Feb. 27, 2013 ? The presence of an animal can significantly increase positive social behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), according to research published February 20 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marguerite E O'Haire and colleagues from the University of Queensland, Australia.
The authors compared how 5-13 year old children with ASD interacted with adults and typically-developing peers in the presence of two guinea pigs compared to toys. They found that in the presence of animals, children with ASD demonstrated more social behaviors like talking, looking at faces and making physical contact. They were also more receptive to social advances from their peers in the presence of the animals than they were when playing with toys. The presence of animals also increased instances of smiling and laughing, and reduced frowning, whining and crying behaviors in children with ASD more than having toys did.
Previous studies have shown that people are more likely to receive overtures of friendship from strangers when walking a dog than when walking alone, and similar effects have been observed for people holding smaller animals like rabbits or turtles. The authors suggest that this 'social lubricant' effect of animals on human social interactions can be particularly important for individuals with socio-emotional disabilities.
According to the authors, the ability of an animal to help children with ASD connect to adults may help foster interactions with therapists, teachers or other adult figures. They add that animal-assisted interventions may have applications in the classroom as well, saying "For children with ASD, the school classroom can be a stressful and overwhelming environment due to social challenges and peer victimization. If an animal can reduce this stress or artificially change children's perception of the classroom and its occupants, then a child with ASD may feel more at ease and open to social approach behaviors."
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Journal Reference:
Marguerite E. O'Haire, Samantha J. McKenzie, Alan M. Beck, Virginia Slaughter. Social Behaviors Increase in Children with Autism in the Presence of Animals Compared to Toys. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e57010 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057010
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MTN grants Lifetime Achievement Award to pioneer of broadband communications at sea, Richard Hadsall.
The CEO and president of MTN Satellite Communications (MTN), Errol Olivier resently made the award at the company's Town Hall.
Richard Hadsall , chief technology officer of MTN Government Services, pioneered the first C-band and Ku-band satellite broadband communications (TV, voice and data) at sea in the 1980s.? Thanks to Hadsall's innovation, today MTN delivers critical satellite and terrestrial communications to most of the world's cruise lines.? In addition, hundreds of yachts, commercial oil & gas vessels, and government ships, aircraft, vehicles and facilities around the world benefit from MTN connectivity.
In 1981, Richard Hadsall founded the company that created what is today MTN's teleport in Holmdel, N.J.? That teleport was a communications center that made it possible for networks such as ABC, NBC, CNN; foreign broadcasters; and heads of the U.S. Government, Military and Embassies to report live events across the world for the first time.? The company partnered to build the first maritime antenna operating in Ku-Band to be used on the U.S. Navy's LPH-2 USS Iwo Jima.? This enabled the first tactical full motion Ku-Band satellite video broadcast terminal at sea for surveillance and press pool support in the Persian Gulf.
Hadsall received a 2011 Emmy Award for Technology & Engineering for creating for NBC an MTN-retrofitted Ford F350 vehicle with live TV and satellite transmission to continuously broadcast reports from Iraq.? He enabled the first-ever live broadcast capabilities for ABC's?Good Morning America?Whistle Stop Tour from a moving train.? And he engineered the first live broadcast from a submarine submerged below the Atlantic Ocean.
" Richard Hadsall not only created our company, and its spirit of innovation and service excellence, but the entire maritime VSAT (very small aperture terminal) sector in satellite communications," said Errol Olivier .? "He is known for pioneering new technologies that become long-standing solutions.? His passion and dedication set the tone at MTN, and this award gives us a proud moment to celebrate with the broader maritime industry and community."
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AVALON, Australia (Reuters) - The Pentagon program chief for the F-35 warplane slammed the main contractors on the program, Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney, accusing them of trying to "squeeze every nickel" out of the U.S. government and failing to see the long-term benefits of the project.
U.S. Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan made the comments on Wednesday during a visit to Australia, where he has sought to convince lawmakers and generals to stick to a plan to buy 100 of the jets, an exercise complicated by the second grounding of the plane this year and looming U.S. defense cuts.
Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp , is sole supplier of engines to the $396 billion F-35, or Joint Strike Fighter. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the radar-evading jet, the biggest weapons program in history.
"What I see Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney doing today is behaving as if they are getting ready to sell me the very last F-35 and the very last engine and are trying to squeeze every nickel out of that last F-35 and that last engine," Bogdan told reporters at the Australian International Airshow in southern Victoria state.
"I want them both to start behaving like they want to be around for 40 years," he added. "I want them to take on some of the risk of this program, I want them to invest in cost reductions, I want them to do the things that will build a better relationship. I'm not getting all that love yet."
Bogdan's tough remarks sent shock waves through the Pentagon and U.S. industry on Wednesday.
Lockheed said it was "singularly focused" on executing its contracts to develop, produce and sustain the new warplane, and insisted it was on track to finish development by 2017.
"We do this in partnership with Lieutenant General Bogdan and the entire JSF Program Office and strive daily to drive costs out of the program," said spokesman Michael Rein.
He said the company had reduced costs by 50 percent since the first production airplanes were built, and remained confident that the sixth and seventh production deals, currently under negotiation, would result in further savings.
Pratt & Whitney issued a strongly worded statement late on Wednesday, saying it had invested heavily to cut the cost of the plane's engine and was shouldering more risk than usual.
"Despite numerous cuts in the F-35 acquisition plan, Pratt & Whitney has maintained a long-term view and demonstrated our commitment by investing more than $50 million dollars of our own funds and taking on risk ahead of contract schedule to prevent the program from experiencing delays," company spokesman Matthew Bates said in a statement.
He said the company had offered to cover 100 percent of cost overrun risk for a fifth batch of engines, a year ahead of the government's plan, a step he described as "highly unusual" at such an early stage of a new weapons program. Pratt said it also invested heavily to cut the engine's cost by 40 percent since delivery of the first production engine for the new warplane.
Bogdan caused a stir shortly after joining the F-35 program last August when he described the relationship between the government and Lockheed Martin as the worst he'd ever seen. There had been little improvement since then, he said.
"Are they getting better? A little bit," he said. "Are they getting better at a rate I want to see them getting better? No, not yet."
If the project stays on track, Pratt & Whitney will eventually provide 4,000 engines and Lockheed Martin 3,000 planes to the U.S. military and its allies. The Pentagon plans to buy 2,443 F-35s in the coming decades, although many analysts believe budget constraints and deficits will reduce that number.
Australia, a close American ally, is considering doubling its fleet of 24 Boeing Co F/A-18 Super Hornets amid delays and setbacks in the F-35 project. That means Canberra could buy far fewer F-35s than initially planned.
