Understanding the exposure of business characteristics like its location, sector, size, age, and owner demographics and structure to building damages from an earthquake can inform business continuity planning and broader community and regional programs and policies for business recovery. A baseline analysis was performed for the HayWired scenario (Wein, Haveman and others, 2019) using business characteristic data from the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) which showed that location and sector are strong differentiators of disruptive building damage risk, while minority ownership, branch ownership structure, and low revenue are other above average differentiators. The HayWired analysis was limited by damage information at the census tract scale for occupancy classes (per the Federal Emergency Management Agency Hazus software). In this study, we expand the analysis to multiple earthquake scenarios and apply machine learning techniques to generate building level assessments instead of census tract level. Association of business characteristics with building damages by location increases the analysis resolution providing more nuanced understanding and analyzing across multiple scenarios shows the variability of business characteristic exposure to different earthquakes for the region and across communities. Anne Wein, Jon Haveman, Cynthia Kroll, Jeff Peters. 2019. Characteristics of Businesses disrupted by Building Damages from the HayWired Scenario Mainshock, in press.

The Matthew and Hunter (M&H) area, in the South-West Pacific, was formerly interpreted as a transform boundary at the southern termination of the New Hebrides Subduction Zone. But new data collected during three voyages of RV Southern Surveyor (2004-2009), combined with detailed analysis of seismicity and GPS kinematics, shows it is a distinct subduction zone initiated only 2 Ma ago. In fact, M&H is the youngest known volcanically-active intra-oceanic subduction system. We demonstrate that the M&H subduction zone is a modern example of an immature subduction system at the particular stage of pre-arc, near-trench magmatism. It is not yet forming an arc but the proto-forearc. Indeed volcanism occurs much closer to the trench than volcanism at mature subduction zones. Also M&H hosts an exceptionally diverse range of magma compositions, which erupted contemporaneously and are spatially juxtaposed. Pb isotopic compositions and contents of LILE and REE indicate melting of upwelling asthenospheric mantle (Indian MORB) and subducted oceanic crust (Pacific MORB of the South Fiji Basin) and the mixing of these two components. It is worth noting that the present day proto-forearc of the M&H subduction zone corresponds to an area where highly contrasting terranes are juxtaposed: remnants of the old Vitiaz Arc crust, domains of classical backarc basin type oceanic accretion, and what we call Subduction Initiation Terranes (SITER). Such live observations of a growing forearc are rare. They should give insights into the study of fossil forearcs such as SSZ ophiolites but also the IBM forearc.

Volcanic aerosol forcing has been reported in the literature to be less effective in changing the earth’s surface temperature than CO2 forcing. This implies a different feedback strength, and therefore different contributions from individual feedback mechanisms. We employ the CMIP6 version of MPI-ESM to understand the reasons for these apparent differences in the ability to change the surface air temperature. Using a highly idealized eruption scenario and comparing it to a doubling and a halving of CO2 concentration, we identify key reasons for changes in the magnitude of the feedback parameter. We show that the “efficacy” [Hansen et al. 2005] of volcanic aerosol forcing depends strongly on the method and the time scale used to calculate it. We argue that the seemingly established result of a lower-than-unity efficacy of volcanic aerosol forcing might only hold under the specific methodological choices other authors have made, but not in general. Furthermore, we find qualitative differences between the cooling and warming simulations, but strong similarities between the 0.5xCO2 and the idealized eruption cases. This hints towards processes, which are not forcing agent-specific, but specific to the sign of the forcing. A pronounced curvature in the N(T) plot (“Gregory plot”) for the cooling scenarios makes the computation of feedback through regression even more sensitive to subjective choices than in the 2xCO2 case. We disentangle the role of ocean heat uptake efficacy and atmospheric feedback processes in the framework of the pattern effect.

