional interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar is a very effective technique for measuring crustal deformation almost any interferogram includes large areas where the signals decorrelate and no measurement is possible persistent scatterer ps insar overcomes the decorrelation problem by identifying resolution elements whose echo is dominated by a single scatterer in a series of interferograms existing ps methods have been very successful in analysis of urban areas where stable angular structures produce efficient reflectors that dominate background scattering however man made structures are absent from most of the earth s surface furthermore existing methods identify ps pixels based on the similarity of their phase history to an assumed model for how deformation varies with time whereas characterizing the temporal pattern of deformation is commonly one of the aims of any deformation study we describe here a method for ps analysis stamps that uses spatial correlation of interferogram phase to find pixels with low phase variance in all terrains with or without buildings prior knowledge of temporal variations in the deformation rate is not required for their identification we apply stamps to volcan alcedo where conventional insar fails because of dense vegetation on the upper volcano flanks that causes most pixels to decorrelate with time we detect two sources of deformation the first we model as a contracting pipe like body which we interpret to be a crystallizing magma chamber the second is downward and lateral motion on the inner slopes of the caldera which we interpret as landsliding

sources sinks and storage of river sediment in the atlantic drainage of the united states the history of sediment and its movement in the atlantic drainage demonstrate some of the difficulties of modeling sediment on a river basin scale soil erosion was accelerated by a factor of at least 10 when european settlers cleared forests and planted crops although increasing soil conservation practice and decreasing crop farming have since reduced the rates of erosion large quantities of eroded material are still stored on hillslopes and in stream valleys where they continue to augment the sediment loads of the rivers the sediment from this episode of erosion that is largely past can be expected to emerge from storage for many decades and perhaps even several centuries to come the reservoirs that have been built on many of the major rivers trap significant portions of the moving sediment which in some places may be remobilized by large floods essentially all the river sediment that reaches the atlantic coastal zone is trapped in estuaries and coastal marshlands probably less than 5 is deposi

how deep can we find the traces of alpine subduction 1 slab like seismic velocity heterogeneities below the alpine chain interpreted as subducted lithosphere are imaged by tomographic studies down to only about 300 km depth a non negligible discrepancy therefore exists between tomographic and geological data the latter indicating at least 500 km of tertiary convergence at trench yet a recently published tomographic study detects a pronounced high velocity anomaly at the bottom of the upper mantle right below the alpine area combining tomographic images of the mantle geological findings and plate system kinematics we investigate how the presence of this feature in the transition zone below the alps can be traced back to the tertiary alpine subduction and possibly explain the observed discrepancy we propose that a part of the fast velocity body now residing just above the 660 km discontinuity once belonged to the alpine slab torn off by an event occurred at about 30 35 ma

sediment accumulation rate in the lakes of kumaun himalaya india using 210 pb and 226 ra the rate of sedimentation and the source of sediments in the lake basins of nainital region kumaun himalaya have been estimated employing210pb and210ra methods this has yielded a rate of sedimentation of 11 5 4 70 3 72 and 3 00 mm yr in nainital bhimtal naukuchiyatal and sattal lakes respectively the higher rate of sedimentation in nainital lake compared to other lakes is related to faster erosion in the catchment aided by greater anthropogenic activity while the slowest rate in sattal lake is due to less erosion and more input of soil derived material involving a slow rate of accumulation

interplay between tectonics climate and fluvial transport during the cenozoic evolution of the ebro basin ne iberia 1 three dimensional modeling that integrates fluvial sediment transport crustal scale tectonic deformation and lithospheric flexural subsidence is carried out to simulate the landscape and drainage evolution of the ebro sedimentary basin ne iberia the ebro basin underwent a long period of closed intramountain drainage as a result of tectonic topography generation at the pyrenees the iberian range and the catalan coastal range in the late oligocene the catalan coastal range underwent extension leading to the formation of the valencia trough nw mediterranean but the ebro basin remained closed for nearly 15 myr more before the ebro river cut through the remnants of the topographic barrier this drainage opening caused widespread basin incision that shaped spectacular outcrops of the syntectonic and posttectonic infill here we investigate the processes controlling these major drainage changes the modeling results constrained by a large data set on the tectonic and transport evolution of the area predict a closed phase characterized by a large lake in the central eastern ebro basin dry climatic conditions probably lowered the lake level and contributed together with rift flank uplift to prolong this endorheic basin stage the age and amount of reworked sediment after the opening are consistent with an onset of basin incision between 13 and 8 5 ma as a result of lake capture by escarpment erosion and lake level rise associated with sediment accumulation and wetter climatic conditions sea level changes in the mediterranean had no major impact in the large scale drainage evolution of the ebro basin index terms 1625 global change geomorphology and weathering 1824 1886 1815 hydrology erosion and sedimentation 3210 mathematical geophysics modeling 3344 meteorology and atmospheric dynamics paleoclimatology 8102 tectonophysics continental contractional orogenic belts keywords pyrenees drainage evolution lake sediment budget erosion flexure

uptake of elements from seawater by ferromanganese crusts solid phase associations and seawater speciation marine fe mn oxyhydroxide crusts form by precipitation of dissolved components from seawater three hydrogenetic crust samples one phosphatized and two hydrothermal mn oxide samples were subjected to a sequential leaching procedure in order to determine the host phases of 40 elements those host phase associations are discussed with respect to element speciation in seawater the partitioning of elements between the two major phases mn oxide and fe oxyhydroxide can in a first order approximation be explained by a simple sorption model related to the inorganic speciation of the elements in seawater as has been proposed in earlier models free and weakly complexed cations such as alkali and alkaline earth metals mn co ni zn tl i and partly y are sorbed preferentially on the negatively charged surface of the mno2 in hydrogenetic crusts the driving force is a strong coulombic interaction all neutral or negatively charged chloro cd hg tl carbonate cu y pb and u and hydroxide be sc ti fe zr nb in sn sb te hf ta bi th and tl iii complexes and oxyanions v cr as se mo and w bind to the slightly positively charged surface of the amorphous feooh phase while coulombic interaction can explain the sorption of the negatively charged species the binding of neutral species is based on specific chemical interaction organic complexation of elements in deep ocean water seems to be at most of minor importance surface oxidation can explain some strong metal associations e g of co and tl with the mno2 and te with the feooh sorption reactions initially driven by coulombic forces are often followed by the formation of specific bonds between the adsorbate and the atoms of the oxide surface differences in the associations of some metals between the non phosphatized and phosphatized hydrogenetic crusts and between the hydrogenetic and the hydrothermal samples reflect the different physico chemical environments of formation and speciations in oxic seawater vs less oxic fluids especially for the redox sensitive metals such as mo and v these environmental related differences indicate that the methodology of chemical speciation used here in combination with spectroscopic methods may allow for the detection of changes in paleoceanographic conditions recorded during the several tens of millions of years of crust growth

recent advances in sar interferometry time series analysis for measuring crustal deformation abstract synthetic aperture radar sar interferometry is a technique that permits remote detection of deformation at the earth s surface and has been used extensively to measure displacements associated with earthquakes volcanic activity and many other crustal deformation phenomena analysis of a time series of sar images extends the area where interferometry can be successfully applied and also allows detection of smaller displacements through the reduction of error sources here we review recent advances in time series sar interferometry methods that further improve accuracy this is particularly important when constraining displacements due to processes with low strain rates such as interseismic deformation we include examples of improved algorithms applied to image deformation associated with the 2010 eruption of eyjafjallajokull volcano in iceland slow slip on the guerrero subduction zone in mexico and tectonic deformation in western anatolia turkey

active normal faulting in the upper rhine graben and paleoseismic identification of the 1356 basel earthquake we have identified an active normal fault in the epicentral area of the basel switzerland earthquake of 18 october 1356 the largest historical seismic event in central europe the event of 1356 and two prehistoric events have been characterized on the fault with geomorphological analysis geophysical prospecting and trenching carbon 14 dating indicates that the youngest event occurred in the interval 610 to 1475 a d and may correspond to the 1356 basel earthquake the occurrence of the three earthquakes induced a total of 1 8 meters of vertical displacement in the past 8500 years for a mean uplift rate of 0 21 millimeters per year these successive ruptures on the normal fault indicate the potential for strong ground movements in the basel region and should be taken into account to refine the seismic hazard estimates along the rhine graben

molecular controls on cu and zn isotopic fractionation in fe mn crusts abstract the isotopic systems of the transition metals are increasingly being developed as oceanic tracers due to their tendency to be fractionated by biological and or redox related processes however for many of these promising isotope systems the molecular level controls on their isotopic fractionations are only just beginning to be explored here we investigate the relative roles of abiotic and biotic fractionation processes in controlling modern seawater cu and zn isotopic compositions scavenging to fe mn oxides represents the principal output for cu and zn to sediments deposited under normal marine oxic conditions using fe mn crusts as an analogue for these dispersed phases we investigate the phase association and crystal chemistry of cu and zn in such sediments we present the results of an exafs study that demonstrate unequivocally that cu and zn are predominantly associated with the birnessite mno2 phase in fe mn crusts as previously predicted from sequential leaching experiments e g koschinsky and hein 2003 the crystal chemistry of cu and zn in the crusts implies a reduction in coordination number in the sorbed phase relative to the free metal ion in seawater thus theory would predict equilibrium fractionations that enrich the heavy isotope in the sorbed phase e g schauble 2004 in natural samples fe mn crusts and nodules are indeed isotopically heavy in zn isotopes at 1 compared to deep seawater at 0 5 consistent with the predicted direction of equilibrium isotopic fractionation based on our observations of the coordination environment of sorbed zn further 50 of inorganic zn is chloro complexed the other 50 is present as the free zn2 ion and complexation by cl is also predicted to favour equilibrium partitioning of light zn isotopes into the dissolved phase the heavy zn isotopic composition of fe mn crusts and nodules relative to seawater can therefore be explained by an inorganic fractionation during uptake however cu in fe mn crusts is isotopically light at 0 3 to 0 5 compared to the dissolved phase in seawater at 0 9 we suggest that this is because dissolved cu in the oceans is overwhelmingly complexed to strong organic ligands which are better competitors for the heavy isotope