LEAKS
Bogdan was also critical of what he suggested were leaks from Pratt & Whitney's camp about the engine issue, which led the Pentagon to suspend F-35 flights last Friday.
Two sources told Reuters that Pratt is 99 percent sure the fan blade problem that grounded the jets was not caused by high-cycle fatigue, which could force a costly design change, and the aircraft could be flying again within the week.
"Until all those tests are done and I see the results, I don't know what's going on," Bogdan said. "However ... my gut would tell me it's on the spectrum of the minor side - 99 percent is bold, flying next week is bold."
Bogdan also gave the example of taking six months to close a deal with Pratt & Whitney for engines on its fifth bloc of jets, shortly after General Electric Co had been dropped as a second supplier of engines for the program, leaving Pratt & Whitney as sole supplier for the next 40 years.
"Now, you would think a company like Pratt & Whitney that was just given the greatest Christmas gift you could ever, ever get for a company would act a little differently," Bogdan said.
Bogdan is flying back to the United States this weekend, just in time to hear about the future of U.S. military budgets, which are slated to be cut by nearly $500 billion over the next decade, an amount which could double unless Congress acts in the next week to avert spending reductions known as "sequestration".
Bogdan said he was confident he could keep the program on track and budget if he got the discretion to deal with any cuts.
The risk is that money is cut from the $6 billion set aside for the development program by the end of October next year.
"I need every penny of that $6 billion to get over the finish line," he said. "If they take money out of development, something's going to have to give. I'm either going to have to push the program out or I'm going to have to shed capability."
Budget cuts have already forced Italy to scale back its F-35 orders, and Turkey has delayed its purchases by two years. Orders from Japan and Israel have buoyed the project, and additional Israeli orders are expected in 2013.
(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington; Editing by Dean Yates, Leslie Gevirtz and Ken Wills)
A federal law that leaves hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples without any recognition of their marriage violates the Constitution, lawyers for a woman whose wife?s death left her unprotected from more than $350,000 in estate taxes said in a legal brief Tuesday, one month before the Supreme Court hears her case.?
The landmark case is one of two the court will hear in March about the battle over whether same-sex couples can legally wed, and if they do, whether they can receive spousal benefits and get the same rights that heterosexual couples currently enjoy.
The former is a legal fight over California?s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, and the latter centers on Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars recognition of same-sex marriage at the federal level.
Of a few cases brought to the high court challenging DOMA, the justices chose to hear the one brought by Edie Windsor, whose wife, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. The New York couple married in 2007 in Canada, though they were?together for 44 years before Spyer died.
Spyer left her estate to Windsor. As a married heterosexual couple there would have been no estate tax. But Windsor was left with a federal tax bill of $363,000 since the couple?s marriage was not recognized by the U.S. government.
The lawyers? brief filed Tuesday by Windsor?s lawyers argues that DOMA's?Section 3, which defines marriage at the federal level, ?violates the Constitution because it treats married gay couples differently than married straight couples? for ?no logical reason,? the American Civil Liberties Union, part of Windsor's legal team, said in a summary of the brief.
Gays and lesbians, who have already endured a long history of discrimination, the ACLU said, were subjected to further discrimination from DOMA, which they noted Congress passed in 1996 ?based on fear of and stereotypes about gay people, rather than any legitimate government purpose.? ?
?But the Constitution doesn?t permit the government to pass a law just to disadvantage a politically unpopular group of people,? the group added.
DOMA affects more than 1,100 provisions of federal laws, denying gay couples the right to file joint taxes, the protections of the Family Medical and Leave Act, and blocks surviving spouses from accessing veterans? benefits, among other things, Windsor?s lawyers said.
?DOMA excludes married couples who are gay from all of the rights, privileges and obligations that the federal government otherwise affords married couples,? her lawyers? brief said.
Two lower courts have agreed with Windsor and her attorneys. Other lower courts that reviewed DOMA challenges elsewhere, such as in Boston, reached similar findings.
The Obama administration filed a brief last Friday?in the case with the Supreme Court asking it to throw out Section 3, which it had already stopped defending.
The administration also mentioned California's Proposition 8 and similar measures in other states as evidence that anti-gay discrimination remained a major problem.?
The appeal of the lower courts? decision was brought by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, a congressional group made of three Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, and two Democrats.
In its brief, filed in late January, the group argued to let the debate over same-sex marriage continue to play out as it has been through votes in many states and public debate, saying ?gays and lesbians have substantial political power, and that power is growing. Victories at the ballot box that would have been unthinkable a decade ago have become routine,? it said, apparently referring to wins for same-sex marriage in four states last November.
?There is absolutely no reason to think that gays and lesbians are shut out of the political process to a degree that would justify judicial intervention on an issue as divisive and fastmoving as same-sex marriage,? the group said, as it urged the court not to step in.
?Indeed, the democratic process has substantial advantages over constitutionalizing this issue. Same-sex marriage is being actively debated in legislatures, in the press, and at every level of government and society across the country. That is how it should be,? the group added.
The court will hear on DOMA from both sides on March 27, one day after Proposition 8 supporters and opponents go before the justices.
Related:?
Once 'inconceivable,' Republican leaders sign pro-gay marriage brief US asks Supreme Court to strike down law denying benefits to same-sex couples Supreme Court to take up same-sex marriage issue??
Feb. 27, 2013 ? Two X-ray space observatories, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, have teamed up to measure definitively, for the first time, the spin rate of a black hole with a mass 2 million times that of our sun.
The supermassive black hole lies at the dust- and gas-filled heart of a galaxy called NGC 1365, and it is spinning almost as fast as Einstein's theory of gravity will allow. The findings, which appear in a new study in the journal Nature, resolve a long-standing debate about similar measurements in other black holes and will lead to a better understanding of how black holes and galaxies evolve.
"This is hugely important to the field of black hole science," said Lou Kaluzienski, a NuSTAR program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The observations also are a powerful test of Einstein's theory of general relativity, which says gravity can bend space-time, the fabric that shapes our universe, and the light that travels through it.
"We can trace matter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from regions very close to the black hole," said the coauthor of a new study, NuSTAR principal investigator Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the motions of particles and the black hole's incredibly strong gravity."
NuSTAR, an Explorer-class mission launched in June 2012, is designed to detect the highest-energy X-ray light in great detail. It complements telescopes that observe lower-energy X-ray light, such as XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Scientists use these and other telescopes to estimate the rates at which black holes spin.
Until now, these measurements were not certain because clouds of gas could have been obscuring the black holes and confusing the results. With help from XMM-Newton, NuSTAR was able to see a broader range of X-ray energies and penetrate deeper into the region around the black hole. The new data demonstrate that X-rays are not being warped by the clouds, but by the tremendous gravity of the black hole. This proves that spin rates of supermassive black holes can be determined conclusively.
