Early hominin takes over Science magazine

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I first mentioned Ardipithecus ramidus in EPN for February 2002 (Taking stock of hominid evolution), and the remarkable first finds by Tim White and his team were in 1994. Fifteen years on, and having amassed fragments of at least 36 individuals (and thousands of vertebrate, invertebrate and plant fossils) – Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University remarked, ‘This team seems to suck fossils out of the ground’ – it’s pay day! A total of 54 pages of the 2 October 2009 issue of Science (v. 326, Issue 5949) are devoted to this diminutive and very old (4.4 Ma) hominin. Such mounds of data wrested from the cauldron of the Afar Depression needed a long incubation period, and what is presented in Science is a summary rather than being comprehensive: much more is available online, and yet to come. The now hugely experienced, 47-strong academic team built up by Tim White and his original colleagues deserve massive congratulations. But they depended on the eagle-eyed, mainly Ethiopian fossil finders, many of whom are Afar pastoralists who took to field palaeontology as ducks to water. Science in general owes a massive debt to all those who have wrested such a wealth of anatomical information from every aspect of the fossils and their environmental context. What they have achieved is more worthy of Nobel-status than the fumbling of gaggles of annual economist-laureates who still cannot grasp why the world economy continually does grave disservice to humanity. The Ar. ramidus team also have a lot more worth saying to us than those physicists who seek the grail of a theory of everything – racked by such hubris that they are both unintelligible and unrealistic in the most literal way.

I cannot do adequate justice to the work in that historic issue of Science, but there are some general points that will leave any interested person breathless. As regards previous assumptions about the environment under which hominins emerged, it was woodland not open savannah. Though upright and capable of walking, as revealed by pelvis remains, Ardipithecus had feet with opposable big toes: sort of foot-thumbs. So they would have been as comfortable on trees as on the ground. Yet, their foot-architecture shows signs of having evolved from  monkey-like feet rather than any lin=ke those of modern gorillas and chimps. A degree of certainty accompanies anatomical discussions, for one individual female Ar. ramidus is represented by a large proportion of a full skeleton, rivalling the later remains of  ‘Lucy’, an Australopithecus afarensis. Her skull, reconstructed from a badly crushed state using co0mputed tomography and digital piecing-together, gives a brain size around the same as bonobo chimpanzees, and less than that of australopithecines. The feet clearly show a walker able to clamber, rather than swing and knuckle walk. Hands, though primitive, are more human-like than those of living apes are. From that can be concluded that a common ancestor a million of so years earlier was not ape-like in manual terms: chimps have evolved in this respect perhaps a lot more than those on the human line. Teeth shape, wear and isotopic signatures suggest a broad diet, rather than specialisation, from which grasses and grass-eating prey seem absent. Moreover, there is no sign of large canines, that could indicate minimal social aggression. Males and females were of similar size, as are we, rather than showing the sexual dimorphism that characterised later australopithecines and both chimps and gorillas. This also seems to point backwards in time to the last common ancestor of ourselves and chimps being very different from both living genera. Yet in many respects chimps seem to have evolved more than hominins. Because of the work on Ar. Ramidus, a chimpanzee-centric view of our shared forebears and therefore of hominin evolution can now be rejected. Perhaps thankfully, speculation about aspects of our behaviour stemming from those of chimpanzees is probably worthless.

The mass of data concerning this small, Pliocene hominin holds out a promise of yet more to come, both further back in time, and to populate the gaps in time and morphology that currently plague palaeoanthropology. The terrestrial sediments in which White et al. found Ar. Ramidus are 300 m thick, cover 5.5 to 3.8 Ma and are exposed over a large area. The stratum from which most data were recovered represents at most about 10 thousand years. Elsewhere in the Afar-Danakil Depression are other sediments laid down in river and lake systems that go back as far the Miocene (the estimated time of the last common ancestor of other primates and humans), and are still being deposited today. If anything characterised this triumph of the human intellect, it combined patience, determination and an attention to detail that was shared by every participant.

Evidence for Hadean continental crust takes a knock

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The pre-4 Ga ages recorded by some of the detrital zircons from the 3 Ga Jack Hills sandstones have been used to suggest that continental crust formed from about 4.4 Ga onwards, which implies some kind of recycling process in the tectonics of the early earth to generate and fractionate the necessary silicic magmas. That assumes zircons only form in silicic magmas produced by fractionation in volcanic arcs. The plagiogranites found in small amounts in ophiolites also contain zircons, thereby countering the claim for Hadean continents. More revealing are zircons found in granite magmas that represent the last dregs of melts formed by giant impact (Darling, J. et al. 2009. Impact melt sheet zircons and their implications for the Hadean. Geology, v. 37, p. 927-930). The huge impact-induced mafic to ultramafic melt sheet at Sudbury, Ontario, formed around 1.85 Ga. Zircons extracted from late-stage granites in the body are similar to those with Hadean ages.