composite ground deformation pattern forerunning the 2004 2005 mount etna eruption 1 after the end of the 2002 2003 eruption mount etna activity was characterized only by gentle degassing at the summit craters and some earthquake swarms suddenly an eruption started on 7 september 2004 in complete absence of summit crater volcanic activity seismicity or seismic tremor and ground deformation this is the first time that magma poured out passively without preeruptive and coeruptive volcanic and or geophysical phenomena the primary key to understanding this event is represented by the ground deformation pattern recorded through gps measurements during the year before the eruption the ground deformation shows inflation superimposed by a predominant eastward movement of the eastern sector at a rate never observed before in a noneruptive period the images from satellite radar interferometry confirmed this pattern the deformation field clearly shows that the maximum tension in the eastern sector of the volcano caused the opening of the eruptive fracture which favored the silent pouring out of already resident magma

dense microbial community on a ferromanganese nodule from the ultra oligotrophic south pacific gyre implications for biogeochemical cycles abstract during integrated ocean drilling program iodp expedition 329 a deep sea ferromanganese nodule and surrounding sediment were collected from the south pacific gyre the most oligotrophic oceanic environment on earth using a combination of cryo sectioning and fluorescence based cell counting techniques we determined that the microbial cell density at the very surface of the nodule was 108 cells cm 3 three orders of magnitude higher than that in the surrounding sediment analysis of bacterial and archaeal 16s rrna gene sequences 1400 bp indicated that the taxonomic composition of the nodule associated community differed markedly from that of the sediment associated community members of marine group i mgi thaumarchaeota are potentially crucial for sustaining the high cell density because both ammonia and cu were available on the nodule surface making it suitable for ammonia oxidizing chemolithoautotrophy mediated by copper enzymes combined cryo sectioning and synchrotron analysis of the nodule surface revealed both hexagonal birnessite resembling mno2 and triclinic birnessite minerals characteristic of biogenic oxide and its secondary product respectively regardless of these possible biogenic features only one gene sequence exhibited some similarity to previously identified manganese oxidizing bacteria on the other hand mgi thaumarchaeota were assumed as potential candidate of manganese oxidizers because they have multi copper oxidase that is utilized by most known manganese oxidizers therefore this archaeal group is considered to play a significant ecological role as a primary producer in biogeochemical elemental cycles in the ultra oligotrophic abyssal plain

the late variscan control on the location and asymmetry of the upper rhine graben the nne trending upper rhine graben urg of the european cenozoic rift system developed from c 47 ma onwards in response to changing lithospheric stresses in the northwestern foreland of the alps the composite graben structure consists of three segments each c 100 km long and 30 40 km wide but flares to c 60 km near its southern and to c 80 km near its northern termination normal faulting induced a total extension of 5 8 km of the 1 2 km thick mesozoic sedimentary franconian platform and underlying variscan basement rocks however distribution of an up to 3 5 km thick sedimentary graben fill and cumulative displacements near eastern and western main border fault systems suggest that subsidence of the graben floor and shoulder uplift created strong cross sectional asymmetries cumulative w down displacements 3 km along strongly segmented transfer faults in the east contrast with e down displacements 600 km long zone that delimits the trailing edge of a sw moving lithospheric block in the urg area ne sw oriented seismic anisotropy at sublithospheric depths of c 60 80 km suggest active mantle flow in this direction as a possible driving force for the reactivation of pre graben lithospheric shear zones

gps based monitoring of land subsidence in the po plain northern italy abstract we use regional and local networks of continuously operating gps stations cgps distributed in the northern central part of the italian peninsula to investigate the subsidence phenomenon of the po plain sedimentary basin and vertical movements of the surrounding areas the observations of 146 scientific and commercial stations are analyzed and compared adopting analytical techniques widely used to study gps coordinate time series the use of simple antenna supports in commercial installations instead of a more rigorous geodetic monument does not seem to induce significant differences in the noise characteristics and in the amplitudes of annual and semi annual periodic signals the vertical velocity field deduced from 129 sites with observation time spans greater than one year located in the central northern italian peninsula indicates the presence of two mainly subsidence areas the po plain and the arno plain while the sites located in the alps and apennine domains show relatively low uplift the areas of the po plain monitored by gps seem to indicate that the subsidence rate is constant or in some cases decreasing with respect to the values obtained from the last measurements performed up to 2006 by means of both sar and levelling techniques only the central part of the eastern po plain close to the apennine border modena city area is characterized by a peak in subsidence consisting in a velocity of about 15 mm yr

the copper isotope geochemistry of rivers and the oceans abstract we present the first extensive dataset for copper cu isotopes in rivers as well as preliminary data for estuaries and seawater rivers exhibit a range in dissolved 65 cu relative to nist srm 976 of 0 02 to 1 45 per mil the discharge weighted average dissolved 65 cu and cu concentration for the studied rivers representing around 25 of the global riverine water discharge are 0 68 and 18 8 nmol kg 1 respectively isotopic data for the dissolved phase in two small estuaries in se england exhibit relatively minor variation through the salinity gradient 0 42 to 0 94 and are close to both the data for the rivers upstream from the estuaries and a measurement of the coastal sea at their mouths analyses of the particulate phase in the estuaries reveal a complementary light pool 0 24 to 1 02 the isotopic composition of the total cu inventory is however close to that of the crustal source these data along with published constraints suggest that the isotopically heavy dissolved phase of all the rivers originates in an isotopic partitioning of the weathered pool of cu between a light fraction adsorbed to particulates and a heavy dissolved fraction dominated by cu bound to strong organic complexes open ocean seawater samples generally exhibit even heavier dissolved cu isotopic compositions than the riverine input 65 cu 0 9 to 1 5 the heavy isotopic composition of seawater is inferred to originate from intra oceanic processes the small dataset presented here is most consistent with further isotopic partitioning between an isotopically light pool adsorbed to particulates and a heavy dissolved pool strongly bound to organic ligands scavenging appears to have greatest impact in the surface ocean and least in both the oxygen minimum zone and the ocean bottom perhaps reflecting the relative importance of scavenging and thus the sequestration of light cu to particulate material at different depths

erosion driven uplift of the modern central alps abstract we present a compilation of data of modern tectono geomorphic processes in the central european alps which suggest that observed rock uplift is a response to climate driven denudation this interpretation is predominantly based on the recent quantification of basin averaged late holocene denudation rates that are so similar to the pattern and rates of rock uplift rates as determined by geodetic leveling furthermore a gps data based synthesis of adriatic microplate kinematics suggests that the central alps are currently not in a state of active convergence finally we illustrate that the central alps have acted as a closed system for holocene redistribution of sediment in which the peri alpine lakes have operated as a sink for the erosional products of the inner central alps while various hypotheses have been put forward to explain central alpine rock uplift e g lithospheric forcing by convergence mantle processes or ice melting we show with an elastic model of lithospheric deformation that the correlation between erosion and rock uplift rates reflects a positive feedback between denudation and the associated isostatic response to unloading thus erosion does not passively respond to advection of crustal material as might be the case in actively converging orogens rather we suggest that the geomorphic response of the alpine topography to glacial and fluvial erosion and the resulting disequilibrium for modern channelized and associated hillslope processes explains much of the pattern of modern denudation and hence rock uplift therefore in a non convergent orogen such as the central european alps the observed vertical rock uplift is primarily a consequence of passive unloading due to erosion

geodetic measurements of crustal deformation in the western mediterranean and europe geodetic measurements of crustal deformation over large areas deforming at slow rates 5 mm yr over more than 1000 km such as the western mediterranean and western europe are still a challenge because 1 these rates are close to the current resolution of the geodetic techniques 2 inaccuracies in the reference frame implementation may be on the same order as the tectonic velocities we present a new velocity field for western europe and the western mediterranean derived from a rigorous combination of 1 a selection of sites from the itrf2000 solution 2 a subset of sites from the european permanent gps network solution 3 a solution of the french national geodetic permanent gps network rgp and 4 a solution of a permanent gps network in the western alps regal the resulting velocity field describes horizontal crustal motion at 64 sites in western europe with an accuracy on the order of 1 mm yr or better its analysis shows that central europe behaves rigidly at a 0 4 mm yr level and can therefore be used to define a stable europe reference frame in that reference frame we find that most of europe including areas west of the rhine graben the iberian peninsula the ligurian basin and the corsica sardinian block behaves rigidly at a 0 5 mm yr level in a second step we map recently published geodetic results in the reference frame previously defined geodetic data confirm a counterclockwise rotation of the adriatic microplate with respect to stable europe that appears to control the strain pattern along its boundaries active deformation in the alps apennines and dinarides is probably driven by the independent motion of the adriatic plate rather than by the africa eurasia convergence the analysis of a global gps solution and recently published new estimates for the african plate kinematics indicate that the africa eurasia plate motion may be significantly different from the nuvel1a values in particular geodetic solutions show that the convergence rate between africa and stable europe may be 30 60 slower than the nuvelia prediction and rotated 10 30 counterclockwise in the mediterranean

evolution of late holocene coastal dunes in the cauvery delta region of tamil nadu india widespread occurrences of coastal dunes are observed in the cauvery delta region of tamil nadu in vedaranniyam in the south east coast of india these dunes were studied to establish the chronology of their formation and to understand their evolution using optically stimulated luminescence osl dating in combination with sedimentological studies quartz grain surface morphology using scanning electron microscope grain size and heavy mineral analysis the study shows that on the south east coast of india widespread periodic dune formation reactivation has taken place during the late holocene to very recent times due to a variety of reasons such as climatic variation and land use changes the sand mobility index shows that the dunes in the area have been largely active during the past century in the southern part in nagapattinam region and many of the crests were active in the northern cauvery delta in cuddalore region the angularity and fresh appearance of sand in the inland dunes suggest a short distance of sand transport and a source proximal sand deposition was proposed for the dune formation the study demonstrates the sensitivity of sand dunes on the south east coast of india to varying climatic conditions and changes in regional land use

