fossils from quaternary fluvial archives sources of biostratigraphical biogeographical and palaeoclimatic evidence fluvial sedimentary archives have the potential to preserve a wide variety of palaeontological evidence ranging from robust bones and teeth found in coarse gravel aggradations to delicate insect remains and plant macrofossils from fine grained deposits over the last decade advances in quaternary biostratigraphy based on vertebrate and invertebrate fossils primarily mammals and molluscs have been made in many parts of the world resulting in improved relative chronologies for fluviatile sequences complementary fossil groups such as insects ostracods and plant macrofossils are also increasingly used in multi proxy palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions allowing direct comparison of the climates and environments that prevailed at different times across widely separated regions this paper reviews these topics on a regional basis with an emphasis on the latest published information and represents an update to the 2007 review compiled by the flag inspired igcp 449 biostratigraphy subgroup disparities in the level of detail available for different regions can largely be attributed to varying potential for preservation of fossil material which is especially poor in areas of non calcareous bedrock but to some extent also reflect research priorities in different parts of the world recognition of the value of biostratigraphical and palaeoclimatic frameworks which have been refined over many decades in the core regions for such research particularly for the late middle and late pleistocene of nw europe has focussed attention on the need to accumulate similar palaeontological datasets in areas lacking such long research histories although the emerging datasets from these understudied regions currently allow only tentative conclusions to be drawn they represent an important stage in the development of independent biostratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental schemes which can then be compared and contrasted

embedding reach scale fluvial dynamics within the caesar cellular automaton landscape evolution model abstract we introduce a new computational model designed to simulate and investigate reach scale alluvial dynamics within a landscape evolution model the model is based on the cellular automaton concept whereby the continued iteration of a series of local process rules governs the behaviour of the entire system the model is a modified version of the caesar landscape evolution model which applies a suite of physically based rules to simulate the entrainment transport and deposition of sediments the caesar model has been altered to improve the representation of hydraulic and geomorphic processes in an alluvial environment in channel and overbank flow sediment entrainment and deposition suspended load and bed load transport lateral erosion and bank failure have all been represented as local cellular automaton rules although these rules are relatively simple and straightforward their combined and repeatedly iterated effect is such that complex non linear geomorphological response can be simulated within the model examples of such larger scale emergent responses include channel incision and aggradation terrace formation channel migration and river meandering formation of meander cutoffs and transitions between braided and single thread channel patterns in the current study the model is illustrated on a reach of the river teifi near lampeter wales uk

topographical changes revealed by high resolution airborne lidar data the 1999 tsaoling landslide induced by the chi chi earthquake abstract the 1999 chi chi earthquake triggered the catastrophic tsaoling landslide in central taiwan we mapped the landslide area and estimated the landslide volume using a high resolution digital elevation model from airborne lidar light detection and ranging aerial photographs and topographic maps the comparison between scar and deposit volumes about 0 126 km3 and 0 150 km3 respectively suggests a coseismic volume increase of 19 due to decompaction during landsliding in july 2003 the scar and deposit volumes were about 0 125 km3 and 0 110 km3 respectively these estimates suggest that 4 years after the event the volume of landslide debris removed by river erosion was nearly 0 040 km3 these determinations are confirmed by direct comparison between the most accurate topographic models of the post landslide period indicating a very high erosion rate at the local scale 0 01 km3 year for the deposit area of the landslide such a large value highlights the importance of landslide processes for erosion and long term denudation in the taiwan mountain belt

ice moraine and landslide dams in mountainous terrain we review recent work on ice moraine and landslide dams in mountainous terrain thus complementing several comprehensive summaries on glacier dams in intracontinental and arctic areas of low relief we discuss the roles of tectonic and climatic forcing on ice moraine and landslide dam formation and sudden drainage and focus on similarities and differences between their geomorphic impacts on confined valleys drained by steep bedrock and gravel bed rivers despite numerous reported failures of natural dams in mountain belts throughout the world their relevance to long term dynamics of mountain rivers remains poorly quantified all types of dams exert local base level controls thus trapping incoming sediment and inhibiting fluvial bedrock incision pervasive geomorphic and sedimentary evidence of outburst events is preserved even in areas of high erosion rates suggesting that sudden dam failures are characterized by processes of catastrophic valley floor aggradation active channel widening and downstream dispersion of sediment during which little bedrock erosion seems to be achieved we find that in the absence of direct evidence of former dams a number of similarities among the geomorphic and sedimentologic characteristics of catastrophic outburst flows may give rise to ambiguous inferences on the dam forming process this is especially the case for tectonically active mountain belts where there is ample and comparable potential for the formation and failure of ice moraine landslide and polygenetic dams concomitant with climatic oscillations or earthquake disturbance hence the palaeoclimatic implications of erroneously inferring the cause of dam formation may be significant we recommend that future research on natural dams in mountainous terrain addresses a climate and earthquake controlled systematics in the pattern of formation and failure b quantification of response of mountain rivers to catastrophic outburst events and their concomitant process sequences c elaboration of a comprehensive classification of natural dams in mountainous terrain with special attention to polygenetic dams d physical based modelling of dam formation failure and routing of water and sediment outbursts and e quantitative controls on the contribution of natural dams to sediment budgets in mountainous terrain

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

post seismic surface processes in the jiufengershan landslide area 1999 chi chi earthquake epicentral zone taiwan abstract the jiufengershan rock avalanche was one of the largest and most damaging landslides triggered by the chi chi earthquake m l 7 3 m w 7 6 of 21 september 1999 the rock avalanche transported a mass of sedimentary rock 50 m thick and 1 5 km long located on the western limb of the taanshan syncline the surface of rupture coincides with the bedding plane and dips moderately toward the jiutsaihu valley this paper is mainly devoted to the study of post seismic surface processes that affected the sliding surface as well as the debris deposit from september 1999 to february 2003 large fractured blocks and a debris layer observed on the surface of rupture were subjected to mass wasting processes and denudation the quantification of erosion was made using two different approaches first the subpixel correlation method was used to determine the horizontal displacement field from aerial photographs taken respectively 2 and 3 5 months after the earthquake displacements ranging from 1 to 6 m were observed around unstable blocks located at the western flank of the surface of rupture second the co seismic and post seismic volume distributions in the sliding zone were determined from three digital elevation models including a lidar image taken in 2002 post seismic erosion and deposition from september 1999 to april 2002 were mainly associated with mass wasting and denudation at the surface of rupture deposition in small basins and lakes located in the debris deposit and evacuation of materials from the debris deposit along natural and artificial drainage channels the vertical compaction is 1 of the initial height of the deposit

surface based transport model for mixed size sediment we present a transport model for mixed sand gravel sediments fractional transport rates are referenced to the size distribution of the bed surface rather than subsurface making the model completely explicit and capable of predicting transient conditions the model is developed using a new data set of 48 coupled observations of flow transport and bed surface grain size using five different sediments the model incorporates a hiding function that resolves discrepancies observed among earlier hiding functions the model uses the full size distribution of the bed surface including sand and incorporates a nonlinear effect of sand content on gravel transport rate not included in previous models the model shares some common elements with two previous surface based transport models but differs in using the full surface size distribution and in that it is directly developed from a relatively comprehensive data set with unambiguous measurement of surface grain size over a range of flow transport rate and sediments

the hydraulics of a stratified fluid flowing through a contraction the steady hydraulics of a continuously stratified fluid flowing from a stagnant reservoir through a horizontal contraction was studied experimentally and theoretically as the channel narrows the flow accelerates through a succession of virtual controls at each of which the flow passes from subcritical to supercritical with respect to a particular wave mode when the narrowest section acts as a control the flow is asymmetric about the narrowest section supercritical in the divergent section and selfsimilar throughout the channel with increased flow rate a new enclosed self similar solution was found with level isopycnals and velocity uniform with depth

