title: Stable oxygen and carbon isotope compositional fields for skeletal and diagenetic components in New Zealand Cenozoic nontropical carbonate sediments and limestones: A synthesis and review

authors: Nelson, Campbell S.

subjects: oxygen isotopes

abstract: The stable oxygen isotope composition (δ18O) of a precipitated carbonate depends mainly on the isotope composition, salinity, and temperature of the host fluid, whereas the stable carbon isotope composition (δ13C) reflects the source of CO2 for precipitation, such as meteoric or sea water, shell dissolution, or various biochemical origins, including microbial oxidation of organic matter and methane. Despite the potentially complex array of controls, natural waters tend to show a characteristic range of isotope values which in turn are mimicked or tracked by the carbonate minerals precipitated from them. Consequently, plots of δ18O versus δ13C for carbonate materials can help identify their depositional and/or diagenetic environment(s). Here we compile isotope results for about 800 samples of carbonate skeletons, bulk sediments, fossils, limestones, cements, concretions, and veins spanning a range of ages (latest Cretaceous to modern) and locations in temperate-region New Zealand. Despite some overlap, the isotope values for 21 defined categories of carbonate materials tend to group in discrete regions of the δ18O-δ13C diagram, thereby providing important insights about their origin. New Zealand modern skeletal shelf carbonates plot in a distinctly different field from their tropical counterparts because of their heavier δ18O and narrower range of δ13C values, in accord with their nontropical bryomol skeletal facies. Cements in New Zealand temperate limestones are predominantly of burial or, more rarely, meteoric origin, but their nontropical heritage based solely on isotope composition becomes blurred and eventually lost as diagenesis proceeds. In common with many other global examples, siderite, calcite, and dolomite concretions have developed during shallow burial in a range of freshwater to marine depositional settings, the carbon originating mainly from early diagenetic, bacterially mediated reactions involving the decomposition of organic matter in bottom sediments. A summary δ18O-δ13C diagram showing mean and standard-deviation isotope values for the various New Zealand carbonate categories will form a basis for comparing and interpreting other carbonate materials and deposits. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

text: Stable oxygen and carbon isotope compositional fields for skeletal and diagenetic components in New Zealand Cenozoic nontropical carbonate sediments and limestones: A synthesis and review The stable oxygen isotope composition (δ18O) of a precipitated carbonate depends mainly on the isotope composition, salinity, and temperature of the host fluid, whereas the stable carbon isotope composition (δ13C) reflects the source of CO2 for precipitation, such as meteoric or sea water, shell dissolution, or various biochemical origins, including microbial oxidation of organic matter and methane. Despite the potentially complex array of controls, natural waters tend to show a characteristic range of isotope values which in turn are mimicked or tracked by the carbonate minerals precipitated from them. Consequently, plots of δ18O versus δ13C for carbonate materials can help identify their depositional and/or diagenetic environment(s). Here we compile isotope results for about 800 samples of carbonate skeletons, bulk sediments, fossils, limestones, cements, concretions, and veins spanning a range of ages (latest Cretaceous to modern) and locations in temperate-region New Zealand. Despite some overlap, the isotope values for 21 defined categories of carbonate materials tend to group in discrete regions of the δ18O-δ13C diagram, thereby providing important insights about their origin. New Zealand modern skeletal shelf carbonates plot in a distinctly different field from their tropical counterparts because of their heavier δ18O and narrower range of δ13C values, in accord with their nontropical bryomol skeletal facies. Cements in New Zealand temperate limestones are predominantly of burial or, more rarely, meteoric origin, but their nontropical heritage based solely on isotope composition becomes blurred and eventually lost as diagenesis proceeds. In common with many other global examples, siderite, calcite, and dolomite concretions have developed during shallow burial in a range of freshwater to marine depositional settings, the carbon originating mainly from early diagenetic, bacterially mediated reactions involving the decomposition of organic matter in bottom sediments. A summary δ18O-δ13C diagram showing mean and standard-deviation isotope values for the various New Zealand carbonate categories will form a basis for comparing and interpreting other carbonate materials and deposits. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

year: 1996-01-01

title: Higher education and the Anthropocene - Towards an ecological approach to higher education policy in New Zealand

authors: Stratford, Robert James

subjects: Anthropocene

abstract: In this thesis I present an ecological direction for higher education policy in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This position is developed through an ecological approach to policy, which includes a postfoundational take on ecological theory, especially the work of Gregory Bateson and Felix Guattari. This ecological approach to higher education policy is in contrast to the neoliberal and technicist policy thinking which has informed New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Strategy (Ministry of Education, 2014c). As a contrast, the ecological approach in this thesis draws strength from ecological economics, environmental politics, critical policy analysis, ecological theory and philosophical pragmatism. The methodological core of this approach is described as Critical Eco Pragmatism (CEP). Following a discussion of ecological theory and an exploration of the Global Ecological Crisis (GEC) as an interconnected problem of natural, political, social, psychological, pedagogical and epistemological dimensions, I develop a theoretical framework for being ecological in higher education. This framework draws on a critique of Ron Barnett’s work on the ecological university (Barnett, 2010, 2018) and introduces the notion of ‘Anthropocene Intelligence’. Anthropocene Intelligence provides a way to pragmatically bring together a range of theoretical ideas about education – especially those ideas that have a claim on improving our psychological, social and natural ecologies. This includes educational discourses that have not always had a high level of interaction, such as environmental and sustainability education (ESE), indigenous education, eco-pedagogy, engaged scholarship, ecological humanities, human development education, and education for wellbeing (including the healthy university). The potential of an ecological approach is also considered in relation to the many practical possibilities that currently exist in higher education policy and practice both internationally and in New Zealand. Together with the theoretical approach taken in this thesis, these practical possibilities inform the alternative, ecological direction this thesis develops for higher education policy in New Zealand. Included in this ecological direction is the aspiration for New Zealand to develop as an ‘ecological democracy’ (Dryzek, 2013).