vertical gps ground motion rates in the euro mediterranean region new evidence of velocity gradients at different spatial scales along the nubia eurasia plate boundary we use 2 5 to 14 years long position time series from 800 continuous global positioning system gps stations to study vertical deformation rates in the euro mediterranean region we estimate and remove common mode errors in position time series using a principal component analysis obtaining a significant gain in the signal to noise ratio of the displacements data following the results of a maximum likelihood estimation analysis which gives a mean spectral index 0 7 we adopt a power law white noise stochastic model in estimating the final vertical rates and find 95 of the velocities within 2 mm yr with uncertainties from filtered time series 40 smaller than from the unfiltered ones we highlight the presence of statistically significant velocity gradients where the stations density is higher we find undulations of the vertical velocity field at different spatial scales both in tectonically active regions like eastern alps apennines and eastern mediterranean and in regions characterized by a low or negligible tectonic activity like central iberia and western alps a correlation between smooth vertical velocities and topographic features is apparent in many sectors of the study area glacial isostatic adjustment and weathering processes do not completely explain the measured rates and a combination of active tectonics and deep seated geodynamic processes must be invoked excluding areas where localized processes are likely or where subduction processes may be active mantle dynamics is the most likely process but regional mantle modeling is required for a better understanding

p wave tomography of the mantle under the alpine mediterranean area 1 we study the upper mantle p wave velocity structure below the euro mediterranean area down to 1000 km depth by seismic travel time tomography we invert summary residuals constructed with both regional and teleseismic first arrival data reported by the international seismological centre isc 1964 1995 introducing some alternative strategies in the travel time tomographic approach and a new scheme to correct teleseismic data for global mantle structure our high resolution model pm0 5 is parameterized with three dimensional 3 d linear splines on a grid of nodes with 0 5 spacing in both horizontal directions and 50 km vertical spacing we obtain about 26 root mean square rms reduction of residuals by inversion in addition to roughly 31 reduction after summary rays formation and selection sensitivity analyses are performed through several test inversions to explore the resolution characteristics of the model at different spatial scales the distribution of large scale fast anomalies suggests that two different stages of a convection process presently coexist in very close regions the mantle dynamics of western central europe is dominated by blockage of subducted slabs at the 660 km discontinuity and ponding of seismically fast material in the transition zone contrarily in the eastern mediterranean fast velocity material sinks into the lower mantle suggesting that the flow of the cold downwelling here is not blocked by the 660 km discontinuity on a smaller scale the existence of tears in the subducted slab lithospheric detachment all along both margins of the adriatic plate as proposed by some authors is not supported by our tomographic images

geodetic constraints on glacial isostatic adjustment in europe 1 direct measurements of surface deformation due to glacial isostatic adjustment gia in europe have been so far mostly limited to the present day uplift area here we use permanent gps networks results to investigate the significance of gia effects in europe south of fennoscandia we show that uplift in fennoscandia is surrounded by subsidence reaching as far south as the alps with a maximum vertical rate of 1 5 mm yr between 50 5 53 n horizontal velocity gradients show shortening between fennoscandia and north central europe with strain rates of 10 9 yr 1 and principal compressional strain axis pointing to the gulf of bothnia in a radial pattern we find a very good quantitative agreement with the 3d surface displacement predicted by milne et al 2001 although the increase of misfit in far field of fennoscandia suggests that geodetic data outside of the uplift area may bring additional constraints to the rheological parameters used in gia models

4d analogue modelling of transtensional pull apart basins abstract scaled sandbox models were used to investigate the 4d evolution of pull apart basins formed above underlapping releasing stepovers in both pure strike slip and transtensional basement fault systems serial sectioning and 3d volume reconstruction permitted analysis of the full 3d fault geometries results show that very different pull apart basins are developed in transtension compared to pure strike slip both types of models produced elongate sigmoidal to rhomboidal pull apart systems but the transtensional pull apart basins were significantly wider and uniquely developed a basin margin of en echelon oblique extensional faults dual opposing depocentres formed in the transtensional model whereas a single central depocentre formed in pure strike slip in transtension a distinct narrow graben system formed above the principal displacement zones pdzs cross basin fault systems that linked the offset pdzs formed earlier in the transtensional models sequential model runs to higher pdz displacements allowed the progressive evolution of the fault systems to be evaluated in cross section transtensional pull aparts initiated as asymmetric grabens bounded by planar oblique extensional faults with increasing displacement on the pdzs basin subsidence caused these faults to become concave upwards and lower in dip angle due to fault block collapse towards the interior of the basin in addition strain partitioning caused fault slip to become either predominantly extensional or strike slip the models compare closely with the geometries of natural pull apart basins including the southern dead sea fault system and the vienna basin austria

sea level change glacial rebound and mantle viscosity fornorthern europe northwestern europe remains a key region for testing models of glacial isostasy because of the good geological record of crustal response to the glacial unloading since the time of the last glacial maximum models for this rebound and associated sea level change require a detailed knowledge of the ice sheet geometry including the ice thickness through time existing ice sheet reconstructions are strongly model dependent and inversions of sea level data for the mantle response may be a function of the model assumptions thus inverse solutions for the sea level data are sought that include both ice and earth model parameters as unknowns sea level data from fennoscandia the north sea the british isles and the atlantic and english channel coasts have been evaluated and incorporated into the solutions the starting ice sheet for fennoscandia is based on a reconstruction of a model by denton hughes 1981 that is characterized by quasi parabolic cross sections and symmetry about the load centre both global northwestern europe as a whole and regional subsets of the data solutions have been made for earth model parameters and ice height scaling parameters the key results are as follows 1 the response of the upper mantle to the changing ice and water loads is spatially relatively homogenous across scandinavia the north sea and the british isles 2 this response can be adequately modelled by an effective elastic lithosphere of thickness 65 85 km and by an effective upper mantle viscosity from the base of the lithosphere to the 670 km depth seismic discontinuity of about 3 4 1020 pa s the effective lower mantle viscosity is at least an order of magnitude greater 3 the ice thickness over scandinavia at the time of maximum glaciation was only about 2000 m much less than the 3400 m assumed in the denton hughes model 4 the ice profiles are asymmetric about the centre of the ice sheet with those over the western part being consistent with quasi parabolic functions whereas the ice heights over the eastern and southern regions increase much more slowly with distance inwards from the ice margin

recent surface displacements in the upper rhine graben preliminary results from geodetic networks abstract datasets of the gnss upper rhine graben network gurn and the national levelling networks in germany france and switzerland are investigated with respect to current surface displacements in the upper rhine graben urg area gurn consists of about 80 permanent gnss global navigation satellite systems stations the terrestrial levelling network comprises 1st and 2nd order levelling lines that have been remeasured at intervals of roughly 25 years starting in 1922 compared to earlier studies national institutions and private companies made available raw data allowing for consistent solutions for the urg region we focussed on the southern and eastern parts of the investigation area our preliminary results show that the levelling and gnss datasets are sensitive to resolve small surface displacement rates down to an order of magnitude of 0 2 mm a and 0 4 mm a respectively the observed horizontal velocity components for a test region south of strasbourg obtained from gnss coordinate time series vary around 0 5 mm a the results are in general agreement with interseismic strain built up in a sinistral strike slip regime since the accuracy of the gnss derived vertical component is insufficient data of precise levelling networks is used to determine vertical displacement rates more than 75 of the vertical rates obtained from a kinematic adjustment of 1st order levelling lines in the eastern part of urg vary between 0 2 mm a and 0 2 mm a indicating that this region behaves stable higher rates up to 0 5 mm a in a limited region south of freiburg are in general agreement with active faulting we conclude that both networks deliver stable results that reflect real surface movements in the urg area we note however that geodetically observed surface displacements generally result from a superposition of different effects and that a separation in tectonic and non tectonic processes needs additional information and expertise

crustal velocity field of mexico from continuous gps measurements 1993 to june 2001 implications for the neotectonics of mexico 1 we combine velocities for 14 continuous gps stations spanning mexico and 173 additional continuous gps sites on the north american and pacific plates to study the large scale deformation of mexico the new station velocities which are derived from more than 6000 days of previously unused gps data provide the first ever view of the crustal velocity field of mexico key results are as follows 1 areas north of the mexican volcanic belt not including baja california move with the north american plate interior within the 1 2 mm yr 1 station velocity uncertainties station velocities for the mexican basin and range are consistent with no present day extension and yield an upper 95 limit of 1 3 mm yr 1 for any regional extension 2 south of the mexican volcanic belt five of the six sites move significantly relative to the north american plate all sites in the yucatan peninsula move toward the east at 3 4 mm yr 1 possibly defining an independent yucatan block 3 site velocities are consistent with limits of 0 4 mm yr 1 for present slip across the mexican volcanic belt 4 tampico on the gulf coast exhibits eastward motion consistent with gravity sliding known to occur in the adjacent mexican ridges fold belt 5 southeastward motion of la paz relative to the pacific plate is consistent with the hypothesis that the baja peninsula is not fully attached to the pacific plate 6 residual velocities for 160 north american plate gps stations outside of mexico exhibit no coherent regional patterns indicative of internal plate deformation

anatomy and kinematics of oblique continental rifting revealed a three dimensional case study of the southeast upper rhine graben germany the upper rhine graben is a north northeast trending small displacement crustal scale rift of tertiary age retrodeformation of its southeastern part demonstrates that it is a product of sinistral oblique rifting early extension was toward 80 later the major stretching axis changed to a 60 direction the modeling results suggest that the eastern main border fault developed first and that faulting later propagated into the evolving graben interior considerable along strike variations in heave throw and displacement are evident displacement partitioning causes warping of the rift floor with a 30 35 km wavelength we consider this to be a characteristic of oblique rifting contact deformation of the wall rocks to the major faults may have caused widespread smaller scale faulting and brecciation and may be the location of later movements close spatial coincidence of the depth projections of some of the faults studied and the hypocenters of recent small earthquakes indicates continuing activity of the fault system apparently three fault segments in the freiburg area are currently active and may be an increased earthquake risk