spread f sporadic e coupling at chung li especially for postsunset periods of sunspot maximum years using ionogram recorded data the coupling between spread f occurrence and enhanced e blanketing frequencies fe indicative of fe changes has been investigated for an equatorial ionospheric anomaly crest station chung li for the postsunset periods of sunspot maximum years apart from the evidence for coupling from inspections of the f plots alone for the years analyzed 1981 1982 1988 and 1989 statistical results of more significance were found from superposed epoch analyses isolated spread f events of duration of 2 hours or less which started at or before 2200 lt were used as controls on time series these series were made up of comparisons between 15 min f plot fe values and interpolated monthly median fe values evidence for coupling was found for the analyses which involved 97 controls the evidence in the f plots for three events involving e patches which investigators have examined in some detail using the vhf radar at chung li suggests that these events are also coupled to isolated spread f occurrence copyright 2003 by the american geophysical union

cellular modelling of river catchments and reaches advantages limitations and prospects the last decade has witnessed the development of a series of cellular models that simulate the processes operating within river channels and drive their geomorphic evolution their proliferation can be partly attributed to the relative simplicity of cellular models and their ability to address some of the shortcomings of other numerical models by using relaxed interpretations of the equations determining fluid flow cellular models allow rapid solutions of water depths and velocities these can then be used to drive usually conventional sediment transport relations to determine erosion and deposition and alter the channel form the key advance of using these physically based yet simplified approaches is that they allow us to apply models to a range of spatial scales 1 100 km 2 and time periods 1 100 years that are especially relevant to contemporary management and fluvial studies however these approaches are not without their limitations and technical problems this paper reviews the findings of nearly 10 years of research into modelling fluvial systems with cellular techniques principally focusing on improvements in routing water and how fluvial erosion and deposition including lateral erosion are represented these ideas are illustrated using sample simulations of the river teifi wales a detailed case study is then presented demonstrating how cellular models can explore the interactions between vegetation and the morphological dynamics of the braided waitaki river new zealand finally difficulties associated with model validation and the problems prospects and future issues important to the further development and application of these cellular fluvial models are outlined 2007 elsevier b v all rights reserved

magnitude and frequency of landsliding in a large new zealand catchment knowledge of long term average rates of erosion is necessary if factors affecting sediment yields from catchments are to be understood without such information it is not possible to assess the potential influence of extreme storms and therefore to evaluate the relative importance of various components of a sediment budget a study of the sediment budget for the waipaoa catchment north island new zealand included evaluation of long term rates of landsliding for six landslide prone land systems in the catchment the number of landslides per unit area generated by each of several storms was counted on sequential aerial photographs and correlated with the magnitude of the corresponding storm the resulting relationships were combined with magnitude frequency relationships derived for storms from 70 to 100 year rainfall records in the area to estimate a long term magnitude frequency relationship for landsliding for each land system the long term average values of the areal landslide frequency number of slides per unit area per unit time were then calculated from these relationships the volumes of a sample of landslide scars were measured in the field and the proportion of slides that deliver sediment to channels was determined from aerial photographs these measurements then allowed calculation of the long term average rate of sediment production to streams from landslides for different land systems and types of vegetation results suggest that shallow landslides currently contribute about 15 5 of the suspended sediment load in the waipaoa river above the kanakanaia gauging station and that 75 of the sediment production from the landslides occurs during storms with recurrence intervals of less than 27 years reforestation of 6 3 93 km2 of the slide prone lands in the catchment between 1990 and 1995 resulted in a calculated decrease in slide derived sediment of 10 calculations suggest that reforestation of an additional 3 66 km2 of the catchment in areas with the most sensitive combinations of land system and storm regime could decrease the total sediment inputs from landsliding by about 20

a geometric morphometric assessment of three dimensional models of experimental cut marks using flint and quartzite flakes and handaxes abstract developments in methodological approaches to high resolution morphometrical study of cut mark morphology further our understanding of butchering activities identification of micro morphological variability between different taphonomical alterations on ancient bone allows detection and comparison of bone surface modifications and associated taphonomical agents and activities by taking a geometrical morphometrical approach data from 3 d laser scanning and micro photogrammetrical models of experimental cut marks enable statistical analysis to classify and distinguish between cut marks by bifaces from those by flakes and in each case between marks made by flint from those made by quartzite tools analysis of two tool types each made from two raw materials as independent variables is a methodological advance in morphometrical studies of experimental cut marks which hitherto have tended to focus on the respective parts played by tool types or types of raw material in morphometrical characterization of experimental and archaeological cut marks

landslides induced by the wenchuan earthquake and the subsequent strong rainfall event a case study in the beichuan area of china abstract the wenchuan earthquake on may 12 2008 triggered massive landslides and a subsequent strong rainfall prompted the development of new landslides as well as the reactivation of some pre existing landslides the highest seismic intensity zone of the wenchuan earthquake in beichuan china was selected as a case study to analyze the influence of the earthquake and the subsequent heavy rains on landslide evolution we selected this study area 414 km 2 since it was close to the coseismic surface rupture and because it suffered strong ground motion based on the interpretation of high resolution aerial photographs and remote sensing imagery combined with field investigation 40 pre earthquake landslides and 2221 coseismic landslides were identified with total landslide areas of 2 68 km 2 and 30 81 km 2 respectively there were 134 large over 50 000 m 2 co seismic landslides that covered a surface area of 15 54 km 2 and represented approximately 50 4 of the total area of the co seismic landslides the coseismic landslides were mainly located on the hanging wall of the causative fault and on the steep valley sides of the jian river and its tributaries a strong rainfall event occurred four months after the wenchuan earthquake and induced 969 new landslides which covered a 6 90 km 2 area and enlarged 169 existing landslides 2 48 km 2 the landslides were identified in spot5 images ultimately we found that earthquake tremors and the subsequent rainstorm severely disturbed the surface strata resulting in a large number of landslides

the topographic control of planetary scale flow we develop a theory to describe the topographic control of planetary scale flows resulting from the variation of the earth s rotation with latitude we show that on passing over topography an inertial zonal current on an equatorial plane may pass through a control at which the flow changes from a subcritical to a supercritical solution branch downstream of this control a transition back to the subcritical solution branch may occur for example by the generation of planetary eddies or radiating rossby waves we calculate the energy dissipated across such a transition and discuss the relevance of this theory for a number of atmospheric and oceanic phenomena we also show that this phenomenon is analogous to the hydraulic control of a non rotating stratified flow passing through a channel of variable width

catchment reconstruction erosional stability at millennial time scales using landscape evolution models abstract an important part of planning for the rehabilitation of a mine site is the design of stable final landforms for waste rock dumps or spoil piles whilst able to be assessed over the short term years to decades the longer term behaviour centuries to millennia of such landscapes is not within any meaningful human time frame of observation predictive numerical models therefore form an important tool with which current landscape behaviour and longer term trajectory can be assessed however an important issue associated with the use of models is the ability to assess the reliability and accuracy of the model here the siberia and caesar lisflood landscape evolution models lems are used to simulate and assess the geomorphic stability of a conceptual rehabilitated landform of the ranger uranium mine in the northern territory australia for a simulated period of up to 1000 years utilising both models in this study enabled an independent assessment of likely landscape processes and evolution as well as each model results show that siberia and caesar lisflood produce erosion rates and patterns that are broadly similar at millennial time scales short term processes such as gullying appear to be the dominant erosion features in the proposed landforms and may produce substantial erosion in terms of size and amount of hillslope material eroded and transported downslope vegetation was found to have a major effect on the erosion potential of the landform surface overall both models produce very similar results