Human activities are driving environmental and climatic changes, affecting the distribution and diversity of species worldwide. Limiting the negative impacts of these activities on wildlife requirestimely knowledge of status and trends in populations over large scales. Camera trapping providesopportunities to simultaneously collect information on several species over large spatio-temporalscales. However, the time required to process large collections of images, the statistical andprogrammatic skills needed to analyze large sets of data, and a general lack of homogeneity in metadata standards hinder the use of camera trapping for local and global conservation. WildlifeInsights (http://wildlifeinsights.org/; WI) is a web platform that promotes and supports the use andsharing of camera-trap data for species conservation and promotes the mobilization of records thatotherwise might be permanently siloed in private data-storage units or lost over time. WI speeds upthe processing of images via an AI model trained to classify >700 species, and automates commonstatistical analysis through a standardized, accessible user interface. It also provides tools to addresscommon issues faced by camera trappers, such as the need of hiding locations of sensitive speciesand removing images of humans, and has a transparent infrastructure to request, share and citedatasets. Although only recently open to the public, the platform already hosts tens of millionsrecords, most of which publicly accessible, from more than 50 countries and 1000 species. Using datashared in WI, we assessed whether information collected using camera traps improved the spatial,temporal, taxonomical, and ecological coverage of many species compared to records available inmore traditional open-access repositories such as GBIF. Birds and mammals, and countries with ahigh proportion of remote areas and biodiversity had the largest increases in coverage. Compared toother traditional methods, camera traps also provided fi ner-resolution temporal information, oftenreplicated over time. Our results showed the importance of sharing camera-trap data for conservationand highlights WI’s role as an invaluable resource to timely inform biodiversity conservation in achanging world

Continental rifting is a critical component of the plate tectonic paradigm, and occurs in more than one mode, phase, or stage. While rifting is typically facilitated by abundant magmatism, some rifting is not. We aim to develop a better understanding of the fundamental processes associated with magma-poor (dry) rifting. Here, we provide an overview of the NSF-funded Dry Rifting In the Albertine-Rhino graben (DRIAR) project, Uganda. The project goal is to apply geophysical, geological, geochemical, and geodynamic techniques to investigate the Northern Western Branch of the East African Rift System in Uganda. We test three hypotheses: (1) in magma-rich rifts, strain is accommodated through lithospheric weakening from melt, (2) in magma-poor rifts, melt is present below the surface and weakens the lithosphere such that strain is accommodated during upper crustal extension, and (3) in magma-poor rifts, there is no melt at depth and strain is accommodated along pre-existing structures such as inherited compositional, structural, and rheological lithospheric heterogeneities. Observational methods in this project include: passive seismic to constrain lithospheric structure and asthenospheric flow patterns; gravity to constrain variations in crustal and lithospheric thickness; magnetics to constrain the thermal structure of the upper crust; magnetotellurics to constrain lithospheric thickness and the presence of melt; GNSS to constrain surface motions, extension rates, and help characterize mantle flow; geologic mapping to document the geometry and kinematics of active faults; seismic reflection analyses of intra-rift faults to document temporal strain migration; geochemistry to identify and quantify mantle-derived fluids in hot springs and soil gases; and geodynamic modeling to develop new models of magma-poor rifting processes. Fieldwork will begin in January 2022 and the first DRIAR field school is planned for summer 2022. Geodynamic modeling work and morphometric analyses are already underway.

Science is undergoing very rapid changes due to the larger number of people having the opportunity to do science and also with the development of new and revolutionary techniques (e.g. machine learning). The new concepts discovered to end up not gaining the deserved prominence and are quickly discarded. We live in a world where great discoveries have already been made and small new ideas need to be cultivated and developed to rise to their deserved significance. An interesting image can be a start point to attract scientists to know more about some subject, but they are considered a time-consuming effort and difficult to be done. The worries with the creation of the images are not limited to beauty, but accurate drawing is fundamental to science. Illustrated scientific posters made by dedicated design are attractive but are often connected to companies and associated with the sale of a product. Although the idea presented in simple posters can lead to the imagination of new structures or relationships, one image of this idea could more easily explain the concept and attract people, encouraging a scientific debate. A list of commercial programs can be cited as Linkscape, Adobe packages (CorelDRAW, illustrator, etc.), Microsoft packages (Paint, PowerPoint, etc.) or even Matlab functions and this work will present images produced for a better understanding of ionospheric sciences. It is common knowledge that human memory is mostly visual. The digital images can not only be used in paper posters but also in digital posters, projections, websites, etc. The idea is to motivate ionospheric scientists to draw their discoveries. The images, and the scientific work itself, begin in a simple way and gain complexity with the advancement of the scientific discoveries and could be used for the author as a personal way to instigate a continuation of the study. Complex systems studies like the ionospheric sciences are often composed of multidisciplinary groups and are important to quickly explain the meaning of some concept. To investigate the perception of the scientist about the importance of images in explaining scientific concepts a questionnaire was done to collect information about the importance of scientific images in different fields of investigation.