tests of the rigid plate hypothesis and bounds on intraplate deformation using geodetic data from very long baseline interferometry the geodetic results of ma et al 1994 from very long baseline interferometry are used to assess rates of intraplate deformation we analyze the resulting set of velocities of 18 plate interior sites nine on the north american plate four western european sites on the eurasian plate three on the pacific plate and two on the australian plate we formulate three alternative error budgets based partly on the work of ryan et al 1993a an optimistic error budget a conservative error budget and an upper bound error budget all three budgets assume the existence of a previously unmodeled error that is inversely proportional to the time span of observations at a site use of the conservative error budget indicates no significant motion between sites on any one of the four plates use of the upper bound error budget designed to be precisely large enough to be consistent with rigid plates places a usefully small upper bound on how fast any site might be moving relative to the rest of its plate speeds faster than 2 mm yr are excluded at the 95 confidence level for seven of the 18 plate interior sites adjustments of the site velocities for motion due to postglacial rebound as predicted from the model of tushingham and peltier 1991 give an insignificant improvement to the fit of the horizontal velocities to the rigid plate model the velocities of six sites near the western margin of the interior of the north american plate were also analyzed use of the conservative error budget indicates that a site near fairbanks alaska has an upper bound of 3 mm yr on its speed a site in nome alaska has an upper bound on its speed of 8 mm yr and a site in penticton british columbia has an upper bound on its speed of 4 mm yr of three sites on the colorado plateau two move marginally significantly and one moves insignificantly relative to stable north america upper limits on their speeds relative to stable north america range from 4 to 5 mm yr we conclude that the data do not yet demonstrate significant velocities between sites in the stable interior of any one plate but do provide useful and small upper bounds of 2 mm yr or less on the speeds of the best observed intraplate sites six sites near the western margin of the north american interior have upper bound speeds of 3 to 8 mm yr

sea level change and vertical land movements since the last two millennia along the coasts of southwestern turkey and israel abstract this paper provides new relative sea level data inferred from coastal archaeological sites located along the turkish coasts of the gulf of fethye 8 sites and israel between akziv and caesarea 5 sites the structures selected are those that for effective functioning can be accurately related to sea level at the time of their construction thus their positions with respect to present sea level provide a measure of the relative sea level change since their time of construction useful information was obtained from the investigated sites spanning an age range of 2 3 1 6 ka bp the inferred changes in relative sea level for the two areas are distinctly different from a rise of 2 41 to 4 50 m in turkey and from 0 to 0 18 m in israel sea level change is the combination of several processes including vertical tectonics glacio hydro isostatic signals associated with the last glacial cycle and changes in ocean volume for the israel section the present elevations of the mis 5 5 tyrrhenian terraces occur at a few meters above present sea level and vertical tectonic displacements are small data from gps and tide gauge measurements also indicate that any recent vertical movements are small the mis 5 5 shorelines are absent from the investigated section of the turkish coast consistent with crustal subsidence associated with the hellenic arc the isostatic signals for the israel section of the coast are also small ranging from 0 11 mm yr to 0 14 mm yr depending on site and earth model and the observed eustatic average sea level change corrected for this contribution is a rise of 13 5 2 6 cm during the past 2 ka this is attributed to the time integrated contribution to sea level from a combination of thermal expansion and other increases in ocean volume the observed sea levels from the turkish sites in contrast indicate a much greater rise of up to 2 2 mm yr since 2 3 ka bp occurring in a wide area between knidos and kekova the isostatic signal here is also one of a rising sea level of up to 1 mm yr and site and earth model dependent and the corrected tectonic rate of land subsidence is 1 48 mm yr this is the primary cause of dramatic relative sea level rise for this part of the coast

space geodesy constrains ice age terminal deglaciation the global ice 6g_c vm5a model a new model of the last deglaciation event of the late quaternary ice age is here described and denoted as ice 6g c vm5a it differs from previously published models in this sequence in that it has been explicitly refined by applying all of the available global positioning system gps measurements of vertical motion of the crust that may be brought to bear to constrain the thickness of local ice cover as well as the timing of its removal additional space geodetic constraints have also been applied to specify the reference frame within which the gps data are described the focus of the paper is upon the three main regions of last glacial maximum ice cover namely north america northwestern europe eurasia and antarctica although greenland and the british isles will also be included if peripherally in the discussion in each of the three major regions the model predictions of the time rate of change of the gravitational field are also compared to that being measured by the gravity recovery and climate experiment satellites as an independent means of verifying the improvement of the model achieved by applying the gps constraints several aspects of the global characteristics of this new model are also discussed including the nature of relative sea level history predictions at far field locations in particular the caribbean island of barbados from which especially high quality records of postglacial sea level change are available but which records were not employed in the development of the model although ice 6g c vm5a is a significant improvement insofar as the most recently available gps observations are concerned comparison of model predictions with such far field relative sea level histories enables us to identify a series of additional improvements that should follow from a further stage of model iteration

segmentation of the farallon slab abstract recent tomography images reveal a complex 3d mantle structure beneath western united states with feature morphology varying rapidly with depth by assimilating plate motion history paleo age of sea floor and paleo geography of plate boundaries in a 3 d numerical model we simulate the farallon juan de fuca subduction during the past 40 ma we find that the highly segmented upper mantle structure of western u s is a direct result of the farallon subduction we show that the tilted horseshoe shaped fast seismic anomaly beneath nevada and utah at 300 600 km depth range is in fact a segment of curled slab subducted since 15 ma and the shallower linear slab beneath the cascades is younger than 5 ma the distinct morphology between these two parts of the subduction system indicates the strong influence of the fast trench rollback since 20 ma the northward migrating jf pa na triple junction and the toroidal flow around slab edges the observed mantle structures are used to constrain the rheology of the upper mantle through matching the shape depth and location of modeled subducted slab segments the inferred viscosity for the asthenosphere is 5 10 19 pa s and those for the transition zone and lower mantle are 1 5 10 21 pa s and 2 10 22 pa s respectively the slab is found to be about 2 orders of magnitude stronger than the ambient mantle above 410 km depth but of similar order of magnitude viscosity in the transition zone

constraining crustal velocity fields with insar for eastern turkey limits to the block like behavior of eastern anatolia the sentinel 1 satellite mission will enable global strain rate mapping from interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar and gps data and methods to combine these data in velocity fields will become increasingly important here we use insar to measure interseismic deformation in eastern turkey across a 250 000 km2 area that spans the arabia eurasia plate boundary zone from our insar data we first estimate slip rates and locking depths for the north and east anatolian faults naf and eaf of 20 3 mm yr and 16 km and 11 3 mm yr and 16 km respectively but we also combine the insar data with existing gps velocity measurements to construct high resolution velocity and strain rate fields across the region for the first time we calculate 2 d and 3 d velocity fields and find that strain is mainly localized across the naf and eaf and that there is negligible differential vertical motion across the eastern anatolian plateau we also show that high resolution 2 d strain rate fields can be calculated from insar alone even in the absence of gps data we fit a block model to our velocity field and estimate slip rates of 21 mm yr and 8 mm yr for the naf and eaf showing that our previous estimates differ from these values because they neglected crustal rotation although this rotation is an important component of the velocity field in eastern turkey systematic residuals between our velocity field and the best fitting block for anatolia suggest that the region is not block like as proposed by previous authors

constraining models of postglacial rebound using space geodesy a detailed assessment of model ice 5g vm2 and its relatives summary using global positioning system very long baseline interferometry satellite laser ranging and doppler orbitography and radiopositioning integrated by satellite observations including the canadian base network and fennoscandian bifrost array we constrain in models of postglacial rebound the thickness of the ice sheets as a function of position and time and the viscosity of the mantle as a function of depth we test model ice 5g vm2 t90 rot which well fits many hundred holocene relative sea level histories in north america europe and worldwide ice 5g is the deglaciation history having more ice in western canada than ice 4g vm2 is the mantle viscosity profile having a mean upper mantle viscosity of 0 5 1021 pa s and a mean uppermost lower mantle viscosity of 1 6 1021 pa s t90 is an elastic lithosphere thickness of 90 km and rot designates that the model includes rotational feedback earth s response to the wander of the north pole of earth s spin axis towards canada at a speed of 1 myr 1 the vertical observations in north america show that relative to ice 5g the laurentide ice sheet at last glacial maximum lgm at 26 ka was 1 much thinner in southern manitoba 2 thinner near yellowknife northwest territories 3 thicker in eastern and southern quebec and 4 thicker along the northern british columbia alberta border or that ice was unloaded from these areas later thicker or earlier thinner than in ice 5g the data indicate that the western laurentide ice sheet was intermediate in mass between ice 5g and ice 4g the vertical observations and grace gravity data together suggest that the western laurentide ice sheet was nearly as massive as that in ice 5g but distributed more broadly across northwestern canada vm2 poorly fits the horizontal observations in north america predicting places along the margins of the laurentide ice sheet to be moving laterally away from the ice centre at 2 mm yr 1 in ice 4g and 3 mm yr 1 in ice 5g in disagreement with the observation that the interior of the north american plate is deforming more slowly than 1 mm yr 1 substituting vm5a t60 for vm2 t90 that is introducing into the lithosphere at its base a layer with a high viscosity of 10 1021 pa s greatly improves the fit of the horizontal observations in north america ice 4g vm5a t60 rot predicts most of the north american plate to be moving horizontally more slowly than 1 mm yr 1 in agreement with the data ice 5g vm5a t60 rot well fits both the vertical and horizontal observations in europe the space geodetic data cannot distinguish between models with and without rotational feedback in the vertical because the velocity of earth centre is uncertain and in the horizontal because the areas of the plate interiors having geodetic sites is not large enough to detect the small differences in the predictions of rotational feedback going across the plate interiors