new data from ambrona closing the hunting versus scavenging debate abstract this paper presents a taphonomic analysis of the faunal assemblages from the 1993 1999 excavations at ambrona spain directed by santonja and perez gonzalez the purpose of the new excavations was to achieve a better understanding of the stratigraphic sequence general geology sedimentary context and processes of accumulation of materials our objectives are to evaluate the opposing interpretations of the hominid subsistence activities at the site proposed by freeman and binford the faunal and lithic remains are found in different sedimentary contexts an alluvial fan lacustrine muds fluviatile clay sands and channel deposits faunal remains in the lacustrine muds are often but not always in primary context remains of elephant and deer carcasses may be found in partial articulation or proximity and represent natural occurrences without any clear evidence of hominid intervention in other contexts the faunal remains are occurrences of single anatomical elements either displaced by water or left isolated in situ there are no carnivore marks bones and stone artifacts show varying degrees of mechanical abrasion due to water transport limited evidence of human action on bones is provided by a few sem verified cutmarks and some anthropic fractures they document butchery of various animals including elephants we cannot prove hunting but we can definitely reject binford s idea of marginal scavenging of medium size ungulates from carnivore kills ambrona is a complex mix of natural and human components the remnant of a natural landscape regularly visited by hominids who transported some artifacts from nonlocal raw material sources and had an organized approach to meat acquisition however strong evidence of elephant hunting is provided only by sites younger than ambrona

changing competition dynamics among predators at the late early pleistocene site barranc de la boella tarragona spain abstract the late early pleistocene site barranc de la boella provides an unparalleled opportunity to assess the context of the activities of the hominin populations that inhabited the iberian peninsula at 1 ma recently strong evidence for access to mammoth meat has been described at the pit 1 locality at the la mina and el forn excavation areas little evidence exists for the anthropogenic processing of macromammals however the presence of humans is recorded and the available evidence suggests these populations had access to several interesting resources by analysing and comparing five separate assemblages at barranc de la boella we assess the fluctuating presence of hominins and carnivores and the levels of competition among predators in each assemblage our analysis reveals different levels of competition intensity during the formation of assemblages when hominin groups were present as evidenced by the abundance and diversity of stone artefacts the analyses of skeletal component ratios indicate several competitive contexts and the greatest presence of hominin groups is associated with the most competitive scenarios the palaeoenvironment at barranc de la boella was rich in resources that hominins could exploit the presence of hominin and carnivore groups appears to have been higher in levels with more inferred competition this scenario supports prior research that concludes that carnivore abundance and highly competitive contexts were two constants in the lives of these hominin groups thus the criteria determining whether hominins could inhabit a given landscape were most likely related to the presence or absence of resources such as animal resources water and raw materials rather than the dynamics of the carnivore populations to which the hominins were able to become habituated

the leaky thermocline a model for the vertical structure of ocean gyres is presented that extends the ideal thermocline theories of rhines and young and luyten et al to include a cross layer volume flux associated with geostrophic eddy transfer a two and one half layer model is considered that assumes that the intensity of the eddy transfer depends on the local strength of the current the ideal thermocline models emerge in the limit where the parameter characterizing the cross layer volume flux is asymptotically small inclusion of the eddy induced volume flux resolves the nonuniqueness of the sverdrup dynamics in the unventilated pool attached to the western boundary layer in the ventilated region solutions of the model equations converge to their ideal counterparts the circulation is closed explicitly by developing a western boundary layer theory based entirely on the effects of the cross isopycnal volume flux due to eddies unlike most models of western intensification the leaky boundary layer here is active and its dynamics are essential for determining the structure of the interior field

velocity and transport structure of the kuroshio extension at 35 n 152 e a current meter mooring maintained for 2 years at 35 n 152 e as part of the wespac array schmitz et al 1987 sampled the kuroshio extension during the last 390 days of deployment based on a method developed by hall and bryden 1985 for the gulf stream at 68 w velocity and temperature time series at five depths from 350 to 6000 m have been used to construct the representative horizontal velocity structure of the current cross stream position is quantified in terms of temperature at 350 dbar and an alongstream flow direction is defined on the basis of the current shear integrated transport of the kuroshio is 87 21 sv compared to 94 26 sv for the gulf stream at 68 w based on analogous data sets and analysis techniques the two currents are compared in terms of horizontal and vertical distributions of transport as well as relative strength of barotropic and baroclinic components the kuroshio has a larger relative barotropic component than the gulf stream while the latter has a stronger deeper thermocline expression the effects of rotating velocity measurements to a continuously changing alongstream direction are examined for both currents the major impact is to cut the apparent velocity variance in half demonstrating that much of the original variance is due to the meandering of a quasi fixed velocity profile rather than the passage of eddies results from these somewhat unconventional analysis methods are placed in broader geographical context and compare favorably with more traditional methods of determining these currents transports

deformation due to the 17 august 1999 izmit turkey earthquake measured from spot images the geometry of the ruptured areas and the coseismic slip distribution data are key to highlighting the behavior of seismic faults this information is generally retrieved from field investigations and geodetic measurements or synthetic aperture radar sar interferometry here we show that spot images can also be used to accurately map the fault zone and to determine the slip distribution by subpixel correlation of images acquired before and after an earthquake the measured slip includes the contribution of possible distributed shear that might not be clearly expressed in surface ruptures and smoothes out possible along strike variability due to near surface fault complexities we apply the technique to the m s 7 4 1999 izmit earthquake our results reveal a 100 m wide and very linear fault zone that can be traced for 70 km from golcuk to akyazi along which supershear rupture has been inferred the obtained slip distribution compares well with the field measurements and is consistent with ground deformation measured at some distance from the fault zone using sar images very little deformation was accommodated off the main fault plane maximum slip is observed near sapanca lake at a small fault jog that has probably influenced rupture propagation

horizontal coseismic deformation of the 1999 chi chi earthquake measured from spot satellite images implications for the seismic cycle along the western foothills of central taiwan 1 the 1999 chi chi earthquake mw 7 6 broke a major thrust fault along the western foothills of the central range of taiwan we have measured the horizontal coseismic displacement field by correlating optical satellite images acquired before and after the earthquake these data reveal the fault trace and a clockwise rotation of surface displacements toward the north with much larger displacements and strain in the hanging wall at the surface coseismic slip increases from 5 6 m near the epicenter to 10 11 m to the north in the epicentral area we observe a left lateral strike slip zone trending n125 e and farther north a fault zone trending n s with a right lateral component the data were modeled using elastic dislocations the fault geometry consists of a shallow