text: Higher education and the Anthropocene - Towards an ecological approach to higher education policy in New Zealand In this thesis I present an ecological direction for higher education policy in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This position is developed through an ecological approach to policy, which includes a postfoundational take on ecological theory, especially the work of Gregory Bateson and Felix Guattari. This ecological approach to higher education policy is in contrast to the neoliberal and technicist policy thinking which has informed New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Strategy (Ministry of Education, 2014c). As a contrast, the ecological approach in this thesis draws strength from ecological economics, environmental politics, critical policy analysis, ecological theory and philosophical pragmatism. The methodological core of this approach is described as Critical Eco Pragmatism (CEP). Following a discussion of ecological theory and an exploration of the Global Ecological Crisis (GEC) as an interconnected problem of natural, political, social, psychological, pedagogical and epistemological dimensions, I develop a theoretical framework for being ecological in higher education. This framework draws on a critique of Ron Barnett’s work on the ecological university (Barnett, 2010, 2018) and introduces the notion of ‘Anthropocene Intelligence’. Anthropocene Intelligence provides a way to pragmatically bring together a range of theoretical ideas about education – especially those ideas that have a claim on improving our psychological, social and natural ecologies. This includes educational discourses that have not always had a high level of interaction, such as environmental and sustainability education (ESE), indigenous education, eco-pedagogy, engaged scholarship, ecological humanities, human development education, and education for wellbeing (including the healthy university). The potential of an ecological approach is also considered in relation to the many practical possibilities that currently exist in higher education policy and practice both internationally and in New Zealand. Together with the theoretical approach taken in this thesis, these practical possibilities inform the alternative, ecological direction this thesis develops for higher education policy in New Zealand. Included in this ecological direction is the aspiration for New Zealand to develop as an ‘ecological democracy’ (Dryzek, 2013).

year: 2019

title: An outsider's guide to public oral history in New Zealand

authors: Mahuika, Nepia

subjects: Oral history

abstract: At the beginning of this century, public history in New Zealand was considered a ‘new term’ in historical practice, described as crucial in both ‘the emergence of professional history writing’ and the assertion of ‘cultural nationalism.’¹ In the past decade, scholars here have highlighted its breadth and significance in ‘the employment of historians and the historical method outside academia; in government, private companies, the media, historical societies and museums, as well as those working in private practice.’² Oral history has also become a significant part of public history’s nation-making, key in the collecting of exceptional and ‘ordinary’ public voices.³ For Māori, current definitions of oral and public history are problematic because, as this essay suggests, both are constructed within Pākehā-centric perspectives of history, tradition, orality and what counts as ‘public.’ Public history has been called a ‘slippery process’, often shaped in a contrast between ‘people’s history’ and a ‘search for social cohesion’.4 This search for ‘cohesion’ is a familiar colonial refrain that fuels a healthy native scepticism of public history as yet another settler-centric invention that keeps us on the outside. This essay considers the ways in which public oral history in New Zealand is articulated, noting how this is done within narrow definitions and binaries that displace, ignore, or distort, indigenous perspectives. It suggests a rethinking of oral history as a movement beyond current binaries in the field, and advocates a widening of the meaning of oral sources, methods and politics, in order to include indigenous definitions as legitimately oral and public. This analysis is decolonial, not because it seeks an eradication of nationalism, but because it seeks to disrupt colonial-centric meanings of oral and public history by recentering Māori perspectives as legitimate to the New Zealand public oral history vernacular.

text: An outsider's guide to public oral history in New Zealand At the beginning of this century, public history in New Zealand was considered a ‘new term’ in historical practice, described as crucial in both ‘the emergence of professional history writing’ and the assertion of ‘cultural nationalism.’¹ In the past decade, scholars here have highlighted its breadth and significance in ‘the employment of historians and the historical method outside academia; in government, private companies, the media, historical societies and museums, as well as those working in private practice.’² Oral history has also become a significant part of public history’s nation-making, key in the collecting of exceptional and ‘ordinary’ public voices.³ For Māori, current definitions of oral and public history are problematic because, as this essay suggests, both are constructed within Pākehā-centric perspectives of history, tradition, orality and what counts as ‘public.’ Public history has been called a ‘slippery process’, often shaped in a contrast between ‘people’s history’ and a ‘search for social cohesion’.4 This search for ‘cohesion’ is a familiar colonial refrain that fuels a healthy native scepticism of public history as yet another settler-centric invention that keeps us on the outside. This essay considers the ways in which public oral history in New Zealand is articulated, noting how this is done within narrow definitions and binaries that displace, ignore, or distort, indigenous perspectives. It suggests a rethinking of oral history as a movement beyond current binaries in the field, and advocates a widening of the meaning of oral sources, methods and politics, in order to include indigenous definitions as legitimately oral and public. This analysis is decolonial, not because it seeks an eradication of nationalism, but because it seeks to disrupt colonial-centric meanings of oral and public history by recentering Māori perspectives as legitimate to the New Zealand public oral history vernacular.

year: 2017