"If I could have added one instrument to XMM-Newton, it would have been a telescope like NuSTAR," said Norbert Schartel, XMM-Newton Project Scientist at the European Space Astronomy Center in Madrid. "The high-energy X-rays provided an essential missing puzzle piece for solving this problem."
Measuring the spin of a supermassive black hole is fundamental to understanding its past history and that of its host galaxy.
"These monsters, with masses from millions to billions of times that of the sun, are formed as small seeds in the early universe and grow by swallowing stars and gas in their host galaxies, merging with other giant black holes when galaxies collide, or both," said the study's lead author, Guido Risaliti of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics.
Supermassive black holes are surrounded by pancake-like accretion disks, formed as their gravity pulls matter inward. Einstein's theory predicts the faster a black hole spins, the closer the accretion disk lies to the black hole. The closer the accretion disk is, the more gravity from the black hole will warp X-ray light streaming off the disk.
Astronomers look for these warping effects by analyzing X-ray light emitted by iron circulating in the accretion disk. In the new study, they used both XMM-Newton and NuSTAR to simultaneously observe the black hole in NGC 1365. While XMM-Newton revealed that light from the iron was being warped, NuSTAR proved that this distortion was coming from the gravity of the black hole and not gas clouds in the vicinity. NuSTAR's higher-energy X-ray data showed that the iron was so close to the black hole that its gravity must be causing the warping effects.
With the possibility of obscuring clouds ruled out, scientists can now use the distortions in the iron signature to measure the black hole's spin rate. The findings apply to several other black holes as well, removing the uncertainty in the previously measured spin rates.
For more information on NASA's NuSTAR mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar .
For more information on ESA's XMM-Newton mission, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/YUYpI6 .
The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
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When selling your gadgets online for the most money, the first thing you need to figure out is the right price. That often means digging through other listings, but if you've got a certain type of gadget you can use Flipsy to do the digging for you.
Flipsy supports only iPhones, iPads, game consoles, and books, but if you're selling one of those items you can find out how much they're worth by just answering a few questions. Flipsy will show the offers from different buyback companies when you're done and you can take one of them or use the information you find to set a realistic price when selling online. While you're limited to the aforementioned categories at the moment, Flipsy plans to expand as time goes on. Check it out now if you have an iDevice, game console, or book to sell. Check it out later if you've got something else.
A San Diego swim coach alleged to have multiple identities and a felony conviction has fired back, calling his accuser a "bully" with a checkered past.
James Pantera issued a statement Tuesday, one day after complaint was filed with USA Swimming by Mike Saltzstein, a former vice president with the governing body.
The statement says Saltzstein is "attempting to smear the name of a well respected and liked swim coach and official" who has passed numerous background checks. It also points to a 1990s insider trading case involving Saltzstein.
Saltzstein went to USA Swimming alleging Pantera has at least 11 identities and three dates of birth, and that he was sentenced to a year in federal prison for making false statements and fraudulently obtaining student loans.
Disgruntled Yahoo! employees leaked an internal memo from human resources in which CEO Marissa Mayer bans telecommuting, saying "speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home." NBC's Mara Schiavocampo reports.
By Martha C. White
Silicon Valley firms are known for cushy perks: free food, bringing your dog to work and so on. But starting in June, Yahoo employees will lose the benefit of working from home. According to an internal memo leaked on Friday to The Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD.com by numerous disgruntled Yahoo employees, the new policy calls for workers ?physically being together.?
?We need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices... Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,? reads the memo from Jacqueline Reses, a private equity veteran brought on board by Mayer in September to be the company?s HR boss.
?Hiring, managing and incentivizing talent will be of key importance,? Reses said in the press release announcing her hire.
Although Yahoo beat Wall Street expectations and reported an increase in revenue last month, this recent good news follows a long stretch of poor performance and management turmoil. Some have speculated that Yahoo?s no-telecommuting policy could be a defensive move, a way to lower the embattled tech giant?s headcount without undertaking formal layoffs.?
Shortly after CEO Marissa Mayer took the helm in July, she implemented changes like free lunch, free phones and other perks reminiscent of her former employer, Google. Earlier this month, a Business Insider list of top U.S. employers ranked Yahoo eighth, behind second-place Google but ahead of Microsoft, which came in 14th.
This new policy might make holding onto that spot harder. It drew a scathing response on Twitter and blog comment threads, with many users saying that keeping a stable of unproductive workers is a management failure, and that the policy would prompt a brain drain. (A handful of smaller tech companies used the news as a chance to recruit, inviting frustrated Yahoo! employees to come work ? on a flexible schedule ? for them instead.)
Others defended Mayer, saying an all-hands-on-deck approach was the only way to keep the company's new momentum going.
In her short stint at Yahoo, this isn?t the first time Mayer?s work-life balance choices have been criticized. After giving birth to her first child last fall, Mayer planned to be back at work in only a week or two.
Carley Roney, co-founder of the parent company for TheBump.com, told TODAY that Yahoo!?s policy change could convey an ?anti-parent? sentiment. Yahoo did not immediately respond to the question of whether?new mom Mayer sometimes works from home.
The Yahoo memo made it clear that workers shouldn?t expect a lot of wiggle room or exceptions. ?For the rest of us who occasionally have to stay home for the cable guy, please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration,? Reses said.
Studies that have tried to determine whether working from home helps or hurts productivity have drawn mixed conclusions. A study in June by Wakefield Research found that 43 percent of people said they watched TV while ?working? from home, and roughly a quarter each admitted to taking a nap or knocking back a drink on the clock.
But a paper published just last week out of Stanford University said performance increased 13 percent when employees of a Chinese travel agency were allowed to work from home on a trial basis. ?[A]bout 9 percent was from working more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick-days) and 4 percent from more calls per minute (attributed to a quieter working environment),? researchers wrote. When the company ended the trial and extended the work-from-home option to the rest of its people, performance rose 22 percent.
What's more, there is a correlation between working from home and higher pay. Census Bureau data released last year found that part-time telecommuters earned a median $22,800 more than those who physically go to work every day.
A Bureau of Labor Statistics report published in June found that telework is making inroads into the American labor market, albeit slowly. About a quarter of survey respondents said they worked from home at least some of the time.
?Evidence also reveals that an increasing number of jobs in the American economy could be performed at home if employers were willing to allow employees to do so,? researchers wrote.?Technology-related jobs were mentioned as top prospects for telework. Hurdles, when they existed, tended to stem from management reluctance rather than technological limitations.