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

analyses of uav and gnss based flow velocity variations of the rock glacier lazaun otztal alps south tyrol italy abstract flow velocities were measured on the active rock glacier lazaun by eleven gnns 2006 2018 and six uav campaigns 2016 2018 to better understand the flow pattern and its possible causes this medium sized active rock glacier is located w of kurzras maso corto in the schnals senales valley in the southern otztal alps south tyrol northern italy the uav data were used to generate displacement maps by image correlation techniques to analyse surface lowering and accumulation processes and to interpret the geomorphology base on shaded relief images the spatial information from uav contributes much more to the understanding of the rock glacier flow patterns as the point based gnss measurements even when the uav based horizontal displacement analyses are less precise the level of detection lod for the absolute horizontal displacements derived by image correlation from uav data ranges between 0 05 and 0 15 m a comparison of the displacement lengths shows that the uav derived displacement vectors deviate in average about 0 05 m from the gnss measured displacement lengths the deviation in the displacement directions is smaller when the absolute displacement is higher and ranges in zones with an absolute displacement higher than 0 3 m in dependence to the data quality between 0 and 4 consequently when planning a uav based rock glacier monitoring the achievable data accuracy rock glacier flow velocity and the time span must be considered analyses of the rock glacier velocities from gnss and uva data show that the calculated horizontal mean velocity increased significantly from 2 mm day in 2006 up to 6 mm day in the period 2012 to 2016 and then decreased to values of 3 4 mm day until 2018 we assume that internal structures and hydrogeology are essential parameters that control the flow mechanism of rock glacier lazaun particularly the shear horizon composed of debris and banded ice that is present at the base of the permafrost body and the unfrozen groundwater bearing sediment layer between the shear horizon and the bedrock we conclude that climate warming caused increased infiltration of meltwater into the shear horizon and that this is the main driving force for the movement of the rock glacier increased meltwater infiltration as result of climate warming caused an increase of flow velocity until 2016 the observed thickness loss near the front of the rock glacier indicates increased melting of permafrost ice resulting in a significant loss of permafrost ice during the last years this process that particularly occurs in the lower part of the rock glacier is believed to be responsible for the decrease in flow velocity since 2017

cellular modelling in fluvial geomorphology this paper outlines the principles of cellular modelling in fluvial geomorphology and addresses issues of model formulation and validation in the context of numerical modelling more generally in doing so it seeks to highlight the prospects for using cellular approaches to develop an improved understanding of both rivers and models copyright 2005 john wiley sons ltd

a quantitative three dimensional depositional model of gravelly braided rivers a quantitative three dimensional depositional model of gravelly braided rivers has been developed based largely on the deposits of the sagavanirktok river in northern alaska these deposits were described using cores wireline logs trenches and ground penetrating radar profiles the origin of the deposits was inferred from observations of 1 channel and bar formation and migration and channel filling interpreted from aerial photographs 2 water flow during floods and 3 the topography and texture of the river bed at low flow stage this depositional model quantitatively represents the geometry of the different scales of strataset the spatial relationships among them and their sediment texture distribution porosity and permeability in the model are related to sediment texture the geometry of a particular type and scale of strataset is related to the geometry and migration of the bedform type e g ripples dunes bedload sheets bars associated with deposition of the strataset in particular the length to thickness ratio of stratasets is similar to the wavelength to height ratio of associated bedforms furthermore the wavelength and height of bedforms such as dunes and bars are related to channel depth and width therefore the thickness of a particular scale of strataset i e medium scale cross sets and large scale sets of inclined strata will vary with river dimensions these relationships between the dimensions of stratasets bedforms and channels mean that this depositional model can be applied to other gravelly fluvial deposits the depositional model can be used to interpret the origin of ancient gravelly fluvial deposits and to aid in the characterization of gravelly fluvial aquifers and hydrocarbon reservoirs

upstream effects of the gulf stream on the structure of the mid ocean thermocline abstract attempts to resolve a paradoxical result by blandford 1965 led us to reexamine the degree of specification necessary to assure continuity of solution in a density stratified non rotating channel through which two layers move over a deep resting one we then proceeded to formulate and solve numerically a rudimentary beta plane model of an inertial boundary current fed entirely from the equator the zero potential vorticity case inspection of the numerical results indicates a simpler self similar form of the evolution of this problem leading to same results but explicitly analytical this model implies that the gulf stream exerts a control over mid ocean thermocline structure

steady flows drawn from a stably stratified reservoir abstract perfect fluid theory is applied to the description of steady motions that can be generated as the outflow into a horizontal channel from a large reservoir of incompressible heavy fluid whose density is an arbitrary decreasing function of height a particular aim is to pinpoint the significance of an already known class of flows called self similar which satisfy the approximate shallow water equations applicable when the horizontal scale of the motion greatly exceeds its vertical scale but which have not until now been shown to match the downstream conditions that primarily determine the motion in practice new variational principles are introduced characterizing the class of self similar flows in section 2 there is a characterization in terms of flow force among parallel flows realized asymptotically in a uniform channel in section 3 among a wider range of possibilities including periodic flows and in section 6 among supercritical flows realized in a convergent divergent channel aspects of general flows in channels of gradually varying breadth are treated in sections 4 and 5 including the remarkable fact proven in section 5 that every steady flow outside but close to the self similar class must somewhere undergo a local crisis unaccountable by the shallow water approximation practical interpretations afforded by the theoretical results are noted in section 7 author

topographic changes and their driving factors after 2008 wenchuan earthquake abstract the 2008 wenchuan earthquake caused topographic change in the stricken areas because of the occurrence of numerous coseismic landslides the emergence of new landslides and debris flows and movement of loose materials under the driving force of high rainfall could further shape the local topography currently little attention has been paid to continuously monitoring and assessing topographic changes after the major earthquake in this research we obtained an elevation dataset 2002 2010 2013 and 2015 based on digital elevation model dem data and a dem extracted from zy 3 stereo paired images with validation by field measurement we quantitatively assessed elevation changes in different years and qualitatively analyzed spatiotemporal variation of the terrain and mass movement across the study area the results show that the earthquake affected area experienced substantial elevation changes caused by seismic forces and subsequent rainfalls high rainfall after the earthquake have become the biggest driver of elevation reduction which overwhelmed elevation increase caused by the major earthquake increased post earthquake erosion intensity has caused large amounts of loose materials to accumulate in river channels and gullies and on upper middle mountain slopes which increases the risk of flooding and geo hazards in the area

fluvial deposits as an archive of early human activity progress during the 20 years of the fluvial archives group fluvial sedimentary archives are important repositories for lower and middle palaeolithic artefacts throughout the old world especially in europe where the beginning of their study coincided with the realisation that early humans were of great antiquity now that many river terrace sequences can be reliably dated and correlated with the globally valid marine isotope record potentially useful patterns can be recognized in the distribution of the find spots of the artefacts that constitute the large collections that were assembled during the years of manual gravel extraction this paper reviews the advances during the past two decades in knowledge of hominin occupation based on artefact occurrences in fluvial contexts in europe asia and africa as such it is an update of a comparable review in 2007 at the end of igcp project no 449 which had instigated the compilation of fluvial records from around the world during 2000 2004 under the auspices of the fluvial archives group an overarching finding is the confirmation of the well established view that in europe there is a demarcation between handaxe making in the west and flake core industries in the east although on a wider scale that pattern is undermined by the increased numbers of lower palaeolithic bifaces now recognized in east asia it is also apparent that although it seems to have appeared at different places and at different times in the later lower palaeolithic the arrival of levallois technology as a global phenomenon was similarly timed across the area occupied by middle pleistocene hominins at around 0 3 ma

the chi chi earthquake sequence active out of sequence thrust faulting in taiwan we combined precise focal depths and fault plane solutions of more than 40 events from the 20 september 1999 chi chi earthquake sequence with a synthesis of subsurface geology to show that the dominant structure for generating earthquakes in central taiwan is a moderately dipping 20 to 30 thrust fault away from the deformation front a second subparallel seismic zone lies about 15 kilometers below the main thrust these seismic zones differ from previous models indicating that both the basal decollement and relic normal faults are aseismic