To a first order, the Caribbean plate converges obliquely at ~2 cm/yr toward the North American plate. This transpression is partly accommodated across the island of Hispaniola by the partitioning of motion between a fold-and-thrust belt trending NW-SE, and two E-W left-lateral fault systems located 150 km apart. The southern fault, the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault (EPGF), is morphologically well expressed in western Haiti but its precise geometry in eastern Haiti is debatable. There, Lake Azuei stretches over 20 km in a direction parallel to the fold-and-thrust belt while its southern shoreline strikes EW, parallel to the expected trend of the EPGF. Because of a high sedimentation rate, the history of transpressional deformation should be captured in the lake stratigraphy and, accordingly, we acquired 220 km of multichannel seismic reflection (MCS) profiles across its surface. The survey followed a grid pattern with a spacing of 1.2 km and achieved a penetration of up to 300 m beneath lakebed. Interpretation of the dataset documents two major structures. First, the western side of the lake is occupied by a broad NW-trending monoclinal fold. This fold is cross-cut by a few NW-striking vertical (strike-slip) faults. We propose that this monocline is the surface expression of a SW-dipping blind thrust fault. The progressive steepening of the seismic horizons with depth suggests that it has been continuously active during the deposition of at least 300 m of sediments. The other major structure consists of a ~2 km-wide deformation zone that borders the EW-trending southern shore. This deformation zone is faintly imaged below a shallow gas front. We tentatively propose that it corresponds to a set of fault-propagation folds that are developing ahead of an EW, S-dipping oblique-slip fault. Such a model has been proposed already from three other independent studies involving GPS monitoring, seismological monitoring, and detailed field mapping. It is also supported by CHIRP profiles acquired concurrently with our MCS data and that document folding of the topmost turbidites but a lack of evidence for any stratigraphic offset across faults. Furthermore, a set of en echelon folds in that area are trending EW, while WNW-ESE fold axes would be expected instead above an EW vertical strike-slip fault.

The winter Arctic Oscillation (AO) is important for understanding the Northern Hemisphere climate variability and predictability. However, ENSEMBLES models produce inconsistent predictions when applied to the interannual variability of the 1962–2006 winter AO. In this study, the interannual increment of the winter AO index (DY_AOI) during 1962–2006 is first improved by a dynamical‐statistical model with two predictors: the preceding autumn Arctic sea ice and the concurrent winter ENSEMBLES‐predicted sea surface temperature over the North Pacific. Next, the improved final AOI is obtained by adding the improved DY_AOI to the preceding observed AOI. Because the interannual increment approach can amplify prediction signals and takes advantage from the previous observed AOI, this method shows promise for significantly improving the interannual variability prediction capabilities of the winter AO during 1962–2006 in the ENSEMBLES models. Therefore, this study offers important insights for AO predictions, even other climate variables predictions.

Recent studies have documented that the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) has impacts in extreme dry/wet conditions over tropical regions and in atmospheric state. They are based, however, in correlation analysis, and therefore do not consider non-linear interactions nor they establish cause-effect relationships.In this study we introduce a generalization of the non-linear Granger causality (GC) test to identify causal relations between MJO and hydrological extremes. The method is able to identify causal relations under noisy, nonlinear and non-stationary scenarios. A probabilistic extension is also introduced where the causal test operates directly on the marginal likelihood (also called evidence) of the observations, which is analytic. We apply our proposed method to MJO and satellite-based soil moisture (SM) data, and revisit the global teleconnection patterns induced by MJO events. Since El Ni\~no Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a modulating factor that can result in abnormal SM global distributions, we also include it in the analysis as a potential driver of SM variability. Including ENSO allows us to differentiate the effect of the MJO and ENSO on the global SM anomalies and to learn the causal graph of their cause-effect relationships, and also the mutual relation between MJO and ENSO extreme events.

Lipids are key targets for current, proposed, and future life detection missions to both rocky and icy worlds. With the high accuracy and low limit of detection (LoD) required by many new and future instruments (sub ~ppb range), decontamination of life detection hardware, particularly components that handle or process planetary samples in situ, is necessary to prevent false positives. Lipids are a biosignature of interest as they are ubiquitous to all life as we know it, can survive in the geologic record for an order of magnitude longer than any other biomolecule (i.e. billions of years), and are able to form through both biotic and abiotic processes. Traditional NASA contamination control (CC) for life detection instruments primarily focuses on hardware fabrication in sterile cleanroom environments, killing of microbes, and flushing/mechanically removing contaminants off instrument and spacecraft components. However, recent studies suggest that standard cleaning methods are unlikely to sufficiently remove lipid contaminants to meet instrument LoD. These include NASA-approved methods for Planetary Protection (PP) (e.g., dry heat microbial reduction and vapor phase H2O2) and cleanroom decontamination methods (e.g., protective clothing, HEPA air filtration, surface cleaning with detergents/water/isopropyl alcohol, autoclave, ethylene oxide treatment). Effective laboratory standard decontamination methods (ashing at 550° C, chlorinated solvent flushes) are efficient at eliminating lipid contamination, but are often incompatible with sensitive materials required in the construction of life detection instrument components. We will present the results of a study to determine the efficiency of lipid decontamination using a “nontraditional” CC method, Electron Beam Irradiation (EBI), that would be compatible with common major instrument materials used in life detection instrumentation. Percent lipid reduction following EBI application will be compared to percent reduction following treatment with traditional NASA PP methods, using standards from four classes of lipid molecules that are proposed targets of life detection instrumentation.