Based on the BLS?s findings, though, Mayer?s new edict could be a blessing in disguise for Yahoo workers. Working from home ?is not unequivocally helpful in reducing work-family conflicts,? the report said. ?Instead, telecommuting appears to have become instrumental in the general expansion of work hours... and/or the ability of employers to increase or intensify work demands among their salaried employees.?
Are you in debt? Are you tired of answering harassing call and mails from a variety of creditors? Are you unsure of whom to pay and for how substantially? Do you have also a variety of cards and are not certain how a lot you owe? In todays economy, it is all too effortless to get seriously into debt and the only way to get out of it is debt consolidation.
What precisely is debt consolidation?
Merely put, debt consolidation is a debt reduction system that permits buyers to combine their assorted unsecured debts into a single payment. Rather of sending out payments on six or seven bank and store credit cards, you could quickly make a single payment to the debt consolidation enterprise and that corporation would then send the funds for you.
This cash management method can be very advantageous to the consumer, as the debt consolidation firm generally negotiates a lowered interest price, a decreased balance, a
reduce month-to-month payment and eliminates late charges. The optimum aspect is you are provided a set time period when the debt will be paid off in complete.
Mortgage loans and car or truck loans are not subject to consolidation due to the fact these are secured. Unsecured loans like bank credit cards affiliated with Visa and MasterCard and assorted department retailer credit cards are the common things you will put in a debt consolidation program.
Really should debt consolidation be preferred to bankruptcy?
Creditors view debt consolidation in much better light than bankruptcy. This is because debt consolidation shows the consumer?s willingness to put forth a robust, good quality faith effort to take responsibility and pay for his debt in contrast, when debtors file for bankruptcy, they opt to erase debt or spend small back, leaving creditors with rather tiny from the debtor.
Despite the fact that bankruptcy enables consumers to wipe out their debt and start out fresh, it also destroys the buyers credit background.
With debt consolidation, a consumer can considerably decrease his or her debt, merge many payments into one particular payment, and preserve their credit background by avoiding bankruptcy.
There are strategies and signifies of going about debt consolidation, such as contacting debt consolidation companies and applying for debt consolidation loans. The Net also
lists a great many suppliers that are willing to enable buyers begin the debt elimination process.
Take a look at for a lot more material on credit card repair, debt consolidation, and debt consolidation counseling.
Curious what Max Levchin's been up to ever since he left Google in 2011? Well, wonder no more. Today, PayPal's co-founder revealed his return to the payment world with a new company called Affirm. Like many startups, Affirm is looking to make online payments quicker and easier, but the real question is whether you'll be willing to come along for the ride. AllThingsD managed to catch Levchin for an interview, in which he revealed that Affirm will issue credit to consumers and guarantee payment to merchants for all online transactions. Curiously, Affirm will use Facebook to verify a user's identity, and it'll also use a wide range of social and location-based data to determine an individual's credit worthiness. The payment startup will launch in beta with 1-800-Flowers as its partner, and it's said that consumers will be given 30 days to settle the resulting bill with Affirm. There's no word of what fees or interest rates will be assessed for late payments, but we imagine you'll find strong incentive to pay for that flower arrangement.
The billions of dollars in defense budget cuts scheduled to begin at the end of the week will have a swift and severe impact on military readiness and Congress needs to take fast action to stop them, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday in an 11th hour bid to keep the reductions from going into effect.
Testifying before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, the five uniformed leaders of the military branches described how national security would be put at risk if they are forced to make deep decreases in spending for personnel, training, and equipment modernization programs.
Their appearance marks the fourth time in the last three weeks that top Pentagon's leaders have testified before a congressional oversight committee about how the country's fiscal outlook affects the armed forces. Their warnings of a looming readiness crisis haven't changed, but the pending deadline has made them more urgent.
"If we do not have the resources to train and equip the force, our young men and women will pay the price, potentially with their lives," said Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff.
Despite the dire predictions, many of the cuts to hit the Defense Department and other federal agencies would come in later years and could be partially offset by cuts in programs that are wasteful or behind schedule. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., criticized Defense Department officials earlier this month for "adding drama" to the budget debate by publicly highlighting the cuts to the readiness accounts. Hunter, a former Marine who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
The automatic cuts, known as a sequester in Washington speak, are scheduled to begin on March 1 and are the result of Congress' failure to trim the deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade. The Pentagon faces a $46 billion budget reduction through the end of September, and additional cuts would come in future years as long as the sequester remains in effect. The military also has to absorb a $487 billion reduction in defense spending over the next 10 years mandated by the Budget Control Act passed in 2011.
The military's fiscal challenges are further complicated by the lack of a budget for the current fiscal year, according to defense officials. Congress hasn't approved one. Instead, lawmakers have been passing bills called continuing resolutions, which keep spending levels at last year's rates. That means the Pentagon is operating on less money than planned, compounding the financial problem facing the armed forces.
The main problem with the sequester is not the size of the cuts to the defense budget, but rather the across-the-board way they are administered, according to Todd Harrison of the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
The military has very little flexibility under the law to make smart spending reductions, he said. "High-priority, successful programs must be cut by the same percentage as wasteful, redundant, and low-priority programs," Harrison said.
Yet even with the sequester, the Pentagon will still maintain an annual budget, adjusted for inflation, of well over $500 billion a year for the rest of the decade. That's a modest reduction when compared to the previous drawdowns in defense spending that came after the wars in Korea and Vietnam and the Cold War, Harrison said.
Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, told the defense subcommittee that the sequester combined with the lack of a 2013 defense budget will have a "devastating impact" on military readiness and create "unacceptable levels of risk" to the U.S. national security strategy.
Amos said America's allies and enemies are watching to determine whether the country remains able to meet its commitments overseas. "Sequestration viewed solely as a budget issue would be a grave mistake," he said.
Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, said the sequester and the failure to pass a 2013 budget will "combine to render us unable to continue our current and expected level of operations."
The Pentagon has previously announced that it is cutting the U.S. aircraft carrier presence in the Persian Gulf region from two carriers to one, and Adm. Jonathan Greenert highlighted that move as one of the most significant effects of the sequester.
Greenert, the chief of naval operations, also said that if a 2013 budget isn't passed, the Navy will have to stop the refueling overhauls to two other carriers - the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Theodore Roosevelt - and delay the construction of other ships.
The event was attended by over 20 female representatives from Nuqul Automotive's departments.
The trainer Hussam Al Masri, Audi Service Advisor, interacted with the participants and went over the mechanics of the car while focusing on repairing a punctured wheel among other maintenance related tasks.