Life originated as an oddity

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Coming up with a theory for the origin of something so complex and ancient as life on Earth might seem to be at the pinnacle of hubris, yet such ideas are not uncommon. A novel slant on the ‘Big Question’ centres on how cells get their energy, rather than on trying to put together all manner of chemical prerequisites (Lane, N. 2009. The cradle of life. New Scientist v. 204 (17 October 2009) p. 38-42). Mike Russell began his career as a geochemist looking at hydrothermal mineral deposits and the intricacies of their formation, while at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. He now works at NASA-JPL in Pasadena, California inspired by the views of a self-funded eccentric Cornish farmer, Peter Mitchell. Cell energetics, according to Mitchell, are about pumping protons through cell membranes to effect the oxidation and reduction fundamentals of metabolism; in short electrochemical gradients. That is now recognised by every cell biologist, though once it was considered absurd. Russell’s take on that novel truism is that the environment of life’s origin must have involved similar processes taking place in the absence of living cells, which inherited proton pumping. His choice is mineralised pinnacles full of foam-like voids that can act as minute chemical factories: not the famous sulfidic black smokers of ocean ridge systems, but cooler features formed of carbonates precipitated from alkaline sea-floor hydrothermal vents. The carbonate foam in ancient examples, well-known to Russell from their mineralisation, contains bubbles lined with iron sulfides. Sulfides are known to have catalytic properties; proteins in living cells that convert CO2 to sugars have Fe-S bonds at the core of their structure; alkaline hydrothermal vents emit hydrogen released by alteration of olivine in ocean-floor basalt to serpentine minerals; bubbles in carbonate foam look very like potential precursors to cells. To produce the first living cells, these features together in one enclosed space need 10 steps of quite simple chemistry. Except, that is, for nucleic acid production…

End-Permian crisis not so bad for ammonites

The greatest known mass extinction at the end of the Permian Period snuffed out 85% of fossil marine species. It is widely understood to have taken at least five million years for ecosystems to begin recovering, and some animal groups remained depressed for longer still, especially those living at or near the sea floor. Yet one group of cephalopods, the ceratidid ammonites, almost immediately began to thrive, despite the ammonoid sub-Class having been among the hardest hit groups (Brayard, A. et al. 2009. Good genes and good luck: ammonoid diversity and the end-Permian mass extinction. Science, v. 325, p. 1118-1121). Only three genera of ceratidids survived the cataclysm, but within 1-2 Ma there were almost 100 representatives. A similar swift recovery is shown by the completely unrelated conodont animals (now-extinct eel-like vertebrates whose teeth are generally the only parts to be fossilised). For such a success story to emerge by pure chance seems intuitively unlikely: for cephalopod  equivalents of Lazarus to go forth and multiply so nicely requires genes well-suited to the conditions that followed the mass extinction.

Micro-gravity data chart shrinking ice caps

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The NASA and German Aerospace Centre Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) launched in 2002 aims to measure variations over time in the Earth’s gravity field by gauging tiny changes in distance between two satellites using radar. Briefly, mass in the Earth tugs first on the leading satellite and then on the one trailing it, so if mass distribution stays constant so does the separation between the craft. If mass below a point on the Earth’s surface does change, GRACE detects this from a change in separation between the two craft. Between April 2002 and February 2009, monthly measurements over Greenland and Antarctica reveal losses in the amount of ice, and the rate at which the ice caps are shrinking is accelerating (Velicogna, I. 2009. Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE. Geophysical Research Letters, v. 36, L19503 doi:10.1029/2009GL040222). Isabella Velicogna of NASA/JPL shows that the Greenland ice cap (total mass~3 x 1015 t) lost 1.37 x 1011 t a-1 in 2002–3, rising to 2.86 x 1011 t a-1 in 2007–9 , the loss is accelerating at 3.0 ± 1.1 x 1010 t a-2). The ten times more massive Antarctic ice cap lost 1.04 x 1011 t a-1 in 2002–6 rising to 2.46 x 1011 t a-1 in 2006–9, giving an acceleration of 2.6 ± 1.4 x 1010 t a-2. Proportionate to size the Greenland ice cap is dwindling faster than Antarctica, but at these rates it still has 10 thousand years before it disappears.