copper distribution and speciation across the international geotraces section ga03 abstract copper cu distribution and speciation were characterized along a zonal section in the north atlantic ocean from lisbon portugal to woods hole massachusetts as part of the u s geotraces program dissolved cu profiles displayed many of the same features identified by other researchers including sub surface scavenging and a linear increase with depth but many also exhibited unique properties and geographic trends concentrations ranged from 0 43 nm at the surface to 3 07 nm near the seafloor the highest concentrations were measured in deep waters to the west of cape verde and northwest of the canary islands while the lowest concentrations were measured in upper waters mostly between mauritania and cape verde the westernmost sampling sites overlying or adjacent to the u s east coast continental shelf featured surface maxima that decreased in magnitude moving east toward bermuda reflecting declining inputs from cu enriched coastal waters and north american aerosols free cu cu 2 concentrations were tightly controlled by organic complexation and scavenging across the section with values varying between 1 54 fm and 1 07 pm these results provide the first evidence that cu 2 concentrations are strongly complexed throughout the water column even in boundary zones where dissolved cu concentrations are elevated because of local sources strong organic ligands l acted as a buffer for cu 2 restricting concentrations to a narrow range 10 100 fm throughout most of the water column cu 2 and dissolved cu were strongly scavenged by suspended particulate matter within several benthic nepheloid layers and a hydrothermal plume above the trans atlantic geotraverse tag vent field on the mid atlantic ridge mar

recomputation of vertical crustal motions near palmdale california 1959 1975 abstract by analysis of leveling data a large area in southern california was identified as having uplifted between 1960 and 1974 the pattern and magnitude of the apparent movement were first discussed by castle et al 1976 the uplift zone included 12 000 km 2 with the maximum vertical movement of 25 cm centered near palmdale castle 1978 later increased the estimate of uplift at palmdale to 35 cm the pattern of uplift was constructed by reviewing profiles of repeated levelings after field experiments confirmed that the southern california leveling data were contaminated by refraction errors holdahl 1981 developed a temperature stratification model to enable retroapplication of kukkamaki s refraction correction to the affected data vertical motion in the palmdale region has now been reassessed with corrected leveling data the corrected observations also benefitted from improved rod calibrations and were adjusted simultaneously using geopotential units to derive heights and motion parameters the new results show 7 5 4 0 cm of apparent upward movement at palmdale the great concern associated with palmdale if based on motion calculated from leveling data does not seem warranted castle s original result was strongly influenced by a single level route to palmdale refraction error accumulates rapidly on this route because of the long gentle slope and the location of sightings over railroad ballast where vertical temperature gradients are unusually large perhaps more important than the existence of the palmdale bulge is the question of whether large aseismic vertical motions of entire regions can actually occur in a short time span the palmdale uplift is often referred to as a good example of this type of motion the rigorous analysis of refraction corrected leveling data described in this paper supports the approximate computations of strange 1981 which indicated that was thought to be uplift at palmdale was only the appearance of uplift created by different refraction error accumulations in successive surveys the primary cause of this difference was reduced sight lengths starting in 1964

crustal velocity field of western europe from permanent gps array solutions 1996 2001 we derive a new geodetic velocity field for western europe and the western mediterranean by rigorously combining 1 a selection of 36 itrf2000 sites 2 a solution from a subset of sites of the european permanent gps network euref epn 3 a solution of the french national geodetic permanent gps network rgp and 4 a solution of a permanent gps network in the western alps regal the resulting velocity field describes horizontal crustal motion at 64 sites in western europe with an accuracy of the order of i mm yr 1 or better its analysis shows that central europe defined as east of the rhine graben and north of the alps and the carpathians behaves rigidly at a 0 4 mm yr 1 level and defines a stable europe reference frame in that reference frame we find no significant motion at sites located west of the rhine graben and on the iberian peninsula which sets an upper bound of 0 6 mm yr 1 on horizontal motion across the rhine graben and the pyrenees we find that the current strain pattern in the western alps combines e w extension and right lateral shear we confirm a counterclockwise rotation of the adriatic microplate which appears to control the strain pattern along its boundaries in the friuli area the alps and the apennines our results also suggest that the africa eurasia plate motion in the western mediterranean may be 40 50 per cent slower that the nuvel1a plate motion model and rotated 20 30 counterclockwise

recent crustal movements in the southern black forest western germany precise levelling data are examined in the southern black forest massif by comparing them analytically along levelling profiles instead of generalizing regional vertical motion trends the method emphasizes the current activity of accurately located individual structural elements measured recent crustal movement rates range from 0 2 to 1 1 mm year for the 1930 1961 1972 period the inferred motions corresponding to aseismic fault creep based on the near infrared band image of a landsat mss scene a lineament map of the study area is compared with the recent crustal movement rcm map the upper rhine graben eastern border fault between badenweiler and freiburg displays the highest rcm these displacements are consistent with the geological motion and the topographic expression of that structure within the massif both the lineament map and the rcm map demonstrate the predominant role played by wnw ese to nw se striking structures in accommodating the deformation moreover with the seismic dislocations in the southern black forest taking place also mainly on n120 and n20 faults it is most probable that these active structures are deep reaching zones of crustal weakness to some extent seismicity and rcm appear however to be mutually exclusive in their spatial distribution the seismic black forest flexure and dinkelberg block being opposed to the aseismically moving eastern and northern parts of the study area

mapping small elevation changes over large areas differential radar interferometry a technique that uses synthetic aperture radar sar images to measure very small 1 cm or less surface motions with good resolution 10 m over large swaths 50 km is presented along with experimental results the method could be used for accurate measurements of many geophysical phenomena including swelling and buckling in fault zones residual displacements from seismic events and prevolcanic swelling the method is based on sar interferometry where two images are made of a scene by simultaneously flying two physically separated antennas then the phases of corresponding pixels are differenced and altitude formation is deduced from some simple computation and image rectification it is also possible to use one antenna flown twice over the same scene then if the second flight exactly duplicates the track of the first an interesting possibility occurs there would be no phase changes between the images at all unless there was a physical change in the scene such as ground swelling that would alter the distance from some resolution element to the antenna since the phase changes all occur at the short carrier wavelength the basic limitation on sensitivity is only the phase noise in the system when the two imaging passes are made from flight tracks that are separated which is the case with the seasat images used here it is no longer possible to distinguish surface changes from the parallax caused by topography however with some additional computation a third image made at some other baseline may be used to remove the topography and leave only the surface changes this method was applied using seasat data to an imaging site in imperial valley california where motion effects were observed that were ascribed to the expansion of water absorbing clays phase change images of this area are shown along with associated ground truth about the presence of water problems with the technique are explored along with a discussion of future experimental possibilities on upcoming sar missions like earth observing system eos earth resources satellite ers 1 sir c and the venus imaging radar magellan

did the last interglacial sea penetrate mount carmel caves comments on the setting of the mt carmel caves reassessed by c vita finzi and c stringer

persistent scatterer interferometry analysis of ground deformation in the po plain piacenza reggio emilia sector northern italy seismo tectonic implications

reevaluating the tectonic uplift of western mount carmel israel since the middle pleistocene abstract reevaluation of geological and archaeological evidence from western mount carmel constrains its maximal tectonic uplift since the middle pleistocene tabun cave presently 45 m above sea level asl revealed human occupation from about 600 ka to 90 ka before present the 25 m thick archaeological strata at tabun are composed of laminated fine sand silt and clays moreover no marine deposits were found in tabun or nearby caves since sea level in the last 600 ka reached a maximal of 5 to 10 m asl tabun cave could not have been uplifted since then by more than 35 to 40 m that is a maximal average rate of 58 to 67 mm ka

itrf2005 a new release of the international terrestrial reference frame based on time series of station positions and earth orientation parameters 1 unlike the past international terrestrial reference frame itrf versions where global long term solutions were combined the itrf2005 uses as input data time series weekly from satellite techniques and 24 h session wise from very long baseline interferometry of station positions and daily earth orientation parameters eops the advantage of using time series of station positions is that it allows to monitor station non linear motion and discontinuities and to examine the temporal behavior of the frame physical parameters namely the origin and the scale the itrf2005 origin is defined in such a way that it has zero translations and translation rates with respect to the earth center of mass averaged by the satellite laser ranging slr time series spanning 13 years of observations its scale is defined by nullifying the scale and its rate with respect to the very long baseline interferometry vlbi time series spanning 26 years of observations the itrf2005 orientation at epoch 2000 0 and its rate are aligned to the itrf2000 using 70 stations of high geodetic quality the estimated level of consistency of the itrf2005 origin at epoch 2000 0 and its rate with respect to the itrf2000 is respectively 0 1 0 8 5 8 mm and 0 2 0 1 1 8 mm yr along the x yand z axis we estimate the formal errors on these components to be 0 3 mm and 0 3 mm yr we believe that this low level of agreement between the two frame origins is most probably due to the poor slr network geometry and its degradation over time the itrf2005 combination involving 84 co location sites revealed a scale inconsistency of 1 ppb 6 3 mm at the equator at epoch 2000 0 and 0 08 ppb yr between the slr and vlbi long term solutions as obtained by the stacking of their respective time series possible causes of this inconsistency may include the poor slr and vlbi networks and their co locations local tie uncertainties systematic effects and possible inconsistent model corrections used in the data analysis of both techniques for the first time of the itrf history the itrf2005 rigorous combination provides self consistent series of eops including polar motion from vlbi and satellite techniques and universal time and length of day from vlbi only a velocity field of 152 sites with an error less than 1 5 mm yr is used to estimate absolute rotation poles of 15 tectonic plates that are consistent with the itrf2005 frame this new absolute plate motion model supersedes and significantly improves that of the itrf2000 which involved six major tectonic plates citation altamimi z x collilieux j legrand b garayt and c boucher 2007 itrf2005 a new release of the international terrestrial reference frame based on time series of station positions and earth orientation parameters j geophys res 112 b09401