the formation and breach of a short lived landslide dam at hsiaolin village taiwan part i post event reconstruction of dam geometry abstract in this paper technologies from multiple disciplines are used to reconstruct the shape of the hsiaolin landslide dam a short lived landslide dam sld that was triggered by typhoon morakot here the formation failure mode and breaching process of this sld are investigated the results indicate that the overtopping time and the debris budget constrained the dam geometry the inferred volume of the hsiaolin landslide dam 15 4 million m3 is much smaller than the actual landslide volume 25 2 million m3 even considering the rock mass dilation and debris entrainment meanwhile a 46 error could be induced if an over simplified equation a function of the dam height length and width is used to calculate the dam volume the saddle of the dam crest which is where overtopping occurred could be used as a reference to measure the dam height and length accordingly the determined dam dimensions of height 44 m length 370 m and width 1500 m are suggested to be the representative geometrical indices that influenced the stability of the hsiaolin landslide dam the flow rate of the dammed river another variable relevant to dam stability was determined from a run off simulation it is suggested that instead of the peak flow before the dam formation the flow rate during the blockage period 2974 m3 s should be used as the training data for building a statistical model for stability predictions finally the low hydraulic gradient at the toe of the dam s surface and the high safety factor of the dam slope indicate that the piping and slope instability were irrelevant to the failure of the hsiaolin short lived landslide dam it is postulated that overtopping about one hour after the blockage dominated the failure process of this heavy rainfall induced landslide dam

post earthquake landsliding and long term impacts in the wenchuan earthquake area china abstract the ms 8 0 wenchuan earthquake on may 12 2008 triggered tens of thousands of landslides and produced large amounts of loose material the loose material accumulated in gullies or on slopes provides abundant sources for the consequent debris flows which will endanger resettled residents and destroy urban reconstruction during the 5 years following the wenchuan earthquake event heavy rainfalls have already induced a great number of debris flows in the earthquake damaged area resulting in serious casualties and property losses the co seismic landslides and the debris flows induced by rainfalls in the mianyuan river basin are analyzed using multi temporal remote sensing images more than 2000 landslides were triggered and about 4 0 108 m3 of loose material was generated in the mianyuan river basin and the volume of erodible material is 6 0 107 1 6 108 m3 there were 1 27 107 m3 of bed load sediments and 6 3 105 m3 suspended load sediments transported into the river system in the past 5 years the active mass movements will last for a long period in the mianyuan river basin

ongoing research at the late middle pleistocene site of la polledrara di cecanibbio central italy with emphasis on human elephant relationships abstract the site of la polledrara di cecanibbio latium italy is related to deposits of the pg6 sequence middle pleistocene aurelia formation mis 10 and 9 the sediments are mainly volcaniclastic in composition and constitute the filling of incised valleys mainly characterized by fluvial deposits at the base passing upward to fluvio lacustrine and palustrine deposits containing abundant fossil mammal remains and artifacts the arrangement of the specimens and taphonomic observations suggest that most of the transport of the bones occurred during flooding events followed by progressive swampy phases resulting in the formation of areas with stagnant and muddy waters where some elephants became trapped as indicated by remains in partial anatomical articulation recent excavations carried out at the site permit a better definition of the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction already partially outlined in previous publications in particular an area showing a close correlation between the skeleton of an elephant and human activity allows documentation and better understanding of some aspects of human elephant interaction probably mainly represented by scavenging activity

geological and geomorphological precursors of the chiu fen erh shan landslide triggered by the chi chi earthquake in central taiwan abstract special features were correlated to the geological causes of the chiu fen erh shan landslide a gigantic rockslide on a dip slope induced by the chi chi earthquake ml 7 3 in central taiwan in 1999 an aerial photo interpretation and the succeeding geological mapping of the failure were employed in this study a linear depression a steep step and a low drainage density in the landslide area were detected from the aerial photos taken in 1998 the gravitational creep was believed to result in the features of the linear depression and the low drainage density the steep step represented a buckling feature found in the field the landslide area is composed of stratified sandstone and shale with dip angles ranging 20 36 the slip surface developed along a pre existing bedding fault that resulted from flexural slip folding before the chi chi earthquake the rock on the upslope side buckled and was retained by a thick bedded sandstone downslope the earthquake shock seriously damaged the sandstone support and led to the catastrophic landslide this type of landslide is likely to occur on the moderately dipping slope of stratified rocks that were previously deformed by flexural slip folding

reconstructing the evolution of a deep seated rockslide marzell and its response to glacial retreat based on historic and remote sensing data abstract in this study a combination of different topographic data from historic topographic maps and remote sensing is used to reconstruct and monitor the behaviour of the high alpine ice contact rockslide system marzell and its response to glacial debuttressing in the eastern alps topographic data from archives historical topographic maps national glacier inventories aerial images orthoimages and als data and data from monitoring campaigns geodetic measurements terrestrial laser scanning and uav imaging campaigns are processed to georeferenced images and or elevation data respectively the data from different data sources is compiled and analysed with the aim to i reconstruct the extent thickness and volume changes of the glacier since 1893 and ii to analyse the rockslide deformation evolution by extracting information about the displacement direction dip angle velocity and partial failure of rockslide slabs since 1951 the rockslide is compound of different rockslide slabs which move downwards as rigid blocks along basal shear zones the analyses and interpretation of the data suggest a rotational type of rockslide failure mechanisms the rockslide activity correlates with the ice volume loss at the adjacent part of the glacier in the period between 1971 and 1997 the annual average rockslide activity was about 0 05 m a and the annual average ice thickness loss was 0 1 m a since the end of the last century the annual average ice thickness loss increased dramatically to 5 m a in that period the rockslide activity accelerated the highest rockslide activity up to 1 5 m a was observed in the 2000s when half of the slope toe was exposed because of glacier retreat since 2010 a deceleration of the rockslide can be observed in the vicinity of the rockslide the glacier almost disappeared and lost 99 88 of its ice volume between 1893 and 2014 the geomorphological and geological information gathered about the rockslide evolution and the glacier retreat form the base for further rockslide analyses and allow to study and model the influence from glacial debuttressing

velocity field of gps stations in the taiwan area abstract the 131 stations of the taiwan gps network were surveyed 4 6 times from 1990 to 1995 with dual frequency geodetic receivers the standard deviation of an observed baseline length with its linear trend removed is in the range of 6 10 mm for a 3 120 km long baseline the average rates of length change for all baselines of the network and those from nine continuously monitoring permanent stations are used in a least squares adjustment to estimate the velocities of the gps stations relative to paisha penghu situated at the chinese continental margin to the south of fengping in the northern coastal range the velocity vectors of stations in lanhsu lutao and the coastal range trend in the directions of 306 322 with rates of 56 82 mm yr in contrast there is a dramatic decrease in the rates to the north of fengping this may be caused by the motion along the ne sw trending thrusts which obliquely cut the northern coastal range a discontinuity of about 30 mm yr in the rates along with a remarkable change in the directions of station velocity is observed across the longitudinal valley then the moving directions gradually shift to the west for the stations in the western foothills in the kaohsiung pingtung coastal area the station velocities are even directed toward the southwest to the north of the peikang high the velocity vectors of the stations change direction from the west gradually to the north and finally to the east and southeast significant nw se extensional deformation is found in the ilan plain and northern taiwan in general the pattern of the velocity field for gps stations in the taiwan area is quite consistent with the directions of present day tectonic stress