Boron isotopes and climate change

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Boron has two stable isotopes, 10B and 11B. Like all isotopes of the same element, when boron is shifted from one host to another some fractionation between its isotopes is likely. In the case of boron being taken-up by planktonic foraminifera, their shells’ 11B/10B ratios correlate with the pH of seawater. Since the pH of the oceans is dominated by the effects of dissolved CO2, itself in equilibrium with the gas’s atmospheric concentration, boron isotope ratios in foram shells are a proxy for the greenhouse effect produced by carbon dioxide. This finding dates back to 1992, but has only recently been used. It is especially revealing for the period around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (see Lead-in to icehouse conditions in July 2009 issue of EPN) when other evidence indicates that global cooling eventually allowed glaciers to grow on Antarctica and possibly at northern high latitudes (Pearson, P.N. et al. 2009. Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition. Nature, v. 461, p. 1110-1113). The boron data indicate a downward shift in atmospheric CO2 from around 1100 to 750 ppm by volume from 34.2-33.5 Ma, the lower value just preceding δ18O data for a rapid increase in polar glaciers. Oddly, δ11B then rises to levels suggesting a return to CO2 levels of >1000 ppm by volume at a time of constant high δ18O that show the survival of ice caps; perhaps a result of increased albedo forcing.

Impact cause for Younger Dryas panned again

In 2007 two dozen scientists presented evidence to suggest that onset of the Younger Dryas, extinction of many North American mammal species and the sudden end of the Clovis culture at 12.9 ka followed upper atmosphere explosions of cometary material (see Whizz-bang view of Younger Dryas and Impact cause for Younger Dryas draws flak in EPN of July 2007 and May 2008). The Clovis culture of North America, signified by superbly crafted stone spear points, occupied a narrow time range between 13.3 and 12.8 ka, i.e. up to the start of the Younger Dryas interstadial. Some Clovis occupation sites are buried by organic-rich soils. Remarkably, the original proposers of a catastrophic event (Firestone, R.B. and 25 others 2007. Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, v. 104, 16016-16021) claimed that the veneers contain magnetic microspherules, magnetic grains, iridium and nickel, charcoal, soot and polycyclic hydrocarbons, carbon spherules, fullerenes that trap helium with extraterrestrial isotopic proportions, glass-like carbon, and nanodiamonds. Missing from what looks like a supportive package are shocked minerals, which are the only materials formed uniquely by impact events.

Experts on extraterrestrial influences considered the team to be ‘over-enthusiastic’. In response Firestone and co-workers made replicate samples available for independent confirmation or refutation of their claims. This offer seems not to have been followed-up, but another large team recollected the black soil veneers from two of the same sites and 5 others of similar age (Surovell, T.A. and 8 others 2009. An independent evaluation of the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, v. 106, p. 18155–18158). They focussed on the claim for magnetic spherules, using the same techniques as Firestone et al. (2007), yet failed to find anomalous peaks at the time of the Clovis demise and opening of the Younger Dryas massive global cooling. Their conclusion was, ‘ In short, we find no support for the extraterrestrial impact hypothesis as proposed by Firestone et al.’. However, Surovell et al. did find magnetic spherules before, during and after the interstadial event. In fact, magnetic spherules are quite common in many sedimentary settings and have a history of controversy. In the late 1980s Robert S. Foote, an oil explorationist claimed that many oilfields were associated with geomagnetic anomalies with distinctive short wavelength ‘signatures’. He became widely regarded as a crank. But he persisted and discovered the first tangible evidence for lifeforms that thrive at high temperatures in deep oil wells – shiny, tiny magnetic spherules made of magnetite (Fe3O4). Magnetotactic bacteria living in highly reducing conditions produce them to form magnetosome chains. Magnetosomes are also present in the brains of far-migrating birds, with connections to their remarkable feats of navigation.