Ms. Taleen Khzouz, Corporate Communications Manager at Nuqul Automotive commenced the event by welcoming all participants and commented, "This exercise is a great way for females in the automotive industry to gain knowledge about the mechanics of their cars in addition to identifying what their car needs in terms of maintenance and other related services that will ensure a safe driving experience."
Khzouz added, "we plan to carry out similar sessions in the future and we will build on this technical experience to make sure we practice what we preach in the automotive industry."
Young children with ear infections don't necessarily need antibiotic treatment right away. In fact, they may not need the medication at all, according to new guidelines from an influential group of doctors.
Children ages 6 months to 2 years with an infection in one ear who don't have a high fever, severe pain or other complications can be watched for 48 hours without antibiotic treatment to see if the infection gets worse, the guidelines say. The same watching period applies to older children with a mild infection in one or both ears.
The new guidelines, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, are intended to reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics. While previous guidelines from the AAP proposed a watching period for older children with mild ear infections, the new guidelines are more specific about how to diagnose infections and include younger children.
The guidelines specifically discuss recommendations for acute otitis media, or infections or inflammation of the middle ear, the most common type of ear infection, and the most common reason U.S. kids receive antibiotics, the AAP says. The AAP also recommends against the use of antibiotics to prevent future ear infections in kids who frequently get such infections.
"We do believe there's overuse of antibiotics in the community," said Dr. Andres Orjuela, an ear, nose and throat specialist at Miami Children's Hospital, who was not involved in developing the new recommendations.? The new guidelines are a helpful tool for instructing physicians on how to go about diagnosing and treating ear infections, Orjuela said.
Studies show that often, kids with a mild ear infectios will get better without antibiotics within a few days, and delaying treatment doesn?t have repercussions for the child, Orjuela said. Painkillers such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen can help with pain.
However, some kids will need antibiotics, including young children who have an infection in both ears, and all kids whose symptoms persist for more than 48 hours. Doctors who take a "wait and see" approach to treating ear infections need to be sure the child can be reevaluated within a few days, and provide treatment if necessary, Orjuela said.
A 2007 study found that physicians were hesitant to delay the use of antibiotics for ear infections, most commonly because they said parents were reluctant to accept this approach. The new guidelines say the decision about whether or not to delay the use of antibiotics in kids with a mild ear infection should be made in partnership with the parents. The 2007 study suggested providing parents with antibiotics to give to their children only if their symptoms didn't go away, but noted that this strategy places more responsibility in the hands of parents and may not be suitable for everyone.
The new recommendations are published today (Feb. 25) in the journal Pediatrics.
Pass it on: Kids with mild ear infections may not need antibiotic treatment.
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Kauai, the Petrified Forest, Costa Rica, and more: New GSA Bulletin articles now onlinePublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kea Giles kgiles@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
GSA Bulletin articles published online ahead of print 22 Feb. 2013
Boulder, Colo., USA New GSA Bulletin articles cover wind erosion and sediment traps in the Qaidam basin; rain erosion on Kauai; new insights from the Petrified Forest, USA; a forearc sliver in Costa Rica; Quebec's St. Lawrence rift system; a new model for the development of Ries Crater Lake, Germany; bending and buckling mountain belts; a record of 22 large earthquakes in northern Fiordland, New Zealand; and the evolution of the ancient Montana landscape.
GSA BULLETIN articles published ahead of print are online at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/early/recent; abstracts are open-access at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of articles by contacting Kea Giles.
Sign up for pre-issue publication e-alerts at http://www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts for first access to new journal content as it is posted. Subscribe to RSS feeds at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/rss/.
Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA BULLETIN in your articles or blog posts. Contact Kea Giles for additional information or assistance. Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Detailed highlights are provided below.
Climatic and tectonic controls on sedimentation and erosion during the Pliocene-Quaternary in Qaidam Basin (China) Richard V. Heermance et al., Dept. of Geological Sciences, California State University-Northridge, Northridge, California 91330-8266, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30748.1.
The Pliocene-Quaternary boundary, approx. 2.6 million years ago (2.6 Ma), represents a time of rapid global climate change from warm and moist to cool and arid (i.e., glacial) conditions. The influence of this climate change on both sedimentation and tectonics is preserved in strata within the Qaidam Basin, China. Overall, climate-controlled basin aridification initiated 3.1 million years ago and caused the gradual change from more humid lacustrine sedimentation to evaporite conditions by 2.6 Ma. After 2.6 Ma, uplift above active structures combined with wind erosion of the basin sediments produced localized sediment traps that controlled sedimentation. This study provides isotopic (O and C), paleomagnetic, and sedimentologic data that distinguish the climatic versus tectonic controls on sedimentation and erosion within the northeastern Tibetan Plateau at this important time period.
Variation of climate and long-term erosion rates across a steep rainfall gradient on the Hawaiian island of Kauai
Ken L. Ferrier et al., Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30726.1.
The erosion of volcanic ocean islands creates dramatic landscapes, modulates Earth's carbon cycle, and delivers sediment to coasts and reefs. Despite concerns that modern sediment fluxes to island coasts may exceed long-term fluxes, little is known about how erosion rates and processes vary across island interiors. This study by Ken L. Ferrier and colleagues presents new measurements of erosion rates over five-year to five-million-year time scales on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, which is home to one of Earth's steepest precipitation gradients, with mean annual precipitation ranging from 0.5 to 9.5 m. Eroded rock volumes from basins across Kauai indicate that basin-averaged erosion rates over the past several million years vary by a factor of 40 across the island and increase with modern mean annual precipitation. In the Hanalei basin of Kauai, estimates of sediment fluxes and solute fluxes imply that modern erosion rates are no more than 2.3 plus or minus 0.6 times faster than erosion rates over the past few thousand years, as determined by new measurements of helium-3 in olivines in stream sediment. To the extent that modern precipitation patterns resemble long-term precipitation patterns, these measurements provide new support for a link between precipitation rates and long-term basin-averaged erosion rates.
Sedimentological constraints on the evolution of the Cordilleran arc: New insights from the Sonsela Member, Upper Triassic Chinle Formation, Petrified Forest National Park (Arizona, USA)
Evan R. Howell, Noble Energy, 1625 Broadway, Suite 2200, Denver, CO 80202, USA; and Ronald C. Blakey. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30714.1.