the oceanic mass balance of copper and zinc isotopes investigated by analysis of their inputs and outputs to ferromanganese oxide sediments abstract the oceanic biogeochemical cycles of the transition metals have been eliciting considerable attention for some time many of them have isotope systems that are fractionated by key biological and chemical processes so that significant information about such processes may be gleaned from them however for many of these nascent isotopic systems we currently know too little of their modern oceanic mass balance making the application of such systems to the past speculative at best here we investigate the biogeochemical cycling of copper cu and zinc zn isotopes in the ocean we present estimates for the isotopic composition of cu and zn inputs to the oceans based on new data presented here and published data the bulk isotopic composition of dissolved cu and zn in the oceans 65cu 0 9 66zn 0 5 is in both cases heavier than their respective inputs at around 65cu 0 6 and 66zn 0 3 respectively implying a marine process that fractionates them and a resulting isotopically light sedimentary output for the better known molybdenum isotope system this is achieved by sorption to fe mn oxides and this light isotopic composition is recorded in fe mn crusts hence we present isotopic data for cu and zn in three fe mn crusts from the major ocean basins which yield 65cu 0 44 0 23 mean and 2sd and 66zn 1 04 0 21 thus for cu isotopes output to particulate fe mn oxides can explain the heavy isotopic composition of the oceans while for zn it cannot the heavy zn in fe mn crusts and in all other authigenic marine sediments measured so far implies that a missing light sink is still to be located these observations are some of the first to place constraints on the modern oceanic mass balance of cu and zn isotopes

late cenozoic uplift of southern italy deduced from fluvial and marine sediments coupling between surface processes and lower crustal flow abstract we investigate the rates and magnitudes of late pliocene pleistocene uplift at key localities in the southern italian regions of basilicata and calabria using fluvial and marine terraces these rates show strong lateral variations reaching maxima of 1 mm a 1 or more in the southern apennines which have uplifted by many hundreds of metres since the late early pleistocene and by well over 1 km since the middle pliocene integrated study has been facilitated by the realisation that altitudes of river terraces in this region require substantial correction for downstream channel lengthening given the rapid coastal progradation that is occurring before they can be compared with altitudes of marine terraces these high rates of uplift and the corresponding rates of subsidence of the sea floor in adjacent offshore localities are explained as consequences of coupling between erosion and sedimentation by induced flow in the lower continental crust this coupling being particularly strong due to the narrowness of the southern part of the italian peninsula numerical modelling indicates that time averaged and spatially averaged erosion rates in this region have been 0 5 mm a 1 since the early middle pleistocene less than the regional uplift rates indicating that the landscape is not in a steady state although southern italy lies within a plate boundary zone along which the african plate is subducting and within which the continental crust is extending the observed vertical crustal motions are nevertheless controlled by surface processes in particular across much of this region crustal extension is shown to be a much less important factor than onshore erosion in driving the observed rates of vertical crustal motion

isotopic disequilibrium of cu in marine ferromanganese crusts evidence from ab initio predictions of cu isotope fractionation on sorption to birnessite abstract in the oceans cu is strongly scavenged by ferromanganese fe mn crusts the isotopic fractionation of cu between seawater and crusts provides insight into the mechanisms of trace metal cycling in the oceans dissolved cu in seawater is isotopically heavy 0 66 0 19 relative to cu in crusts 0 31 0 24 the primary mineral phase sorbing divalent trace metals in fe mn crusts is birnessite recent laboratory measurements show that isotopically light cu is preferentially sorbed on birnessite with a fractionation factor of 0 45 0 18 here we use first principles quantum mechanical calculations to predict the isotopic fractionation between aqueous cu2 complexes and cu as a surface complex on birnessite we find that isotopic fractionation between the cu h2o 5 complex and sorbed cu should be 0 49 at 25 c in close agreement with experiments confirming that these experimental results reflects equilibrium fractionation we then predict the isotopic fractionation between dissolved inorganic cu in seawater and birnessite given the thermodynamic speciation of dissolved cu at ph 8 we find dissolved inorganic cu should be 0 94 at 5 c heavier than cu sorbed to birnessite this value is substantially greater than the observed fractionation between seawater and fe mn crusts sw fmc 0 35 moreover it is well established that dissolved cu in seawater is strongly complexed by organic ligands based on model cu complexes and published experimental data we estimate that fractionation of cu by organic ligands should increase the equilibrium fractionation between seawater and fe mn crusts by 0 2 to 1 5 to yield sw fmc 1 1 to 2 4 we conclude that cu in marine fe mn crusts in not in isotopic equilibrium with dissolved cu in seawater and consider the possible explanations of this surprising finding

quaternary erosion induced isostatic rebound in the western alps the high elevation and deep incision of the alps have traditionally been used as an argument for recent tectonic activity that has elevated the belt and increased erosion rates normal faulting and horizontal extension however dominate current tectonic activity and isostatic compensation of thinning crust should lead not to increased but to decreased mean elevations here we test the idea that enhanced quaternary erosion of the alps and isostatic compensation of the mass removed can account for the distribution of present day geodetically measured rates of vertical movement in the western alps using geophysical relief and kuhlemann s estimated average erosion rate for the alps we quantify the spatial distribution of erosion and the volume of eroded rock respectively from these we obtain a map of rock eroded within a given time span the calculated isostatic response of the alpine lithosphere to erosional unloading for a variety of values of the flexural rigidity of the alpine lithosphere reaches a maximum of 500 m since 1 ma in the inner swiss alps and vertical movement extends across the entire belt including peri alpine basins assuming a steady erosion rate since 1 ma this rebound accounts for half of the measured vertical motion of 1 1 mm yr in the southern valais thus a significant fraction 50 of the present day vertical movement results from the isostatic response to enhanced erosion during plio quaternary time

european cenozoic rift system abstract the european cenozoic rift system extends from the coast of the north sea to the mediterranean over a distance of some 1100 km it finds its southern prolongation in the valencia trough and a plio pleistocene volcanic chain crossing the atlas ranges development of this mega rift was paralleled by orogenic activity in the alps and pyrenees major rift domes accompanied by subsidence reversal of their axial grabens developed 20 40 ma after beginning of rifting uplift of the rhenish shield is related to progressive thermal lithospheric thinning the vosges black forest and the massif central domes are probably underlain by asthenoliths emplaced at the crust mantle boundary evolution of this rift system is thought to be governed by the interaction of the eurasian and african plates and by early phases of a plate boundary reorganization that may lead to the break up of the present continent assembly

copper isotope signatures in modern marine sediments abstract the development of metal stable isotopes as tools in paleoceanography requires a thorough understanding of their modern marine cycling to date no cu isotope data has been published for modern sediments deposited under low oxygen conditions we present data encompassing a broad spectrum of hydrographic and redox regimes including continental margin and euxinic sulphide containing settings taken together with previously published data from oxic settings these data indicate that the modern oceanic sink for cu has a surprisingly homogeneous isotopic composition of about 0 3 65cu relative to nist srm976 we suggest that this signature reflects one of two specific water column processes 1 an equilibrium isotope fractionation between soluble isotopically heavy cu complexed to strong organic ligands and an isotopically light pool sorbed to particles that deliver cu to the sediment or 2 an equilibrium isotope fractionation between the same isotopically heavy ligand bound pool and the particle reactive free cu2 species with the latter being scavenged by particulates and thereby delivered to the sediment an output flux of about 0 3 into sediments is isotopically light relative to the known inputs to the ocean at around 0 6 and the seawater value of 0 6 to 0 9 suggesting the presence of an as yet unidentified isotopically light source of cu to the oceans we hypothesize that this source may be hydrothermal or may result from the partial dissolution of continentally derived particles

the 2005 heidelberg and speyer earthquakes and their relationship to active tectonics in the central upper rhine graben we determine the source parameters of three minor earthquakes in the upper rhine graben urg a cenozoic rift using waveforms from permanent and temporary seismological stations two shallow thrust faulting events m l 2 4 and 1 5 occurred on the rift shoulder just south of heidelberg in march 2005 they indicate a possible movement along the sediment crystalline interface due to tectonic loading from the near by odenwald in february 2005 an earthquake with a normal faulting mechanism occurred north of speyer this event m l 2 8 had an unusual depth of about 22 km and a similar deep normal faulting event occurred there in 1972 m l 3 2 other lower crustal events without fault plane solutions are known from 1981 and 1983 at such a depth inside the lower crust ductile behaviour instead of brittle faulting is commonly assumed and used for geodynamic modelling based on the newly available fault plane solutions we can confirm the brittle extensional regime in the upper and lower crust in the central to northern urg indicated in earlier studies

groundwater pumping and land subsidence in the emilia romagna coastland italy modeling the past occurrence and the future trend 1 the emilia romagna coastland south of the po river delta italy has experienced a dramatic land settlement mainly due to the large groundwater withdrawal related to the local economic and tourist development started in the early 1950s although the use of surface water has reduced the settlement rate over the last three decades anthropogenic land subsidence still continues in a few kilometer wide coastal strip at a rate larger than the natural one the occurrence is reconstructed since 1946 with the aid of advanced finite element flow and poromechanical models implemented with a realistically detailed geology of the regional shallow multiaquifer system the models have been calibrated against the piezometric leveling and extensometer records observed over the last 50 years and a land subsidence prediction in 2016 is performed the results show that the extensive groundwater pumping that occurred in the past is most likely the main cause of the recent land settlement as well because of the delayed compaction of the clay aquitards comprised between the depleted aquifers however the available pumping data do not allow for a thorough understanding of the current local settlement process along the coastline which is the most vulnerable area of the emilia romagna region from an environmental viewpoint if the planned scenario of groundwater resource management will be implemented anthropogenic land subsidence is bound to become a marginal problem for the central and northern portion of the emilia romagna coastland

geodetic determination of tectonic deformation in central greece from 1900 to 1988 the global positioning system has been used to measure the relative displacements of fifteen monuments in a hundred year old triangulation network spanning part of the aegean extensional basin these displacements reflect the tectonic deformation of the region over the past century showing more than one metre of north south extension across the network the crust in this region appears to contain a few slowly deforming blocks separated by more rapidly deforming zones

sediment and heavy metal accumulation in the cauvery basin eleven cores were collected from the cauvery basin radiometric dates were used to determine modern sediment accumulation rates sediment accumulation rates ranged from 0 4 to 4 mm yr heavy metal concentration decreases with the increase of depth the heavy metal concentrations at certain depths are attributed to the irregular input of metals and their remobilization heavy metal accumulations have been computed using sediment accumulation rates and accumulation rates show an additional anthropogenic input of metals and sediments in the recent past factor analysis and correlation analysis show the diverse source and accumulation mechanism influencing the metal distribution in the basin