The California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) is a non-partisan, nonprofit, boundary organization with the mission of bringing science to decisionmakers. We focus on building and strengthening relationships with California’s decisionmakers—who need information to craft fact-based policy—and the scientists and experts who generate knowledge. We connect science and policy through a variety of programs, including 1) rapid-response expert briefings for the California capitol community on emerging issues, such as wildfires or disease outbreaks; 2) peer-reviewed, independent studies commissioned by State entities to provide decisionmakers with comprehensive analyses of the state of science on politically relevant, technically complex topics; and 3) a Science Fellowship program that for the past 10 years has placed PhD scientists and engineers as staff in State legislative offices for a year of public service. We will share specific examples from our programs that highlight best practices for facilitating the transfer of knowledge between scientists and decisionmakers and lessons learned from navigating the barriers that commonly arise when working at the boundary of science and policy.

Observations of radio waves in the Extremely Low Frequency and Very Low Frequency band (ELF/VLF, 0.3-30 kHz) have a host of geophysical uses, including lightning detection and characterization, D-region ionosphere remote sensing, detection of solar flares and geomagnetic storms, gravity waves, gamma-ray burst detection, observations of whistlers, chorus and hiss, to infer wave-particle interactions in the magnetosphere, plasmaspheric state. It’s been looked at for earthquake forecasting and also has commercial uses like submarine communications and subterranean prospecting. For many years ELF/VLF data have been collected at various locations and by various groups around the world for a variety of scientific purposes, but most of this data is not available publicly. We introduce the World Archive of Low-frequency Data and Observations (WALDO), a repository of ELF/VLF data from recordings taken over the past two decades by Stanford University and subsequently by Georgia Tech and University of Colorado Denver. The locations of the recordings are all around the world, including Alaska, Antarctica, Australia, and many low and mid latitude stations. Some sites were more consistent than others but there’s a lot of untapped value in this dataset. Funding for these recordings came from many years of funding from NSF, NASA, DoD, and others, on various basic science projects, and we feel a responsibility to make sure the datasets are now preserved. We are in the process of transferring many 100s of TBs of data and sharing every raw bit for anyone to download and analyze. This includes both “broadband” data that includes the entire spectrum from 500 Hz – 50 kHz, and “narrowband” data corresponding to amplitudes and phases of specific transmitting beacons. We are also including automatically generated summary plots, and a host of basic analysis tools to allow anyone to download and analyze the data. We will announce and present WALDO, update its status and timeline for full deployment, and detail some of the uses of ELF/VLF data, with the goal of enabling its use by anyone interested. We will not be finished by the Fall meeting (ripping 80,000 DVDs can take a while) but whatever we finished will be public and hopefully we will be far along by then. Finally, we will have the answer to the age-old question…”Where’s WALDO?”