modelling floods in hydrologically complex lowland river reaches abstract this paper considers the modelling of lowland river reaches which contain complex within reach hydrological interactions it is clear that river and floodplain flow are the most important processes in terms of flood modelling in lowland systems although there are often important lateral inflows from catchments and hillslopes bounding the floodplain and from interactions between the river and the floodplain which can all affect the propagation of the flood wave previous models have often either considered a complex representation of the fluvial processes with no representation of the hydrological inflows into the reach bates p d anderson m g price d a hardy r j smith c n 1996 analysis and development of hydraulic models for floodplain flows in anderson m g walling d e bates p d eds floodplain processes wiley chichester pp 215 254 or have simulated a range of catchment processes with a poor representation of the river and floodplain abbot m b bathurst j c cunge j a o connell p e rasmussen j 1986 an introduction to the european hydrological system systeme hydrologique europeen she 2 structure of a physically based distributed modelling system journal of hydrology 87 61 77 hence this paper develops a modelling approach based on a two dimensional finite element hydraulic model of river and floodplain flow which is linked to a series of simple hydrological models that simulate catchment runoff surface and subsurface hillslope runoff and floodplain infiltration simulations show that the model is able to predict flood hydrographs for a series of flood events under a range of different hydrological conditions down a reach of the river severn uk furthermore the comparison of results from simulations using hydrological representations of different degrees of complexity suggest that there are restrictions on the necessary complexity of the hydrological components depending on the application of the model and the available validation data simple approaches to the reach scale hydrology may be sufficient if only the bulk outflow hydrograph is required by the user however more complex spatially and temporally distributed models appear to be required if predictions of the flood inundation extent are desired the simulations raise the issue of the application of distributed models and attempt to provide a framework for future research the results suggest that there is a need for the validation of the internal predictions of distributed models of flood flow and suggests a need for field data of river and floodplain interactions within long lowland river reaches

numerical modelling of floodplain hydraulics and suspended sediment transport and deposition a numerical model is presented for the prediction of floodplain inundation extents flow depths and velocities and patterns of suspended sediment dispersion and deposition the model employs a simplified and novel treatment of fluid flow and a conventional convection diffusion mass balance relationship for suspended sediment transport and deposition these relationships are solved over a finite difference grid with a relatively fine nodal spacing which enables a detailed representation of complex floodplain topography the model is applied to a 600 m reach of the river culm devon uk continuous records of river stage and suspended sediment concentration monitored at the upstream boundary of the study reach provide the data needed to operate the model these data are supplemented by measurements of the in situ settling characteristics of the suspended sediment load model predictions of overbank flow depths and velocities and patterns of suspended sediment concentrations and deposition amounts are presented predicted patterns of overbank deposition are described and compared with field measurements obtained with the aid of astroturf sedimentation traps grain size distributions obtained for samples of deposited sediment retrieved from the sedimentation traps are also examined and compared with model predictions the results of both the field measurement programme and modelling work are shown to have significant implications for the representation of floodplain topography and suspended sediment particle size and settling properties in numerical simulations of overbank processes 1998 john wiley sons ltd

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

large rockslides in the southern central andes of chile 32 34 5 s tectonic control and significance for quaternary landscape evolution abstract the distribution and age of large 0 1 km2 pliocene to recent rockslides in the chilean cordillera principal 32 34 5 s the southern central andes has been analyzed to determine the rockslide triggering mechanisms and impact on regional landscape evolution most of the rockslides appear in the western cordillera principal and cluster along major geological structures variographic analyses show spatial correlation between rockslides geological structures and shallow seismicity a relative chronosequence was calibrated with existing 14c and 40ar 39ar dates and new cosmogenic nuclide exposure ages for selected rockslides rockslide induced sediment yield was estimated with empirical relations for rockslide area distributions throughout the quaternary rockslides have delivered sediment to streams at rates equivalent to denudation rates of 0 10 0 06 mm a 1 while estimates using short term 20 a seismicity records are 0 3 0 2 0 6 mm a 1 the estimates of sediment transfer and the spatial distribution of rockslides reflect a landscape in which tectonic and geological controls on denudation are more significant than climate

the early acheulean technology of barranc de la boella catalonia spain abstract since 2007 excavations at barranc de la boella tarragona catalonia spain have revealed three localities with rich archaeo paleontological assemblages la mina el forn and pit 1 palaeontology palaeomagnetism and cosmogenic analyses have dated these localities to close to 1 ma the presence of mammuthus meridionalis hippopotamus antiquus stephanorhinus cf hundsheimensis mimomys savini and victoriamys chalinei stand out in the sample of macro and micro mammals the lithic assemblages from the three sites are made up of percussion cobbles choppers chopper cores cores simple flakes and some retouched flakes mainly denticulates and notches in the case of the el forn and pit 1 localities two large cutting tools have been recovered a cleaver like tool and a pick made of hard wearing schist the lithic assemblage of pit 1 which includes several refitting lithic sets is closely associated with the remains of a young adult mammuthus meridionalis in a clear butchering site context this evidence suggests that barranc de la boella is the oldest european early acheulean site and one of the oldest butchering site on the subcontinent during the late early pleistocene the study of the variability among these three localities in similar environmental conditions together with information from other sites are discussed in order to gain further knowledge about the appearance of the acheulean in europe and its continuity or discontinuity in relation to pre existing technologies

elephants at the middle pleistocene acheulian open air site of revadim quarry israel abstract lower paleolithic faunal and lithic assemblages serve as a major source of information on the behavior and capabilities of early and middle pleistocene hominins the multi layered late acheulian site of revadim quarry provides a rare opportunity to study hominin elephant interactions during the late lower paleolithic period in the levant a large proportion of this open air site was excavated ca 250 m 2 and yielded a wealth of lithic and faunal remains in this paper the proboscideans from revadim are presented for the first time within the broader geomorphological stratigraphic and archaeological context in order to allow a better understanding of elephants within the acheulian in the southern levant the unprecedented quantity of elephant remains at the site is accompanied by large and rich lithic assemblages of special interest are several elephant bones with cut marks and the earliest appearance in the southern levant of bones that seem to have been shaped to resemble tools the site bears testimony to complex exploitation of proboscideans

a cellular model of holocene upland river basin and alluvial fan evolution coulthard t j macklin m g kirkby m j 2002 a cellular model of holocene upland river basin and alluvial fan evolution earth surface processes and landforms 27 3 269 288

modelling long term basin scale sediment connectivity driven by spatial land use changes changes in land use can affect local geomorphology and sediment dynamics however these impacts could conceivably lead to changes in geomorphological processes beyond the area of land use change thereby evidencing a geomorphic connectivity in the landscape we conduct a numerical modelling experiment using the caesar landscape evolution model to investigate the extent and nature of such connectivity in the river swale basin six simulations are run and analysed two of these are reference simulations where the basin has a hypothetical total grassland cover or total forest cover in the other four simulations half of the basin is subjected to either deforestation or reforestation during the simulation simulations are analysed for temporal trends in sediment yield and for spatial trends in erosion and deposition across the basin results show that deforestation or reforestation in one half of the basin can indeed affect the geomorphology of the other half thus implying a geomorphological connectivity across the basin this connectivity is locally very high with significant morphological impacts close to where de or re forestation occurs changes are observed both downstream and upstream of the areas where the land use changes occurred the impacts are more pronounced in the downstream direction and are still apparent in the basin scale sediment yields as deforestation of half the basin can increase decadal sediment yields by over 100 whilst reforestation of half the basin can lead to 40 decreases however our results also indicate a reverse connectivity whereby erosion and deposition in upstream headwaters and tributaries can for the first time be conclusively attributed to land use changes several kilometres downstream due to alterations in the valley floor base level resulting from incision and alluviation

