Mega-Development Trends in the Amazon: Implications for Global Change

This paper describes four global-change phenomena that are having major impacts on Amazonian forests. The first is accelerating deforestation and logging. Despite recent government initiatives to slow forest loss, deforestation rates in Brazilian Amazonia have increased from 1.1 million ha yr^–1 in the early 1990s, to nearly 1.5 million ha yr^–1 from 1992–1994, and to more than 1.9 million ha yr^–1 from 1995–1998. Deforestation is also occurring rapidly in some other parts of the Amazon Basin, such as in Bolivia and Ecuador, while industrialized logging is increasing dramatically in the Guianas and central Amazonia.The second phenomenon is that patterns of forest loss and fragmentation are rapidly changing. In recent decades, large-scale deforestation has mainly occurred in the southern and eastern portions of the Amazon — in the Brazilian states of Pará, Maranho, Rondônia, Acre, and Mato Grosso, and in northern Bolivia. While rates of forest loss remain very high in these areas, the development of major new highways is providing direct conduits into the heart of the Amazon. If future trends follow past patterns, land-hungry settlers and loggers may largely bisect the forests of the Amazon Basin.The third phenomenon is that climatic variability is interacting with human land uses, creating additional impacts on forest ecosystems. The 1997/98 El Niño drought, for example, led to a major increase in forest burning, with wildfires raging out of control in the northern Amazonian state of Roraima and other locations. Logging operations, which create labyrinths of roads and tracks in forsts, are increasing fuel loads, desiccation and ignition sources in forest interiors. Forest fragmentation also increases fire susceptibility by creating dry, fire-prone forest edges.Finally, recent evidence suggests that intact Amazonian forests are a globally significant carbon sink, quite possibly caused by higher forest growth rates in response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ fertilization. Evidence for a carbon sink comes from long-term forest mensuration plots, from whole-forest studies of carbon flux and from investigations of atmospheric CO₂ and oxygen isotopes. Unfortunately, intact Amazonian forests are rapidly diminishing. Hence, not only is the destruction of these forests a major source of greenhouse gases, but it is reducing their intrinsic capacity to help buffer the rapid anthropogenic rise in CO₂.     

The Impact of Landsat Satellite Monitoring on Conservation Biology

Landsat 7s recent malfunctioning will result in significant gaps in long-term satellite monitoring of Earth, affecting not only the research of the Earth science community but also conservation users of these data. To determine whether or how important Landsat monitoring is for conservation and natural resource management, we reviewed the Landsat programs history with special emphasis on the development of user groups. We also conducted a bibliographic search to determine the extent to which conservation research has been based on Landsat data. Conservation biologists were not an early user group of Landsat data because a) biologists lacked technical capacity – computers and software – to analyze these data; b) Landsats 1980s commercialization rendered images too costly for biologists budgets; and c) the broad-scale disciplines of conservation biology and landscape ecology did not develop until the mid-to-late 1980s. All these conditions had changed by the 1990s and Landsat imagery became an important tool for conservation biology. Satellite monitoring and Landsat continuity are mandated by the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1992. This legislation leaves open commercial options. However, past experiments with commercial operations were neither viable nor economical, and severely reduced the quality of monitoring, archiving and data access for academia and the public. Future satellite monitoring programs are essential for conservation and natural resource management, must provide continuity with Landsat, and should be government operated.     

Temperature and Concentration Effects in Biomonitoring of Organic Air Pollutants

Up to now only very few studies in biomonitoring of organic air pollutants have been published taking into account the strong influence mean temperatures have on the accumulation process into plants during the course of the exposition. Temperature governed sorption as well as the plants vitality pose a major source of uncertainty making inter-study comparisons difficult. Different surface-to-volume ratios of plant foliage lead to strongly varying concentration effects in different plant species. Moreover a plants content of waxes and lipids must be considered in order to relate xenobiotic concentrations to the compounds being most efficient in the bioaccumulation process. Some of these factors are evaluated in regard to the use of plants as biomonitors for organic air pollutants. Another aim is to deduce the mean ambient gas phase concentrations from PAH concentrations determined in the biomonitor plants using vegetation-air partitioning coefficients which have been corrected for temperature dependent sorption as well as the plants lipid content. Restrictions of such approaches and methods of biomonitoring in general are discussed.     