Just when you think it’s going to turn out alright…

The millennium of Younger Dryas global cooling from 12.8 to 11.5 ka ago caught forager-hunters on the hop as they followed herds in the wake of the general glacial retreat after 18 ka. The shut-down of the Gulf Stream when high-latitude North Atlantic surface waters freshened may have occurred in a decade or so. The end of the YD marked the start of more modern conditions in the Holocene Epoch, when northward recolonisation resumed in earnest. Climate records, such as the δ18O proxy for air temperature in the Greenland ice cores, suggest long-term but ‘noisy’ climatic constancy. That is, until one spreads out the Holocene records. At around 8200 years ago is a 200-year downward ‘blip’ in temperature to well below the Holocene average and then recovery. The perturbation also shows up in a Newfoundland mire (Daley, T.J. et al. 2009. Terrestrial climate signal of the “8200 yr B.P. cold event” in the Labrador Sea region. Geology, v. 37, p. 831-834) as a pronounced change in δ18O from moss cellulose. The event has been ascribed to slow-down in thermohaline circulation following a further freshening of North Atlantic surface water by drainage of a remaining ice-dammed lake (Lake Agassiz) on the Canadian Shield. By 8.2 Ka the northward spread of flora and fauna from refugia around the Mediterranean Sea was well underway, and included the arrival in southern Europe of Neolithic farming practices: the start of an agricultural revolution that was to reshape the entire sociocultural ethos of the ‘Old World’, from which today’s globalisation emerged. So it is interesting to learn that the ‘cold blip’ also left a signature at 41º N in northern Greece (Pross, J. et al. 2009. Massive perturbation in terrestrial ecosystems of the Eastern Mediterranean region associated with the 8.2 kyr B.P. climatic event. Geology, v. 37, p. 887-890). This study uses pollens collected from a lake-bed sediment core. The climatic event involved a rapid drop by 30 % in tree pollen abundances, matched by a 10% increase in pollen from shrubs, such as Artemisia (wormwood) normally associated with steppes further north. The end of the event involves a more sedate recolonisation by trees. From the pollen can be estimated the actual fall in winter temperature, which amounts to a devastating (for agriculture) decrease that was greater on average than 4º C. Interestingly, the German-French-Greek-Australian team ascribe some influence on the cooling to a spread of the Siberian High, a winter build-up of cold air on the steppes to the north of the Carpathians. The magnitude and extent of the Siberian High depends to a large extent on the albedo of the steppes in winter, which depends on snow cover and its persistence. This is a major influence today across much of Western Europe, as cold Siberian air spills from the continental anticyclone. At 8.2 ka it may have forced katabatic winds through Carpathian passes to cause winters that may have devastated the early farmers of northern Greece.

The march of the seismometers

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It used to be a joke in the Geological Surveys of the Soviet Union that they employed so many thousands of geologists that the entire USSR could be mapped in a few years if they all linked hands and walked from east to west. Geophysicists are trying for something similar to map the mantle underlying the USA in 3-D. The USArray involves 400 portable seismometers, currently spread out at 10 km intervals in the western States, is intended to act like a fly’s eye in monitoring arrival times of seismic waves from worldwide earthquakes. The plan is to steadily move the array eastwards until by 2013 it has reached the Atlantic coast. From that data the geophysicist hope vastly to improve the resolution of seismic tomographic images of the deep Earth (see Kerr, R.A. 2009. Scoping out unseen forces shaping North America. Science, v. 325, p. 1620-1621). Yep, they are definitely going for a high ‘Wow factor’ rating. Yet is seems that there are other expletives floating around as the strangely knobbly and discontinuous architecture that is emerging from early data processing refuses to fit many simple hypotheses being tested.

Groundwater depletion measured from orbit

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The NASA and German Aerospace Centre Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) launched in 2002 aims to measure variations over time in the gravity field by gauging tiny changes in distance between two satellites using radar. The only significant changes in the short term are due to movements of water in one form or another. The best-known result from GRACE is its assessment of shrinking ice caps, and it can also detect shifting ocean currents and the drainage of lakes. The GRACE science team has noted a major change in gravity since launch over a nearly 3 million km2 area of NW India centred on Delhi. The only conceivable mechanism is gradual loss of groundwater though irrigation of the Gangetic plains (Rodell, M. et al. 2009. Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in India. Nature, v. 460, p.999-1002). The authors estimate a decline of around 109 km3 of groundwater since 2002 – more than twice the storage capacity of India’s largest reservoir. In places local farmers are reportedly having to sink deeper and deeper wells as the water table sinks by over 6 m each year. The area is one of Asia’s largest producer of food grains and occupied by 600 million people. Most likely there has been a surge in withdrawal for irrigation during poor monsoons in the early 21st century, for pumping rates seem to be 70% greater than they were in the 1990s.

 

Gas hydrates soon to come on stream?