late holocene mangrove dynamics and coastal environmental changes in the northeastern cauvery river delta india abstract a palaeoclimate and palaeoecological study was carried out using sedimentological palynological and thecamoebian evidence in a 5 m deep sediment core deposited since 3630 cal bp from tspettai mangrove wetland northeastern part of cauvery river delta textural analysis shows the overall predominance of fine clay with intermittent phases of sand the palynological climatic period inferred in phase i 3630 3170 cal bp shows a stabilized estuarine ecosystem conducive for mangroves along with a good percentage of hinterland forest indicating a warm and humid climate with strengthened monsoon phase iia 3170 2600 cal bp shows abundance of salt tolerant mangroves along with a mixed forest suggesting climatic amelioration from warm and humid to dry and arid phase iib 2600 1300 cal bp shows the dominance of salt tolerant species indicating enhanced dry and arid climate coupled with weakened monsoon phase iii since 1300 cal bp is characterized by rejuvenation of true mangroves and high percentages of salinity tolerant mangroves with a low percentage of thecamoebians thereby indicating increased salinity induced by weakened monsoon and enhanced anthropogenic activity it is inferred that during the past 3 millennia climate changed from warm and humid to cool and arid conditions with an evolution of vegetation from moist to dry deciduous forest the qualitative and quantitative study shows a decline in the true mangroves and an increase in the salt tolerant vegetation which is attributed to the increased salinity in the wetland due to high salt accumulation in the root zone which is vulnerable for mangroves

mineralogy and crystal chemistry of mn fe co ni and cu in a deep sea pacific polymetallic nodule minor element concentrations in marine ferromanganese nodules are primarily controlled by the mineralogy which itself depends on redox conditions at the sediment water interface results are presented for the first in depth x ray microstructural and microspectroscopic investigation of a mixed hydrogenetic diagenetic nodule which is representative of ferromanganese deposits on abyssal plains the measurements were conducted by micro x ray diffraction and x ray absorption spectroscopy both xanes and exafs on hydrogeneous and diagenetic regions of the nodule the hydrogenetic diagenetic interface was imaged by x ray microfluorescence after which regions of interest were chosen to represent mineralogical and chemical transformations that occurred at the early stage of suboxic diagenesis in the hydrogenetic nodule oxic environment mn is speciated as fe vernadite a nanocomposite material composed of intergrown feroxyhite feooh and monodispersed phyllomanganate layers having no interlayer mn vernadite in the diagenetic nodule suboxic environment mn is speciated dominantly as mg rich 10 a vernadite which consists of a random intergrowth of vernadite and its transformation product todorokite the authigenic 10 a vernadite precipitated from the components of vernadite in fe vernadite that were dissolved in suboxic microenvironments of the sediment direct evidence supporting a redox driven dissolution reaction is provided by the valence composition of mn as measured by micro xanes which is 0 69mn4 0 24mn3 0 07mn2 average 3 62 0 04 v u for fe vernadite and 0 61mn4 0 23mn3 0 16mn2 average 3 28 0 04 v u for 10 a vernadite ni and cu derived mainly from dissolved vernadite and oxidized organic matter replace structural mn3 4 in both the mno2 layer and todorokite domains of 10 a vernadite pure todorokite in highly diagenetic regions of the nodule has an average formula of mg2 0 167 mn4 0 783 mn3 0 099co3 0 002ni2 0 076cu2 0 040 o2 n h2o with an atomic ratio of cu ni co mn 0 13 which is slightly lower than 0 167 1 6 the maximum metal uptake capacity reported for marine nodules by analogy with synthetic todorokites we infer that mg2 which has a hydrated diameter close to that of the 3 3 tunnel size of todorokite and mn3 and cu2 which prefer jahn teller distorted octahedra play a crucial role in templating the topotactic transformation of 10 a vernadite to todorokite and stabilizing todorokite in suboxic marine sediments

lithospheric folding in iberia integration of stress indicator data gravity data crustal kinematics data and analysis of topography and recent vertical motions demonstrates the occurrence of consistently oriented spatial patterns of large scale alpine to recent intraplate deformation in iberia the inferred upper crustal and lithospheric deformation patterns and the timing of the associated expressions at or near the surface support the existence of a close coupling with plate boundary processes operating at the margins of iberia patterns of lithosphere and upper crustal folds are oriented perpendicular to the main axis of present day intraplate compression in iberia inferred from structural analysis of stress indicator data and focal mechanism solutions these findings suggest the presence of lithospheric folds with wavelengths compatible with theoretical predictions of folding wavelengths of variscan lithosphere stress induced intraplate deformation set up by plate interactions is compatible with indications for the absence of present day deep mantle lithosphere interactions inferred from seismic tomography

new estimates of secular sea level rise from tide gauge data and gia modelling summary during the last three decades at least 30 independent estimates of the secular global mean sea level rise gmslr have been published based on sufficiently long tide gauge tg records despite its apparent simplicity the problem of gmslr is fraught with a number of difficulties which make it one of the most challenging questions of climate change science not surprisingly published estimates show considerable scatter with rates ranging between 1 and 2 mm yr 1 for observations on the century timescale in previous work the importance of glacial isostatic adjustment gia upon the assessment of the gmslr has been clearly demonstrated in particular starting from the 1980s gia models have been routinely employed to decontaminate tg observations from the effects of melting of the late pleistocene ice sheets to fully highlight the sea level variations driven by climate change however uncertainties associated with the earth s rheological profile and the time history of the past continental ice sheets can propagate into the gia corrections after revisiting previous work and estimates we suggest a significant modification of the criteria for the selection of the tgs which are most suitable for the robust assessment of the secular gmslr in particular we seek a set of tgs for which gia corrections are essentially independent of the parametrization of the rheological profile of the earth s mantle and of the detailed time chronology of surface loading this insensitivity is established by considering predictions based upon three gia models widely employed in the recent literature namely ice 3g ice 5g and the one developed at the research school of earth sciences of the national australian university applying this approach and selection criteria previously proposed in the literature we identify a set of 22 sufficiently evenly distributed tgs by simple statistical methods these records yield a preferred gia independent gmslr estimate since 1880 namely 1 5 0 1 mm yr 1 rms 0 4 mm yr 1 wrms 0 3 mm yr 1 this value is consistent with various previous estimates based on secular tg observations and with that proposed for the 20th century by the intergovernmental panel on climate change ipcc fourth assessment report 1 7 0 5 mm yr 1

topography of the calabria subduction zone southern italy clues for the origin of mt etna 1 calabria represents an ideal site to analyze the topography of a subduction zone as it is located on top of a narrow active wadati benioff zone and shows evidence of rapid uplift we analyzed a pattern of surface deformation using elevation data with different filters and showed the existence of a long wavelength 100 km relatively positive topographic signal at the slab edges the elevation of mis 5 5 stage marine terraces supports this pattern although the record is incomplete and partly masked by the variable denudation rate we performed structural analyses along the major active or recently reactivated normal faults showing that the extensional direction varies along the calabrian arc and laterally switches from arc normal within the active portion of the slab to arc oblique or even arc parallel along the northern and southern slab edges this surface deformation pattern was compared with a recent high resolution p wave tomographic model showing that the high seismic velocity anomaly is continuous only within the active wadati benioff zone whereas the northern and southwestern sides are marked by low velocity anomalies suggesting that large scale topographic bulges volcanism and uplift could have been produced by mantle upwelling we present numerical simulations to visualize the three dimensional mantle circulation around a narrow retreating slab ideally similar to the one presently subducting beneath calabria we emphasize that mantle upwelling and surface deformation are expected at the edges of the slab where return flows may eventually drive decompression melting and the mount etna volcanism

the adriatic region an independent microplate within the africa eurasia collision zone 1 we use gps measurements and block modeling to investigate the present day deformation of the adriatic region whose kinematics within the nubia eurasia plate boundary zone is not well constrained and remains controversial block modeling allows us to compute rigid plate angular velocities while accounting for elastic strain accumulation along block bounding faults results suggest that the adriatic is a microplate adria and that the southern boundary with the nubia plate and the aegean domain may be located along the apulia escarpment and the kefallinia fault geodetic data alone cannot discriminate between a single block ap or a two blocks gdap description of adria but the gdap model predicts boundary slip rates that are in better agreement with observations from previous studies

constraints on vertical crustal motion for long baselines in the central mediterranean region using continuous gps abstract gps determination of vertical crustal velocity relative to a globally defined reference frame is limited by the accuracy of the reference frame origin and scale however the precision of relative vertical rates at regional distance scales remains largely unexplored we investigated the precision of regional scale vertical velocity estimates using data from seven continuously operating gps stations located in the central mediterranean the stations form a network of aperture 500 km and each has been in operation for at least 5 yr we used published constraints on recent crustal uplift inferred from late quaternary shoreline data to aid in the definition of a local vertical reference frame for gps rates to facilitate an assessment of gps vertical precision we explored different methods of defining the local reference frame the simplest method involves the estimation of a single scalar translation parameter adjusting the reference frame by this simple method yields agreement between cgps and holocene shoreline data sets at the level of 0 2 to 0 4 mm yr relative rates determined using cgps are also consistent with tide gauge records and sea level determined by satellite altimetry at the level of about 0 2 mm yr these results suggest that regional scale relative velocity precision well below the mm yr level is now possible using continuous gps