Obligations to animals are based on rights

Some feminist philosophers criticize the idea of human rights because, they allege, it encapsulates male bias; it is therefore misguided, in their view, to extend moral rights to non-human animals. I argue that the feminist criticism is misguided. Ideas are not biased in favour of men simply because they originate with men, nor are ideas themselves biased in favour of men because men have used them prejudicially. As for the position that women should abandon theories of rights and embrace an ethic that emphasizes care: women who made this choice would not so much liberate themselves from the patriarchy as they would conform to its representation of women as emotional, subjective and irrational. There is, then, no good reason to withhold ascribing rights to non-human animals, based on the criticisms of rights made by some feminists.Some of the material in the discussion of the feminist critique of rights originally appeared in my The Case for Animal Rights: A Decade's Passing inA Quarter Century of Value Inquiry: Presidential Addresses of the American Society of Value Inquiry, edited by Richard T. Hull, pp. 451–455. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1994. These passages are reprinted with the permission of the editor and publisher, whose thoughtful co-operation is gratefully acknowledged.     

东南大陆岩石圈板块地体构造

东南大陆的地质构造模型,具有欧亚大陆边缘向洋增生的独特形式。除外来地体之外,或以扩张、地幔上涌,洋壳向大陆地壳转化,并不断向洋增生;或是大陆分裂,地幔柱——热点物质不断注入变薄和破裂了的地壳,形成区域性新的生长构造层,构造岩浆地质体表现为有独特属性的“A型”花岗岩和流纹岩链。这些高DI值的富硅富碱富钠质岩石,出现在欧亚大陆边缘的重力梯度带上。裂解带的地壳结构模式是上地壳存在着重力不稳定的硅铝低速带;中地壳有洋——陆过渡型地壳的“类裂谷型”结构,P波速度为6.3～6.4km/s的中间壳层;在下地壳下部有速度为7.0～7.4km/s的壳——幔混合型高速层;随着“异常”的上地幔的形成,有大范围的热活动和壳——幔边界穹窿,穹窿的地盖比正常区为为薄。由于化学库和化学边界层的横向不连续,可划分出古老基底和后期地质发展史完全迥异的两个亚板块;和以壳层(或幔层)断裂为边界特点的八个地体;一个以分裂为主,并具热点径迹的最新生长构造层的扩张——裂解构造岩浆地体。     

Fractionation of Cu, Pb and Zn in certified reference soils SRM 2710 and SRM 2711 using the optimized BCR sequential extraction procedure

Sequential extraction of metals from solid media is a common analytical tool used in environmental and exploration geochemistry. A number of procedures exist, but without harmonization and standardization, meaningful comparisons are tenuous without baseline data. A newly developed, standardized sequential extraction procedure (optimized BCR) was applied to two contaminated certified reference soils from Montana, US (SRM 2710 and SRM 2711) for Cu, Pb and Zn. Four operationally defined fractions were isolated, acid extractable, reducible, oxidizable, and residual (by aqua regia). Fraction-specific concentrations, percentages and recoveries for Cu, Pb and Zn were used to explore differences between the optimized BCR procedure and three other sequential extraction schemes with published data for SRM 2710 and 2711 (i.e. Tessier scheme, Geological Survey of Canada scheme and the original BCR scheme). Results indicate significant differences between the four schemes, even for schemes that are closely associated (i.e. the original and optimized BCR schemes). Order-of-magnitude fraction-specific concentration differences were observed, especially for Pb in the reducible fraction. Differences between schemes are worrisome because trends varied between metals, between fractions and between reference soils. These data reinforce the need for increased adoption of standardized sequential extraction procedures and further examination of different solid media.     

大兴安岭西坡中生代火山岩形成机制

依据火山喷发特点、火山岩岩石组合及火山岩的同位素年代学证据,大兴安岭西坡地区发育的大量中生代火山岩可分为三个放回,自早而晚依次为：晚侏罗世的塔木兰沟族回、上库力旋回和早白垩世的伊列克得旋回。不同旋回火山岩具有不同的地质、地球化学特征。在岩浆起源、源区性质和演化过程等方面,不同族回火山岩既有相似之处,也存在明显差别。火山岩为深部作用和过程的产物,对其形成机制的研究,有助于理解本区中生代发生的剧烈的火山岩浆作用和成矿作用的构造背景及演化过程。     

贵阳地区基本地质环境和主要岩土工程问题综述

本文系笔者对贵阳地区主要地质环境和工程地质特点进行的初步总结,内容为贵阳地区主要岩土构成情况、分布范围及与之相应的岩土工程地质特点和主要的岩土工程地质问题的描述,旨在给同行提供宏观性的了解和方向性的参考。     

高等院校教育技术的发展思路探讨

本文阐述了高等院校教育技术的发展现状,分析了高等院校教育技术发展的特点,对高等院校教育技术的发展进行理性思考。认为高等院校应该在重视教育技术实践性和支持性研究的基础上,立足现实,更全面审视机构整合、教育信息化、信息资源库建设和教师培训这些热点问题。     

若干生态农业的模式及其应用

本文根据浙江省生态农业的实践,总结出数种生态农业模式,叙述了各种模式的结构、功能、效益、特点及应用现状,提出了模式的适用对象和应用时需重点注意的问题。