The Sonsela Member of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, USA, forms a distinctive part of an extensive ancient river system that once flowed, at least in part, from a major volcanic arc bordering the western margin of North America (Cordilleran magmatic arc). The Sonsela Member is characterized as a relatively coarse-grained unit compared to other mudstone-dominated members of the Chinle Formation, and is therefore thought to reflect a unique period in the evolution of the basin. Modern exposures of the Cordilleran arc are poorly preserved, the result of subsequent tectonic deformation, erosion, and sedimentation in western North America since the Late Triassic. Sedimentary sequences of the Chinle Formation, however (particularly those of the Sonsela Member), preserve the dynamic evolution of the basin as the volcanic arc was established in southwestern North America. The Sonsela Member therefore serves as the most reliable indicator of fluctuations in arc dynamics of a poorly preserved and disjointed portion of the Cordilleran magmatic arc.
Neotectonic faulting and forearc sliver motion along the Atirro-Ro Sucio fault system, Costa Rica, Central America
Walter Montero P. et al., Geological Sciences Research Center, University of Costa Rica, San Jos, Costa Rica; Corresponding author: Sarah Kruse, Dept. of Geology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30471.1.
Two important questions about the Cocos-Caribbean subduction zone of Costa Rica are how trench-parallel forearc motion is accommodated and what drives forearc sliver motion. This work by Walter Montero P. and colleagues provides critical constraints on the former and lays the foundation for exploring the latter. It documents a network of northwest-striking right-lateral strike slip faults that appears to mark the northern boundary of an upper-plate sliver moving NW relative to the Caribbean plate. Despite high erosion rates and deep weathering, the fault system includes pull-apart basins with preserved normal fault scarps and tilted hanging-wall buttress unconformities, pressure ridges, displaced and beheaded drainages, sag ponds, and fault-controlled upland valleys. Montero and colleagues integrate geomorphic observations with outcrop-scale bedrock fault kinematic and earthquake focal mechanism data to map the active through-going fault zone. The mapping reveals that the fault system traverses the active volcanic arc from NW to SE and connects to an area of high uplift rate in the inactive Talamanca magmatic arc, where the faults are interpreted to originate inboard of the actively colliding Cocos ridge. This suggests that, kinematically, the forearc sliver is rooted in the collision zone.
Mesozoic fault reactivation along the St. Lawrence rift system, eastern Canada: Thermochronologic evidence from apatite fission-track dating
Alain Tremblay et al., Dpartement des Sciences de la Terre et de l'Atmosphre and GEOTOP, Universit du Qubec. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30703.1.
The St. Lawrence rift system is formed by a series of northeast-southwest-trending faults in southeastern Qubec that links and includes the northwest-trending Ottawa-Bonnechre and Saguenay River regions. It is an active fault zone where reactivation of Late Precambrian (less than one billion years ago) faults, at times as young as post-Late Devonian (350 million years ago), is believed to occur. Apatite fission-track (AFT) ages, which represent the time that the rocks cooled through 100 degrees Celsius (3-4 km depth) on their way to the surface, have been determined for Late Precambrian rocks from both sides of typical rift faults at different locations in the St. Lawrence and Saguenay river fault systems along the St. Lawrence rift system. Differences in AFT ages were found across all the faults studied, suggesting reactivation of extensional movement approx. 250-200 million years. Along the St. Lawrence River fault system, the AFT ages also suggest a renewal of movement in a compressional sense at ca. 150 Ma. This study provides evidence for extension related to rifting in the Atlantic Ocean followed by compressional deformation in the interior of Canada, more than 500 km west of the Atlantic coastal margin.
Chemical and ecological evolution of the Miocene Ries impact crater lake, Germany: A reinterpretation based on the Enkingen (SUBO 18) drill core
Gernot Arp et al., Georg-August-Universitt Gttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, 37077 Gttingen, Germany. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30731.1.
Impact crater lakes potentially form valuable climatologic archives. The lacustrine succession of the 15-million-year-old Ries Crater Lake has previously been interpreted as climate-controlled development from a playa to a highly saline soda lake, which successively decreased in salinity to reach freshwater sedimentation with temporary coal swamps. New multidisciplinary investigations based on a partial section now question this view: The sediments of this new drill core reflect increasing, not decreasing salinities, with brown coals formed by plant debris swept into a hypersaline setting. In addition, the chemical composition of the inflowing waters changed due to the weathering of different ejecta layers in the catchment area. Interpolated to the whole succession, a new model for the Ries Crater Lake is developed: After the development of a brackish soda lake and erosion of the upper ejecta blanket (suevite), an increasing ion influx from the lower ejecta (Bunte Breccia) caused a change to a marine-like, and finally hypersaline salt lake. Therefore, intrinsic factors, such as weathering history in the catchment area, probably dominated over external, climatic factors with respect to the chemical and ecological evolution of this impact crater lake. Moreover, the initial suevite blanket might have been more widespread than previously assumed.
Oroclines: Thick and thin
S.T. Johnston et al., School of Earth & Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, PO Box 3065 STN CSC, Victoria British Columbia, Canada V8P 4B2. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30765.1.
Folded rocks characterize young and old mountain belts the world over, and form some of the most familiar and spectacular of geological structures. But can you fold an entire mountain belt? Stephen Johnston of the University of Victoria and his colleagues Arlo Weil of Bryn Mawr University and Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso of the University of Salamanca have been studying the geometry of mountain belts, and their findings, summarized in this review paper, suggest that not only can you bend a mountain belt, but that folds of mountain belts, referred to as oroclines, constitute the largest geological structures on Earth. Based on an extensive compilation of geological and geophysical data, they demonstrate that during the development of a mountain chain, minor bends of faults and folds can develop, but that subsequently the entire mountain chain can be buckled into one or more oroclines. For example, the 320-million-year-old Variscan Mountain chain of Iberia, which formed during the continental collisions that gave rise to Pangea, subsequently buckled giving rise to two coupled oroclines. During buckling, a 2,300-km-long, 300-km-wide, linear mountain chain was shortened by more than 1,100 km, giving rise to two of Earth's largest folds and forming the Iberian Peninsula. These findings suggest that the buckling of mountain chains is an important process responsible for the development and growth of continents.
Deriving a long paleoseismic record from a shallow-water Holocene basin next to the Alpine fault, New Zealand
K.J. Clark et al., GNS Science, PO Box 30368, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30693.1.
Scientists have investigated evidence left by large surface-rupturing earthquakes on the Alpine Fault in New Zealand over an 8,000 year period. The earthquakes left "geological signatures" of alternating peat and silt in the exposed banks of Hokuri Creek, an isolated creek in northern Fiordland. Detailed mapping, sedimentology and microfossil analysis were used to investigate the relationship between sediment deposition and Alpine fault rupture at Hokuri Creek. Repeated fault rupture involving a component of vertical movement is shown to be the most convincing mechanism for explaining the cyclical peat and silt sedimentary sequence. This article by K.J. Clark and colleagues delves into the detail of how a record of 22 earthquakes between circa AD 800 to 6000 BC was obtained. The Hokuri Creek sequence represents one of the longest continuous large earthquake records of any on-land plate boundary fault in the world. The Alpine Fault extends about 600 km along the spine of the South Island between Milford Sound and Marlborough. It last ruptured in 1717 AD producing an earthquake of approx. magnitude 8.