simulation of braided river flow using a new cellular routing scheme abstract results are presented from a numerical simulation of two dimensional flow patterns in a braided river using a simple cellular routing scheme the results of the routing scheme are compared with field measurements of discharge per unit width obtained within the study reach at low flow and for higher flows with the predictions of a more sophisticated hydraulic model that solves the two dimensional shallow water form of the navier stokes equations an assessment is made of the sensitivity of the routing scheme to variations in the values of its main parameters and appropriate values are determined based on the physical characteristics of the study site and available flow measurements it is shown that despite the simple approach adopted by the cellular routing scheme to simulate processes of water redistribution it is able to replicate accurately both the field data and the results of the more sophisticated hydraulic model these results indicate that the routing scheme outlined here is able to overcome some of the limitations of previous simple cellular automata models and may be suitable for use in modelling bedload transport and channel change in complex fluvial environments as such this research represents a small and ongoing contribution to the field of numerical simulation of braided river processes

analysis of landsliding by earthquake shaking using a block on slope thermo mechanical model example of jiufengershan landslide central taiwan the jiufengershan rock and soil avalanche is one of the largest landslides triggered by the chi chi taiwan earthquake september 21 1999 in order to study landslide triggering and propagation by seismic shaking we propose a method that combines features of the classic newmark approach with mechanical relations involving mohr coulomb failure criteria pore water pressure and shear heating during the sliding process the effective shear strength is affected by shear heating and by pore pressure variations during the sliding process the shaking process was simulated using strong motion accelerograms of the three nearest free field stations which surrounded the landslide the initiation and propagation of earthquake induced landslides are mainly controlled by the peak and residual shear strengths respectively the increase in temperature in the shear zone increases the pore water pressure and weakens the shear strength rock avalanches are generated when mechanical parameters achieve critical threshold values such that the residual shear strength is less than the tangential projection of body forces

tumbling effects on bone surface modifications bsm an experimental application on archaeological deposits from the barranc de la boella site tarragona spain abstract tumbling is defined as a process in which hyper concentrated flows alter bone remains producing changes in their morphology and original structure although the process is well known little experimental research has focused on describing the effects this process has on bone surface modifications bsm which can subsequently be applied to the fossil record water currents may have played an important role in altering the surfaces of bones from barranc de la boella which were deposited in a deltaic fan context striae of undetermined origin have been documented on bones at the la mina locality and possible cut marks found on bones at pit 1 locality in our experiments both fresh and dry bones with reproduced trampling striae and cut marks were tumbled in a tumbling machine combining different types of movement and proportions of water to sediment the bones were examined after each of the five cycles of the modification process which lasted 30 30 1 h 2 h and 4 h our results show a considerable diminishing of trampling striae while the majority of cut marks were preserved the marks on fresh bones were more severely altered than those on dry bones based on the results of this experiment the marks from pit 1 appear to be morphologically close to the experimentally altered cut marks while the majority of those from la mina are more similar to the altered trampling striae

linking landslides hillslope erosion and landscape evolution this virtual issue highlights 10 recent innovative unconventional or otherwise significant contributions to earth surface processes and landforms that help advance the state of the art in research on linkages between landslides hillslope erosion and landscape evolution the selected studies address this feedback within a temporal spectrum that ranges from the event to the millennial scale thus underscoring the importance of detailed field observations high resolution digital topographic data and geochronological methods for increasing our capability of quantifying landslide processes and hillslope erosion copyright 2009 john wiley sons ltd

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

modelling geomorphic response to environmental change in an upland catchment in the uk s upland catchments river terraces and alluvial features indicate a history of periodic aggradation and degradation linked to holocene changes in land use primarily deforestation and climate change altering flood frequency and magnitude although both factors are important calculating their individual effects is complicated by the likelihood of their concurrent alteration to investigate the relative impacts of land use and climate change a cellular model is applied to the upland catchments of cam gill beck above starbotton north yorkshire this is divided into 1 million 2 m by 2 m grid cells to which a range of process laws are applied these include approximate expressions for mass movement rates soil creep the influence of vegetation and hillslope hydrology as well as fluvial erosion and deposition in ten grain size fractions this provides a good representation of valley floor geometry while retaining a fully dynamic interaction with the surrounding valley sides previous applications of this model have shown the detailed formation of bars and berms as well as examples of braiding avulsion and channel range running on a silicon graphics origin 2000 computer an ensemble of simulations were completed bracketing a wide range of environmental scenarios involving changes in flood frequency magnitude and vegetation cover over time scales ranging from 10 to 100 years these showed that decreasing tree cover and increasing rainfall magnitude individually produced similar 25 to 100 increases in sediment discharge whereas in combination they generated a 1300 rise furthermore channels formed by the model in response to increased rainfall magnitudes are located where relic channels are found in cam gill beck implying that these are the products of previous periods of high rainfall magnitudes copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

stability evaluation of slope subjected to seismic effect combined with consequent rainfall abstract a large number of field investigations of earthquake damage have shown that sometimes slopes instability occurs as a result of a series of post seismic ripple effects rather than of merely seismic load or ground motion among which a combination of earthquakes and post seismic rainfall is a typical contribution for slope instability in this paper taking a slope in southwest china as an example failure mechanism and stability of slope under seismic load and heavy rainfall are analyzed with consideration of dynamic load and unsaturated infiltration using geostudio software results indicate that the acceleration of earthquake is sharply amplified at the top of the slope resulting in instantaneous tension stress which causes tension cracks and therefore reduction in tensile strength at the top of the slope the existence of cracks contributes to the post earthquake infiltration of rainwater slows down the dissipation of excess pore water pressure slope instability is ultimately caused by permanent damage due to seismic load or ground motion and secondary damage on account for heavy rainfall furthermore the plant reinforcement technology is put forward to reinforce the slope and satisfactory results are obtained therefore this research provides a theoretical basis to analyze and control slope stability in other similar engineering geology problems

earthquake triggered increase in sediment delivery from an active mountain belt in tectonically active mountain belts earthquake triggered landslides deliver large amounts of sediment to rivers we quantify the geomorphic impact of the 1999 mw 7 6 chi chi earthquake in taiwan which triggered 20 000 landslides coseismic weakening of substrate material caused increased landsliding during subsequent typhoons most coseismic landslides remained confined to hillslopes downslope transport of sediment into the channel network occurred during later storms the sequential processes have led to a factor of four increase in unit sediment concentration in rivers draining the epicentral area and increased the magnitude and frequency of hyperpycnal sediment delivery to the ocean four years after the earthquake rates of hillslope mass wasting remain elevated in the epicentral area

geological and morphological study of the jiufengershan landslide triggered by the chi chi taiwan earthquake the jiufengershan rock and soil avalanche is one of the largest landslides triggered by the chi chi earthquake taiwan 1999 the landslide destabilized the western limb of the taanshan syncline along a weak stratigraphic layer it involved a flatiron remnant which was almost entirely mobilized during the earthquake the avalanche was slowed down by ns trending ridges located downstream along the jiutsaihu creek the landslide affected a 60 m thick and 1 5 km long sedimentary pile composed of shales and sandstones which dip 228se toward a transverse valley the triggering mechanism and the sliding process were analyzed by means of geological and morphological data from aerial photographs and observed in the field a high resolution airborne light detection and ranging lidar image taken 2 5 years after the landslide allows the identification of morphological structures along the sliding surface and the landslide accumulation the sliding surface shows several deformation structures such as fault scarps and folds these structures are interpreted in terms of basal shear stresses created during the avalanche three major joint sets were identified at the sliding surface the isopach map of the landslide was calculated from the comparison between elevation models before and after the earthquake the coseismic volume of mobilized material and landslide deposit data are 4210 6 m 3 and 5010 6 m 3 respectively the geometry of the landslide accumulation in the field has an irregular star shape the morphology of the deposit area shows a sequence of smooth reliefs and depressions that contrast with the neighboring ridges d 2005 elsevier b v all rights reserved