The Galapagos microplate formed at 1.4 Ma, initiating Nazca–Galapagos magmatic spreading along its southern and eastern borders. We examine in detail the formation and evolution of the microplate and its effect on the major rift boundaries of the Galapagos triple junction region. We show that the microplate originated by breaks along three pre-existing zones of structural weakness in the Nazca lithosphere: 1) to the south, an active ‘secondary rift’ located ~50 km south of the Pacific-Cocos-Nazca triple junction; 2) to the east, faults associated with the off-axis East Pacific Rise (EPR) abyssal hill fabric, and 3) to the north, the deep normal faults of the southern scarp of the Galapagos gore (the faulted boundary between the Pacific-Nazca and the Cocos-Nazca regimes). The breaks were likely forced by the appearance of a significant magmatic anomaly that crossed the EPR, flooded the ‘secondary rift’ in the south with lavas and shortly thereafter, created two large seamounts (~1500 m and ~1000 m in relief) on the southern boundary. This magmatic anomaly may also be associated with the unusually high elevation of Dietz Volcanic Ridge west of the seamounts, which resembles the rift zones of Axial Seamount on the Juan de Fuca Ridge in height, width and length. Dietz Volcanic Ridge is the present southern boundary of the Galapagos microplate and opens at ~33 mm/yr. It is ~900 m in relief and 7.5-8 km wide at its shallowest section. Rock samples dredged from the shallow section of the ridge in 2018 on the R/V Sally Ride support the idea of a magmatic anomaly in this area. The rocks are transitional MORB that are more enriched than any Cocos-Nazca lavas or the adjacent EPR that were sampled (see Wernette et al. 2019 abstract). The residual mantle Bouguer anomaly indicates thicker crust associated with the two seamounts and the eastern section of Dietz Volcanic Ridge (see Zheng et al. 2019 abstract). We also examine the response of the Cocos-Nazca rift and the EPR to the arrival of the magmatic anomaly and microplate formation. The Galapagos triple junction region is complex, but this complexity provides an opportunity to obtain a better understanding of how plates deform internally near their boundaries, and the relationship between this deformation and upwelling mantle material.

The diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin), the official state reptile of Maryland, is an estuarine turtle found along the eastern and Gulf coasts of the United States. The diamondback terrapin may experience risks due to increasing global temperatures because they display temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). Terrapins, through TSD, produce more female offspring than male offspring if their nest temperatures are relatively warm, leading to ecological issues should global temperatures get too high. This study used temperatures from several individual field, monitored nests, along with air temperatures at the nesting site, recorded in the summer of 2018, to select a predictive model with the R software package rstanarm. The model was then used to predict the average nest temperature in the same nesting site using air temperatures that were recorded during the summer of 2019. This prediction was then compared to temperatures recorded from five nests within the nesting site in 2019 to evaluate its predictive capabilities. A regression spline mixed model (RSMM) was selected for having the lowest leave-one-out information criterion at 50905.95 LOOIC, with a standard error of 0.64 LOOIC. The prediction of average nest temperature developed by the RSMM was given a predictive interval of 95%. We found that the actual temperature of the average nest in 2019 had a prediction coverage of 92.97% from the prediction model, with a root squared mean error of 1.89oC and a predictive mean absolute error of 2.10oC. Benefits of the study involve the ability to predict the future diamondback terrapin nest temperatures within a specific nesting site so long as future air temperatures within that site are known.

International Observe the Moon Night is an annual worldwide public event that encourages observation, appreciation, and understanding of our Moon and its connection to NASA planetary science and exploration. Everyone on Earth is invited to join the celebration by hosting a public or private event or attending an International Observe the Moon event – and uniting on one day each year to look at and learn about the Moon together. October 5, 2019 marks the 10th annual worldwide celebration of the Moon. Since 2010, an estimated 1.4 million people from across the globe have participated in International Observe the Moon Night events at museums/science centers, libraries, planetaria, observatories, K-12 schools, universities, public parks, community centers, private residences and businesses. Event hosts along with their partners help support and achieve global participation in International Observe the Moon Night. Between 2010 and 2018, a total of 5,551 events were registered worldwide. Over the last nine years, International Observe the Moon Night events have taken place in 107 different countries. Results of the evaluation of International Observe the Moon Night shows that the events continue to be successful in raising visitors’ awareness of lunar science and exploration, providing audiences with information about lunar science and exploration – along with access to lunar mission data and science results, inspiring visitors to want to learn more about the Moon, and providing connections to opportunities to do so. Each year, formative evaluation is used to make recommendations to the International Observe the Moon Night coordinating committee to make iterative changes for the next year. Worldwide evaluation data collection has included registration data, host surveys, visitor surveys, and social media data. The evaluation has been revised over the past ten years based on evolving program goals and resources available. Data collection has also included visitor interviews, observations, and alternative data collection strategies. We will discuss the challenges and successes of different evaluation strategies in evaluating the success of this program. Additionally, we will discuss the challenges and lessons learned in evaluating a large science outreach program that spans across so many countries and sites.