Paleogene postcompressional intermontane basin evolution along the frontal Cordilleran fold-and-thrust belt of southwestern Montana
Theresa M. Schwartz and Robert K. Schwartz, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 320, Stanford, California 94305, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30776.1.
This article by Theresa M. Schwartz and Robert K. Schwartz investigates the evolution of the Montana landscape between approximately 50 and 20 million years ago. Detailed examination of the depositional facies and provenance of the Renova Formation in southwestern Montana provides important insight into the physical processes that affected the eastern part of the North American Cordillera after it became inactive. These include the interplay between tectonism (both in the crust and deeper in the lithosphere), erosion on the surface by large river systems, and shifts in climate patterns. Ultimately, this study finds that the complex structure that was generated more than 50 million years ago exerted and continues to exert strong controls on the landscape, dictating areas of erosion and deposition.
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Kauai, the Petrified Forest, Costa Rica, and more: New GSA Bulletin articles now onlinePublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kea Giles kgiles@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
GSA Bulletin articles published online ahead of print 22 Feb. 2013
Boulder, Colo., USA New GSA Bulletin articles cover wind erosion and sediment traps in the Qaidam basin; rain erosion on Kauai; new insights from the Petrified Forest, USA; a forearc sliver in Costa Rica; Quebec's St. Lawrence rift system; a new model for the development of Ries Crater Lake, Germany; bending and buckling mountain belts; a record of 22 large earthquakes in northern Fiordland, New Zealand; and the evolution of the ancient Montana landscape.
GSA BULLETIN articles published ahead of print are online at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/early/recent; abstracts are open-access at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of articles by contacting Kea Giles.
Sign up for pre-issue publication e-alerts at http://www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts for first access to new journal content as it is posted. Subscribe to RSS feeds at http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/rss/.
Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA BULLETIN in your articles or blog posts. Contact Kea Giles for additional information or assistance. Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Detailed highlights are provided below.
Climatic and tectonic controls on sedimentation and erosion during the Pliocene-Quaternary in Qaidam Basin (China) Richard V. Heermance et al., Dept. of Geological Sciences, California State University-Northridge, Northridge, California 91330-8266, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30748.1.
The Pliocene-Quaternary boundary, approx. 2.6 million years ago (2.6 Ma), represents a time of rapid global climate change from warm and moist to cool and arid (i.e., glacial) conditions. The influence of this climate change on both sedimentation and tectonics is preserved in strata within the Qaidam Basin, China. Overall, climate-controlled basin aridification initiated 3.1 million years ago and caused the gradual change from more humid lacustrine sedimentation to evaporite conditions by 2.6 Ma. After 2.6 Ma, uplift above active structures combined with wind erosion of the basin sediments produced localized sediment traps that controlled sedimentation. This study provides isotopic (O and C), paleomagnetic, and sedimentologic data that distinguish the climatic versus tectonic controls on sedimentation and erosion within the northeastern Tibetan Plateau at this important time period.
Variation of climate and long-term erosion rates across a steep rainfall gradient on the Hawaiian island of Kauai
Ken L. Ferrier et al., Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139-4307, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30726.1.
The erosion of volcanic ocean islands creates dramatic landscapes, modulates Earth's carbon cycle, and delivers sediment to coasts and reefs. Despite concerns that modern sediment fluxes to island coasts may exceed long-term fluxes, little is known about how erosion rates and processes vary across island interiors. This study by Ken L. Ferrier and colleagues presents new measurements of erosion rates over five-year to five-million-year time scales on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, which is home to one of Earth's steepest precipitation gradients, with mean annual precipitation ranging from 0.5 to 9.5 m. Eroded rock volumes from basins across Kauai indicate that basin-averaged erosion rates over the past several million years vary by a factor of 40 across the island and increase with modern mean annual precipitation. In the Hanalei basin of Kauai, estimates of sediment fluxes and solute fluxes imply that modern erosion rates are no more than 2.3 plus or minus 0.6 times faster than erosion rates over the past few thousand years, as determined by new measurements of helium-3 in olivines in stream sediment. To the extent that modern precipitation patterns resemble long-term precipitation patterns, these measurements provide new support for a link between precipitation rates and long-term basin-averaged erosion rates.
Sedimentological constraints on the evolution of the Cordilleran arc: New insights from the Sonsela Member, Upper Triassic Chinle Formation, Petrified Forest National Park (Arizona, USA)
Evan R. Howell, Noble Energy, 1625 Broadway, Suite 2200, Denver, CO 80202, USA; and Ronald C. Blakey. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30714.1.
The Sonsela Member of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, USA, forms a distinctive part of an extensive ancient river system that once flowed, at least in part, from a major volcanic arc bordering the western margin of North America (Cordilleran magmatic arc). The Sonsela Member is characterized as a relatively coarse-grained unit compared to other mudstone-dominated members of the Chinle Formation, and is therefore thought to reflect a unique period in the evolution of the basin. Modern exposures of the Cordilleran arc are poorly preserved, the result of subsequent tectonic deformation, erosion, and sedimentation in western North America since the Late Triassic. Sedimentary sequences of the Chinle Formation, however (particularly those of the Sonsela Member), preserve the dynamic evolution of the basin as the volcanic arc was established in southwestern North America. The Sonsela Member therefore serves as the most reliable indicator of fluctuations in arc dynamics of a poorly preserved and disjointed portion of the Cordilleran magmatic arc.
Neotectonic faulting and forearc sliver motion along the Atirro-Ro Sucio fault system, Costa Rica, Central America
Walter Montero P. et al., Geological Sciences Research Center, University of Costa Rica, San Jos, Costa Rica; Corresponding author: Sarah Kruse, Dept. of Geology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30471.1.