 The looming prospects of petroleum production outside of Arabia passing its peak and flexing of Russian economic power that stems from its control of the largest  untapped natural gas reserves are spurring evaluation of methane production from gas hydrates in onshore frozen peat mires and marine sediments. Gas hydrates are more equitably distributed than are much older petroleum reservoirs: even Japan, which is currently entirely dependent on foreign supplies, has what appear to be huge offshore reserves of gas hydrates. Estimates of the world‘s potential resources are enormous, at around 2 x 1016 m3 (annual US natural gas consumption is ~ 6 x 1011 m3) but in a variety of sands and muds at different concentrations (Boswell, R. 2009. Is gas hydrate energy within reach? Science, v. 325, p. 957-958). Experiments in northern Canada (see Onshore gas hydrate reserves close to recovery in March 2004 issue of EPN) indicates that drilling to induce lower pressure in gas hydrate bearing sediments induces dissociation of the hydrate crystals to release methane while retaining also present within their structure. Injection of CO2 into deposits should displace methane while CO2 enters the crystalline structure: killing two birds, including carbon sequestration, with one stone. The main technical stumbling block is that gas hydrates occur in unconsolidated sediments that may be destabilised during production, resulting in uncontrollable release of the powerful greenhouse gases as well as collapse of surface structures. From an environmental standpoint, all gas hydrates do is sustain reliance on carbon-based fossil fuels and continue emissions of greenhouse gases, though burning methane is a good deal ‘cleaner’ than coal or oil.

Did mantle chemistry change after the late heavy bombardment?

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During the Hadean the Inner Solar System was subject to a high flux of asteroidal debris, culminating in a dramatic increase in the rate of cratering on planetary surfaces between 4.0 and 3.8 Ga known as the late heavy bombardment. It left a subtle mark in tungsten isotopes of the Earth’s continental crust that formed during and shortly after the cataclysm (see Tungsten and Archaean heavy bombardment, August 2002 EPN). It has also been suggested that it enriched the mantle in elements, such as those of the platinum group, that have an affinity for metallic iron, a major constituent of many meteorites. The most likely rocks of the Archaean crust to show hints of such enrichment are ultramafic lavas known as komatiites, though to have formed by high degrees of partial melting of plumes rising from deep in the Archaean mantle. Komatiites from their type locality in South Africa and from the Pilbara area of Western Australia do indeed suggest that there was significant effects (Maier, W. D. et al. 2009. Progressive mixing of meteoritic veneer into the early Earth’s deep mantle. Nature, v. 460, p. 620-623). The Finnish-Australian-Canadian team found that the older komatiites (3.2-3.4 Ga) contain less platinum-group elements (PGE) than do those from the later Archaean and early Proterozoic (2.0-2.9 Ga). This they ascribe to a surface layer of meteoritic debris gradually being mixed into the mantle by convection. In their discussion they suggest that once the Earth’s core formed (almost certainly very soon after the Moon-forming event at 4.45 Ga) it effectively leached all PGE from the lower mantle, and could only have achieved higher concentrations by mixing of later meteoritic debris. Their results suggest that this went on through the Hadean, but reached its acme and then stabilised in the late Archaean once the earlier Archaean alien debris had been churned in.

Fire and tool making

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Native people in Australia have been spoiled for choice of materials from which to make superb stone tools, all kinds of silica rock being available in the bedrock and the widespread tropical soils, including multicoloured chalcedony and even opal. Their master craftsmen developed a form of heat treatment that subtly modifies silica’s internal structure so that gentle application of pressure to the edges of lumps removes small flakes to give intricate sharp edges, including barbs for fishing spears. This pyrotechnology leaves easily recognised signs in stone tools: colour changes and a pearly lustre.

A large team of archaeologists and geoscientists from South Africa, Australia, the UK and France have sifted through tools collected from the 35 to 280 ka African Middle Stone Age (defined differently from the European Mesolithic) in search of evidence for fire treatment (Brown, K.S. and 8 others 2009. Fire as an engineering tool of early modern humans. Science, v. 325, p. 859-862). Like signs of symbolic behaviour (see Technology, culture and migration in the Middle Palaeolithic of southern Africa and Deeper roots of culture in January and March 2009 issues of EPN) fire-worked silica tools appear as early as 164 ka ago. However, this is the first paper that reports a search for such technology, and since fire was definitely used by even earlier humans, such as Homo antecessor around 790 ka (see Early, microscopic evidence for human control of fire in November 2008 issue of EPN) expect earlier finds to be announced.