The Maldives archipelago acts for over 25 myrs as a giant natural sediment trap in the eastern Arabian Sea. Drifts and periplatform deposits bear the record of environmental changes such as sea-level fluctuations but also of monsoon-driven changes of the surface and intermediate water mass current regime, and of wind-driven dust influx. Carbonate drifts in the Inner Sea indicate the establishment of a strong wind-driven current regime in the Maldives at 12.9 – 13 Ma. Ten unconformities, dissecting the Miocene to Recent drift sequences, attest to changes in current strength or direction. A major shift in the drift packages is dated at 3.8 Ma that coincides with the end of stepwise platform drowning and a reduction of the OMZ in the Inner Sea. The lithogenic fraction of the Maldives carbonate drifts provides a unique record of atmospheric dust transport during the past 4 myrs as grain size provides proxies for dust flux as well as wind transport capacity. Entrainment and long-range transport of dust in the medium to coarse silt size range is linked to the strength of the Arabian Shamal winds and the occurrence of convective storms which prolong dust transport. Dust flux and the size of dust particles increased between 4.0 and 3.3 Ma, corresponding to the closure of the Indonesian seaway and the intensification of the South Asian Monsoon. Between 1.6 Ma and the Recent, dust flux again increased and shows higher variability, especially during the last 500 kyr. Transport capacity increased between 1.2 and 0.5 Ma but slightly decreased since then. Dust transport varies on orbital timescales, with eccentricity control being the most prominent (400 kyr throughout the record, 100 kyr between 2.0 and 1.3 Ma, and since 1.0 Ma). Higher frequency cycles (obliquity and precession) are most pronounced in wind transport capacity. The published and ongoing studies of IODP Expedition 359 cores show that deposits surrounding carbonate platforms, i.e. carbonate drifts, bear a previously underestimated potential to add substantial knowledge for the understanding of the monsoon evolution on million-year, but also on shorter time scales. Potential targets for further research and drilling are for example the Laccadives, the Mascarene Plateau or the South China Sea platforms.

The earliest human migration from Sunda (South-East Asian archipelago) to Sahul (Australia and New Guinea) is still heavily debated with proposed timings between c.65-45kaBP depending on the evidence base and interpretation of the data. As part of the EU funded ACROSS project, focused on the mode and route of early migration in to SAHUL, we are undertaking an integrated interpretative study of the evolving submerged landscapes for the Late Pleistocene of the NW Australian Shelf. Oil and gas industry 3D and 2D seismic data, with some core/borehole data, are being used to determine lowstand palaeo-environments and shoreline positions. This information is informing modelling of ocean tide and current patterns that may have been influenced. The seismic is being interpreted supplemented by using time-slices on relative impedance inverted post-stack data. Layer stripping, seismic geomorphology, sequence boundary and depth analysis are being applied to datasets in the Bonaparte Basin, Kimberley Shelf and Arafura regions of Australia’s North-West Shelf area. Interpretation of the seismic data is constrained by dated stratigraphy in shallow cores with lower bounds determined from oil/gas well bores. MIS stages 1-4 are identified, however, the seismic response is a composite of time periods due to varying sedimentation rates, non-depositional hiatuses and minimal vertical seismic travel time covering this interval which limits the analysis to the top 50ms TWT (c. 40-45 m) of events below the seabed. This paper reviews the workflows that have been developed to maximise the fine scale detail that can be recovered for a range of terrestrial and marine environments. Procedures include inverse-Q, impedance inversion, spectral decomposition and time-slicing relative to seabed. High resolution 2D seismic data is also being used to augment and inform the interpretation of the conventional oil/gas 3D seismic data. Data examples will be presented showing the geomorphological characteristics (river channels, avulsions, levees, drainage channels, dunes and near shore carbonate reefs) of the lowstand and transgressive landscapes during this period. The palaeo-reconstructions are now being developed from the interpreted seismic geomorphology for the specific consideration of human seaborne travel.

The development of semi-distributed hydrological models that reflect the dominant processes controlling streamflow spatial variability is a challenging task. In small, well-instrumented headwater catchments the model can be built taking advantage of knowledge derived from extensive fieldwork activities; that is, however, not possible in much larger catchments where, usually, these models are actually needed. To address this problem, we propose a new methodology where we analyze the correlations between hydrological signatures, catchments characteristics, and climatic indices to get insights about the hydrological functioning of the catchment and to guide the decisions involved in the development of a semi-distributed model. The methodology is tested in the Thur catchment (Switzerland, 1702 km2); in a first stage we show how to identify catchment characteristics and climatic indices that control streamflow variability; in a second stage, we use these findings to develop a set of model experiments aimed at determining an appropriate model representation for the catchment. Results show that only models that account for the influencing factors indicated by the correlation analysis are able to represent correctly the observed streamflow signatures, confirming our understanding of the processes happening in the catchment.