controls on fluvial evacuation of sediment from earthquake triggered landslides large earthquakes in active mountain belts can trigger landslides which mobilize large volumes of clastic sediment delivery of this material to river channels may result in aggradation and flooding while sediment residing on hillslopes may increase the likelihood of subsequent landslides and debris flows despite recognition of these processes the controls on the residence time of coseismic landslide sediment in river catchments remain poorly understood here we assess the residence time of fine grained 5 mm day 1 together with previous observations from the c e 1999 chi chi earthquake in taiwan our results demonstrate the importance of landslide density and runoff intensity in setting the duration of earthquake triggered landslide impacts on river systems

barranc de la boella catalonia spain an acheulean elephant butchering site from the european late early pleistocene evidence of late early pleistocene elephant butchery activity has been excavated in the pit 1 locality at barranc de la boella catalonia spain the fossil assemblage mainly comprises the remains of one prime adult individual of mammuthus meridionalis together with 125 lithic artefacts among which several refitting groups of chert have been identified the lithic assemblage from the pit 1 locality is composed of cobbles cores simple and retouched flakes together with a large well fashioned pick of hard wearing schist spatial zooarchaeological taphonomic technical and use wear analyses confirm that the occupation was devoted to butchery of the mammoth carcass the activity zone is in a fluvio deltaic area that incises the terrace t 60 of the lower francoli river basin 50 m a s l palaeomagnetic and cosmogenic analyses as well as microfaunal mimomys savini victoriamys chalinei and macrofaunal biostratigraphy mammuthus meridionalis support the timing of the occupation to the late matuyama chron these various lines of evidence point to barranc de la boella being the oldest early acheulean butchering site in europe ongoing excavations at several localities at barranc de la boella are yielding new data on the palaeoenvironmental geochronological and technological framework of these occupations finally the evidence is integrated into current understanding of the subsistence strategies practised by early pleistocene hominins

results from a new model of river basin evolution this paper briefly describes a model of the erosional development of catchments and their channel networks the model differentiates between the dominant transport processes in hillslope and channels the development of channels and hillslopes occurs in an integrated manner as a function of physically observable mechanisms the growth of a river basin is qualitatively described the model concepts are used to study the basin during periods of growth transient periods as well as during dynamic equilibrium this leads to hypotheses about the relationship between slopes relief tectonic uplift erodability runoff and catchment area it is shown that the model leads to very reasonable and desirable behaviour of hillslopes during retreat and degradation

a cellular model of braided rivers a broad sheet of water flowing over non cohesive sediment typically breaks up into a network of interconnected channels called a braided stream fig 1 the dynamics of such networks are complex channels migrate laterally split rejoin and develop bars with the flow shifting unpredictably from one part of the network to another many processes are known to operate in a braided river1 3 but it is unclear which of these are essential to explain the observed dynamics we describe here a simple deterministic numerical model of water flow over a cohesionless bed that captures the main spatial and temporal features of real braided rivers the patterns arise from local scour and deposition caused by a nonlinear dependence of bedload sediment flux on water discharge although the morphology of the resulting network depends in detail on the sediment transport rule used in the model our results suggest that the only factors essential for braiding are bedload sediment transport and laterally unconstrained free surface flow

modeling sediment movement and channel response to rainfall variability after a major earthquake abstract the 2008 wenchuan ms 8 0 earthquake caused severe destruction in the mountainous areas of sichuan province china landslips and mass movements led to substantial amounts of loose sediment accumulating in valleys that subsequently led to widespread riverbed aggradation in addition to erosion and deposition hazards this aggradation produced rivers in earthquake affected areas that were more susceptible to flash floods under extreme rainfall events however fluvial processes and sediment movement after a major earthquake as well as the re working of sediments in future events are not well studied in this paper we investigate the response of sediment and river channel evolution due to different rainfall scenarios after the wenchuan earthquake by using the caesar lisflood model this is the first time that this landscape evolution model has been employed to explore material migration processes in a post earthquake area and to test its applicability to real landform changes in the studied catchment the caesar lisflood model is well suited to simulate sediment movement particularly the fluvial processes driven by severe rainfall after an earthquake we calibrated the model parameters to the 2013 extreme rainfall event using high resolution satellite images under rainfall scenarios of different intensity and frequency over a 10 yr period landform evolution and sediment migration in the post earthquake area were simulated the results showed that the sediment yield could be significantly increased under enhanced and intensified rainfall scenarios compared to a normal rainfall scenario these findings are of importance for the planning of post earthquake rehabilitation and regional sustainable development which considers risk prevention and mitigation

the role of landslides in mountain range evolution abstract we review the role of landslides in current concepts of the topographic development of mountain ranges we find that many studies in this field address basin or orogen scale competition between rock uplift and fluvial bedrock erosion hillslopes in general and bedrock landslides in particular are often assumed to respond rapidly to incision and development of the fluvial drainage network this leads to a one sided view of the geomorphic coupling between hillslopes and rivers that emphasizes the fluvial control of hillslopes but ignores the alternative view that landslides can affect the fluvial network there is growing evidence that landslides are a dominant source of sediment in mountain belts and that they exert a direct geomorphic control on fluvial processes landslides can influence the river network in a variety of ways from determining basin area and drainage divide positions to setting streamwise variations in sediment load and calibre the geomorphic legacy of large landslides on hillslope and channel morphologies may persist for up to 104 yr adding considerable variability to fluvial erosion and sedimentation patterns over these timescales we identify a number of questions for future research and conclude that a better understanding and quantification of the geomorphic feedbacks between landslides and river channels builds an important link between short term 105 yr landscape evolution models

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

new chronological data esr and esr u series for the earliest acheulian sites of north western europe increasing evidence suggests that bifacial technology acheulian mode 2 arrived in europe during the early middle pleistocene i e significantly earlier than previously proposed in northern france and britain much of the age attribution for these assemblages has been based on biostratigraphy and lithostratigraphy rather than absolute dates this study presents a systematic application of electron spin resonance esr dating of sedimentary quartz and esr u series dating of fossil tooth enamel to key acheulian sites of this area although the age estimates have large associated uncertainties most of the derived dates are consistent with existing age estimates the new chronologies and the problems associated with dating material of early middle pleistocene age are discussed in britain the earliest archaeology cores and flakes mode 1 is older than marine isotope stage mis 15 whereas localities containing acheulian technologies span late mis 15 mis 13 through to mis 9 a similar pattern is seen in northern france although age estimates from sites such as la noira suggest the possible appearance of the acheulian in central france as early as mis 17 the dates presented here support the suggestion that the earliest acheulian appeared in nw europe during the early middle pleistocene significantly after its appearance in the southern parts of the continent

the use of quartz during the lower palaeolithic in northeastern iberia abstract this article analyses the use of quartz as a raw material during the lower palaeolithic in the northeast of the iberian peninsula we studied the use of quartz at 9 sites with chronologies ranging from the end of the early pleistocene to the end of the middle pleistocene quartz was used in all assemblages studied and was always collected close to the sites most of all in the form of pebbles from river basins there was a differential selection of raw materials including quartz according to the technical strategy that humans wanted to implement despite the apparent simplicity of operational schemes carried out using quartz we found factors that point to a remarkable conceptual complexity in the handling of this rock as for example knowledge of the characteristics and mechanical possibilities of quartz and the adaptation of operational schemes to the properties of this raw material