See also: Webb, J. and Domansski, M. 2009. Fire and stone. Science, v. 325, p. 820-821

Neanderthals few on the ground

Analysis of DNA from Neanderthal bones is gathering pace as cheaper and more reliable methods for sequencing emerge. The latest breakthrough is by a team working in Svante Pääbo’s lab at the Max-Planck Instuitute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, which has defined full mitochondrial DNA sequences for five individuals (Briggs, A.W. and 17 others 2009. Targeted retrieval and analysis of five Neandertal mtDN genomes. Science, v. 325, p. 318-321). The samples are from almost the full geographic range known for Neanderthals, from Spain in the west to the eastern shore of the Black Sea in Russia, and are from 38 to 70 ka old; i.e. probably pre-dating the main influx of fully modern humans into Europe. The results show that the range of genetic diversity in the female line was only one third that found in humans today. That suggests that, compared with the modern human diaspora from Africa, total numbers of Neanderthals was low over the period analysed, and perhaps since their first colonisation of Europe and the Eurasian steppes around 400 ka.

See also: Wong, K. 2009. Twilight of the Neandertals. Scientific American, v. 301 (August 2009), p34-39.

Klondike gold rush pays dividends for Pleistocene

The 1896 discovery of gold in the Yukon Territory, Canada triggered the Klondike gold rush, which led to environmental wreckage that continues to this day. The placer deposits are in permanently frozen, but fragile alluvial sediments dating back as far as 700 ka. But as well as gold washed in by the Yukon’s rivers, the permafrost contains exceptionally well preserved records of the area’s late Pleistocene flora and fauna. The reason why that was possible at such high latitude (65ºN) through 6 or 7 glacial interglacial cycles is that it remained free of ice sheets for most of the Pleistocene. Fossils finds in the placer deposits therefore document the conditions on the western edge of the Bering Straits land bridge, or Beringia, which emerged each time that sea level fell during glacial maxima (Froese, D.G. et al. 2009. The Klondike goldfields and Pleistocene environments of Beringia. GSA Today, v. 19 (August 2009), p. 4-10). Beringia was the route presented to the earliest Asian human migrants into the Americas, possibly even before the Last Glacial Maximum 22 ka ago. Much of the evidence comes from wind-blown loess deposits that are prone to permafrost development. Also, being close to a number of active volcanoes the area was sporadically blanketed by ash deposits that are dateable by radiometric means, so a stratigraphy is possible even in the irregular and ice-disturbed sediments. During glacial episodes the area was steppe dominated by herds of bison, mammoths and horses; clearly a hunters paradise, despite the harsh conditions.

Nuclear test-ban monitoring promises a bonanza for seismic tomography

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The world-wide network of seismic recording stations was originally set up partly to improve detection of underground nuclear weapons tests. It is the source for the mapping of variations in seismic-wave speeds in the mantle by seismic tomography that is revolutionising ideas about the Earth’s internal dynamics. Nowadays nuclear explosions have been miniaturised so that detecting them and their locations and distinguishing them from small natural earthquakes has become difficult. The growing concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation have spurred an upgrade and expansion of seismic monitoring, and other means of verifying that seismic signals have indeed been produced by underground nuclear explosions, such as sensitive analysis of air sample for isotopes leaking from tests (Clery, D. 2009. Test ban monitoring: no place to hide. Science, v. 325, p. 382-385). If this enhanced source of seismic data is routinely made available to tomography researchers, it should boost resolution of seismic speed anomalies and sharpen up ideas about deep tectonics.

Supershear earthquakes

In an analogous fashion to the sonic booms made by aircraft travelling faster than sound, it seems possible that the rupture of a fault may travel faster than the seismic waves that it generates. Evidence is accumulating that such faults produce the equivalent of a sonic boom (Fisher, R. 2009. Seismic boom. New Scientist, v. 203 (1 August 2009), p. 32-35) despite mathematical suggestions that faults cannot propagate so fast. Experiments show that there is a seismic equivalent of the Mach fronts associated with sonic booms, and they amplify the shock of earthquakes that produce them. High amplitude at the Mach front causes it to travel further away from a fault line than normal seismic surface waves – those that cause most damage, and it also gives rise to ground motions different from those normally linked with earthquakes: more like a hammer blow than shaking. The net conclusion is that these ‘supershear’ earthquakes may pose hazards beyond those involved in risk assessment near active fault zones. Field evidence for supershear events are signs of disturbance by recent earthquakes that are further from an active fault zone than existing theory predicts. So far such evidence has only turned up along active strike-slip faults on continents, such as the Kun Lun Fault in Tibet and the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey. Yet, these form the longest seismically active zones, including the infamous San Andreas Fault in California.