stress pattern and strain release in the alpine foreland abstract illies j h baumann h and hoffers b 1981 stress pattern and strain release in the alpine foreland in p vyskocil r green and h malzer editors recent crustal movements 1979 tectonophysics 71 157 172 the tectonism of central europe is governed by a generally se nw 140 directed compressive stress flux from the alps towards their northern foreland since alpine folding had relaxed in the late miocene to early pliocene times only to be replaced by high rates of post orogenic uplift these stresses are understood to be of mainly topographic origin the strain release in the foreland is predominantly restricted to pre existing block boundaries shear or extensional movements could come about along those boundaries under the active regional stress regime the rhinegraben which was an extensional rift valley during the eocene to lower miocene has been subjected to a sinistral strike slip motion with shear controlled en echelon faulting on the present surface hydrothermal convection is observed along deep seated fissure systems held open by continuous shear strain since the central segment of the rift caused by its deviatory trend is under compressive shear strike slip motion will be slowed down in the near geological future a parallel shear belt about 100 km e of the rhinegraben became active by changing its function of primary normal faulting this belt characterized locally by high rates of pleistocene movements and some dense clusters of seismic epicenters swings around the impediment to shear which is situated in the central segment of the rhinegraben the shear motion of both belts converging towards the northernmost segment of the rhinegraben is blocked by the rhenish shield which interrupts the extension of the rift system transversally from here on a belt of seismic activity and slight pleistocene normal faulting traverses the shield in the northwesterly direction of maximum horizontal compression crustal rifting is lacking at this segment due to the tectonic incompetency of the prevailing slaty rocks of the hercynian basement to the north of this lithological unit the seismic belt extends to the rift segment of the lower rhine embayment which shows active crustal spreading along discrete dip slip faults

estimation of small surface displacements in the upper rhine graben area from a combined analysis of ps insar levelling and gnss data the intra plate deformation of the upper rhine graben urg located in central europe is investigated using geodetic measurement techniques we present a new approach to calculate a combined velocity field from insar levelling and gnss measurements as the expected tectonic movements in the urg area are small less than 1mma 1 the best possible solutions for linear velocity rates from single technique analyses are estimated in a first step second we combine the velocity rates obtained from insar line of sight velocity rates in ascending and descending image geometries levelling vertical velocity rates and gnss horizontal velocity rates using least squares adjustment lsa focusing on the northern urg area we analyse sar data on four different image stacks ers ascending ers descending envisat ascending envisat descending using the persistent scatterer ps approach the linear velocity rates in ascending and descending image geometries respectively are estimated in an lsa from joint time series analysis of ers and envisat data vertical velocity rates from levelling are obtained from a consistent adjustment of more than 40 000 measured height differences using a kinematic displacement model horizontal velocity rates in east and north direction are calculated from a time series analysis of daily coordinate estimates at 76 permanently operating gnss sites in the urg region as the locations at which the measurement data of ps insar levelling and gnss reside do not coincide spatial interpolation is needed during several steps of the rigorous processing we use ordinary kriging to interpolate from a given set of data points to the locations of interest with a special focus on the modeling and propagation of errors the final 3 d velocity field is calculated at a 200 m grid which carries values only close to the location of ps points resulting in a mean horizontal and vertical precision of 0 30 and 0 13 mm a 1 respectively the vertical component of the combined velocity field shows a significant subsidence of about 0 5 mm a 1 in the northern part of the graben coinciding with a well known quaternary basin structure horizontal displacement rates of up to 0 8 mm a 1 in southeast direction are observed outside the graben in reasonable alignment with the average direction of maximum horizontal stress within the graben the velocity directions rotate toward east in the non subsiding part while an opposite trend is observed in the subsiding part of the graben the complexities of the observed velocity field are compatible to the geomechanical situation in our investigation area which is characterized by a transition from a restraining to a releasing bend setting glacial isostatic adjustment is another potential source influencing the observed velocity field as well as anthropogenic signals due to mining oil exploration and groundwater usage that have been identified in some places

effect of annual signals on geodetic velocity 1 our analysis of global positioning system gps site coordinates in a global reference frame shows annual variation with typical amplitudes of 2 mm for horizontal and 4 mm for vertical with some sites at twice these amplitudes power spectrum analysis confirms that gps time series also contain significant power at annual harmonic frequencies with spectral indices 1 2 which indicates the presence of repeating signals van dam et al 2001 showed that a major annual component is induced by hydrological and atmospheric loading unless accounted for we show that annual signals can significantly bias estimation of site velocities intended for high accuracy purposes such as plate tectonics and reference frames for such applications annual and semiannual sinusoidal signals should be estimated simultaneously with site velocity and initial position we have developed a model to calculate the level of bias in published velocities that do not account for annual signals simultaneous estimation might not be necessary beyond 4 5 years as the velocity bias rapidly becomes negligible minimum velocity bias is theoretically predicted at integer plus half years as confirmed by tests with real data below 2 5 years the velocity bias can become unacceptably large and simultaneous estimation does not necessarily improve velocity estimates which rapidly become unstable due to correlated parameters we recommend that 2 5 years be adopted as a standard minimum data span for velocity solutions intended for tectonic interpretation or reference frame production and that we be skeptical of geophysical interpretations of velocities derived using shorter data spans

determination of the copper isotope composition of seawater revisited a case study from the mediterranean sea abstract a new technique for the determination of dissolved copper isotope composition 65cu of seawater was applied to examine copper sources and internal cycling in the mediterranean sea along the geotraces ga04n transect a succession of chelating resin with nitrilotriacetic acid functional groups and strong base anion exchange resin together with optimization of the multi collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry set up allowed to isolate copper from seawater matrix and to measure the 65cu 63cu ratios in seawater with an external precision of 0 06 2 s d this method was first applied for inter comparison measurements to surface and deep waters sampled at the bermuda atlantic time series station bats in the north atlantic ocean during the geotraces intercalibration cruise 1 disparities in 65cu reported here and in the literature over these samples showed a need to investigate whether a new inter comparison sample should be decided upon or whether the use of uv oxidation can also affect the measurement of 65cu we also measured total dissolved cu concentration dcu t and 65cu for 12 stations in the mediterranean sea the 65cu distribution showed significant variations in the euphotic zone at the chl a maximum and at bottom depths copper isotope ratios ranged from 0 21 to 0 76 0 06 2 s d yielding an average of 0 51 0 20 2 s d n 96 for the mediterranean sea a strong zonation between natural aerosol deposition to the south and anthropogenic aerosol deposition to the north was seen in the sample set dulaquais et al 2017 gerringa et al 2017 rolison et al 2015 natural dust deposits seemed to draw 65cu toward lower values and deeper in the euphotic zone whereas the impact of anthropogenic aerosols seemed restricted to an increase in dcu t at the chl a maximum 65cu showed significant increase which we attributed to scavenging on and or uptake by phytoplankton the isotope signature of cu sources to the mediterranean sea was also investigated and we inferred a significant source of isotopically heavy cu in the gibraltar area potentially originating from a release of cu sulfide leached in the mining area of southern spain i e iberian pyrite belt in rivers and transported to the mediterranean sea in surface by seasonal water mass circulation conversely marine sediments appear to be a source of isotopically light cu to deep waters this study provides new hints on the use of copper isotopes to study sources and sinks of cu in seawater this article is part of a special issue entitled cycles of trace elements and isotopes in the ocean geotraces and beyond edited by tim m conway tristan horner yves plancherel and aridane g gonzalez

a modified least squares collocation method for the determination of crustal deformation first results in the swiss alps summary the calculation of recent crustal movements and the associated crustal deformation rely on a suitable interpolation of geodetic measurements with repetition cycles of years or decades and modern gps permanent networks a common interpolation methods is the least square collocation lsc lsc requires some a priori assumptions about the characteristics of the velocity field that is stocasticity in moritz s definition of lsc we present a novel approach called adaptative lsc alsc to the interpolation of non stochastic fields which encompass the traditional lsc and the block model as special cases this modified collocation method is based on the empirical estimation of a anisotropic and inhomogeneous covariance function of the interpolated field the method has been tested on synthetic data that simulate geodetic measurements over a triple plate junction and with real data from precise levelling measurements over the swiss alps in both cases alsc gave better and more stable results compared to lsc and other interpolation methods such as smoothed splines

beach deposits of mis 5e high sea stand as indicators for tectonic stability of the carmel coastal plain israel abstract ten beach deposits mainly beachrock on the carmel coastal plain northern israel are discussed six are reported for the first time the deposits are situated within or close to the following seasonal stream locally termed nahal channels nahal ahuza amiram ovadia galim megadim bir ibdawiya me arot and kebara the morphology and lithology of most of the deposits are similar their uppermost altitude varies from 0 to 9 m above the present sea level most of the deposits are composed mainly of fine quartz sand and marine mollusk shells carbonate cemented the dominant mollusk families are glycymerididae cardiidae and donacidae most of the beach deposits are situated between cemented aeolian sandstones locally termed kurkar layers on the carmel coast ridge in the nahal ahuza deposit a marine gastropod lentigo latus an index fossil for the mis 5e high sea stand in the mediterranean area was discovered according to lithology and chronostratigraphy the presence of lentigo latus th u aar and rtl dating and flint artifacts the beach deposits were related to the last interglacial maximum about 125 ka bp i e the mis 5e high sea stand these beach deposits are used to identify the palaeo sea levels and coastlines and to study the tectonics along the carmel coastal plain by comparing the elevations and characteristics of the beach deposits to known mis 5e deposits elsewhere and by analyzing archaeological data it is concluded that during the last 125 ka the maximum possible vertical displacement was less than 48 mm ka and the carmel coastal plain was relatively tectonically stable

eucrust 07 a new reference model for the european crust 1 we present a new digital model eucrust 07 for the crust of western and central europe and surroundings 35n 71n 25w 35e available results of seismic reflection refraction and receiver functions studies are assembled in an integrated model at a uniform grid 15 0 15 0 the model consists of three layers sediments and two layers of the crystalline crust besides depth to the boundaries we provide average p wave velocities in the upper and lower parts of the crystalline crust the new model demonstrates large differences in the moho depth compared to previous compilations over 10 km in some specific areas e g the baltic shield furthermore the velocity structure of the crust is much more heterogeneous than in previous maps eucrust 07 offers a starting point for numerical modeling of deeper structures by allowing correction for crustal effects beforehand and to resolve trade off with mantle heterogeneities citation tesauro m m k kaban and s a p l cloetingh 2008 eucrust 07 a new reference model for the european crust geophys res lett 35 l05313 doi 10 1029 2007gl032244