Two important questions about the Cocos-Caribbean subduction zone of Costa Rica are how trench-parallel forearc motion is accommodated and what drives forearc sliver motion. This work by Walter Montero P. and colleagues provides critical constraints on the former and lays the foundation for exploring the latter. It documents a network of northwest-striking right-lateral strike slip faults that appears to mark the northern boundary of an upper-plate sliver moving NW relative to the Caribbean plate. Despite high erosion rates and deep weathering, the fault system includes pull-apart basins with preserved normal fault scarps and tilted hanging-wall buttress unconformities, pressure ridges, displaced and beheaded drainages, sag ponds, and fault-controlled upland valleys. Montero and colleagues integrate geomorphic observations with outcrop-scale bedrock fault kinematic and earthquake focal mechanism data to map the active through-going fault zone. The mapping reveals that the fault system traverses the active volcanic arc from NW to SE and connects to an area of high uplift rate in the inactive Talamanca magmatic arc, where the faults are interpreted to originate inboard of the actively colliding Cocos ridge. This suggests that, kinematically, the forearc sliver is rooted in the collision zone.
Mesozoic fault reactivation along the St. Lawrence rift system, eastern Canada: Thermochronologic evidence from apatite fission-track dating
Alain Tremblay et al., Dpartement des Sciences de la Terre et de l'Atmosphre and GEOTOP, Universit du Qubec. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30703.1.
The St. Lawrence rift system is formed by a series of northeast-southwest-trending faults in southeastern Qubec that links and includes the northwest-trending Ottawa-Bonnechre and Saguenay River regions. It is an active fault zone where reactivation of Late Precambrian (less than one billion years ago) faults, at times as young as post-Late Devonian (350 million years ago), is believed to occur. Apatite fission-track (AFT) ages, which represent the time that the rocks cooled through 100 degrees Celsius (3-4 km depth) on their way to the surface, have been determined for Late Precambrian rocks from both sides of typical rift faults at different locations in the St. Lawrence and Saguenay river fault systems along the St. Lawrence rift system. Differences in AFT ages were found across all the faults studied, suggesting reactivation of extensional movement approx. 250-200 million years. Along the St. Lawrence River fault system, the AFT ages also suggest a renewal of movement in a compressional sense at ca. 150 Ma. This study provides evidence for extension related to rifting in the Atlantic Ocean followed by compressional deformation in the interior of Canada, more than 500 km west of the Atlantic coastal margin.
Chemical and ecological evolution of the Miocene Ries impact crater lake, Germany: A reinterpretation based on the Enkingen (SUBO 18) drill core
Gernot Arp et al., Georg-August-Universitt Gttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, 37077 Gttingen, Germany. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30731.1.
Impact crater lakes potentially form valuable climatologic archives. The lacustrine succession of the 15-million-year-old Ries Crater Lake has previously been interpreted as climate-controlled development from a playa to a highly saline soda lake, which successively decreased in salinity to reach freshwater sedimentation with temporary coal swamps. New multidisciplinary investigations based on a partial section now question this view: The sediments of this new drill core reflect increasing, not decreasing salinities, with brown coals formed by plant debris swept into a hypersaline setting. In addition, the chemical composition of the inflowing waters changed due to the weathering of different ejecta layers in the catchment area. Interpolated to the whole succession, a new model for the Ries Crater Lake is developed: After the development of a brackish soda lake and erosion of the upper ejecta blanket (suevite), an increasing ion influx from the lower ejecta (Bunte Breccia) caused a change to a marine-like, and finally hypersaline salt lake. Therefore, intrinsic factors, such as weathering history in the catchment area, probably dominated over external, climatic factors with respect to the chemical and ecological evolution of this impact crater lake. Moreover, the initial suevite blanket might have been more widespread than previously assumed.
Oroclines: Thick and thin
S.T. Johnston et al., School of Earth & Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, PO Box 3065 STN CSC, Victoria British Columbia, Canada V8P 4B2. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30765.1.
Folded rocks characterize young and old mountain belts the world over, and form some of the most familiar and spectacular of geological structures. But can you fold an entire mountain belt? Stephen Johnston of the University of Victoria and his colleagues Arlo Weil of Bryn Mawr University and Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso of the University of Salamanca have been studying the geometry of mountain belts, and their findings, summarized in this review paper, suggest that not only can you bend a mountain belt, but that folds of mountain belts, referred to as oroclines, constitute the largest geological structures on Earth. Based on an extensive compilation of geological and geophysical data, they demonstrate that during the development of a mountain chain, minor bends of faults and folds can develop, but that subsequently the entire mountain chain can be buckled into one or more oroclines. For example, the 320-million-year-old Variscan Mountain chain of Iberia, which formed during the continental collisions that gave rise to Pangea, subsequently buckled giving rise to two coupled oroclines. During buckling, a 2,300-km-long, 300-km-wide, linear mountain chain was shortened by more than 1,100 km, giving rise to two of Earth's largest folds and forming the Iberian Peninsula. These findings suggest that the buckling of mountain chains is an important process responsible for the development and growth of continents.
Deriving a long paleoseismic record from a shallow-water Holocene basin next to the Alpine fault, New Zealand
K.J. Clark et al., GNS Science, PO Box 30368, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30693.1.
Scientists have investigated evidence left by large surface-rupturing earthquakes on the Alpine Fault in New Zealand over an 8,000 year period. The earthquakes left "geological signatures" of alternating peat and silt in the exposed banks of Hokuri Creek, an isolated creek in northern Fiordland. Detailed mapping, sedimentology and microfossil analysis were used to investigate the relationship between sediment deposition and Alpine fault rupture at Hokuri Creek. Repeated fault rupture involving a component of vertical movement is shown to be the most convincing mechanism for explaining the cyclical peat and silt sedimentary sequence. This article by K.J. Clark and colleagues delves into the detail of how a record of 22 earthquakes between circa AD 800 to 6000 BC was obtained. The Hokuri Creek sequence represents one of the longest continuous large earthquake records of any on-land plate boundary fault in the world. The Alpine Fault extends about 600 km along the spine of the South Island between Milford Sound and Marlborough. It last ruptured in 1717 AD producing an earthquake of approx. magnitude 8.
Paleogene postcompressional intermontane basin evolution along the frontal Cordilleran fold-and-thrust belt of southwestern Montana
Theresa M. Schwartz and Robert K. Schwartz, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 320, Stanford, California 94305, USA. Posted online 22 Feb. 2013; http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/B30776.1.
This article by Theresa M. Schwartz and Robert K. Schwartz investigates the evolution of the Montana landscape between approximately 50 and 20 million years ago. Detailed examination of the depositional facies and provenance of the Renova Formation in southwestern Montana provides important insight into the physical processes that affected the eastern part of the North American Cordillera after it became inactive. These include the interplay between tectonism (both in the crust and deeper in the lithosphere), erosion on the surface by large river systems, and shifts in climate patterns. Ultimately, this study finds that the complex structure that was generated more than 50 million years ago exerted and continues to exert strong controls on the landscape, dictating areas of erosion and deposition.
www.geosociety.org
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Public release date: 26-Feb-2013
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