Documenting and Describing the Transcultural

Qualitative methodological approaches have become increasingly important for theological research, as lived theology and ecclesiological practices are recognized as being a relevant part of the theological information ecosystem. These new approaches require attention to how field research in theology is documented and described. Evan Kuehn (North Park) will discuss the transculturality of theological research and the relevance of qualitative approaches to theological librarianship. Hadje Sadje (Leuven) will share about his research on the political theology latent in the practices of Oneness Pentecostal congregations in the Philippines and the role that documentation and description play in this research. Matthew Ryan Robinson (Bonn) will discuss the nature of non-textual theological artifacts by focusing on two case studies—a painting from Ethiopia and a devotional cross from the Philippines—as objects that present challenges and opportunities for extracting, coding, and analysis.

Genome Sequence of Vibrio cholerae Strain RFB16, Isolated from North Park Lake in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Vibrio cholerae is an aquatic organism and facultative human pathogen that typically resides in coastal areas and brackish water. Here, we report the complete genome sequence of V. cholerae strain RFB16, which was isolated from a freshwater lake in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Rates of Ovulation and Reproductive Success Estimated from Hunter-Harvested Greater Sage-Grouse in Colorado

Numerous studies provide estimates of nesting propensity rates (proportion of females attempting to nest at least once in a given year) for greater sage-grouse Centrocercus urophasianus. However, females may initiate nests without being detected during the course of normal research, leading to negatively biased estimates. We evaluated nesting propensity rates (rate of females laying ≥1 egg/y) by examining ovaries from 941 female sage-grouse collected at hunter-check stations in North Park, Colorado, during 1975–1984. Mean rate estimates of nesting propensity were lower for yearlings (0.926, 95% CI = 0.895–0.948) than adults (0.964, 95% CI = 0.945–0.978). We did not attempt to estimate laying rates (number of eggs laid per year) because they were likely unreliable. Nesting success—estimated as the probability of females producing a successful clutch in a given year based on primary feather replacement from hunter-harvested wings—was lower for yearlings (0.398, 95% CI = 0.370–0.427) than adults (0.571, 95% CI = 0.546–0.596). There were more chicks per female produced when nesting propensity rates were high, indicating nesting propensity rates correlate with the number of juveniles in the autumn population. Both nesting propensity rates and nesting success were positively related to precipitation during the lekking and brood-rearing seasons, respectively. Nesting propensity rates were positively related to spring abundance (as measured from annual lek counts), but nesting success was unrelated to spring abundance. A range-wide estimate of an unadjusted, apparent nesting propensity rate available from a previous study was approximately 7% lower than the North Park population. Postovulatory follicles provide a direct source of information on nesting propensity rates estimated from hunter-harvested sage-grouse. These estimated rates may prove useful to gain insights into annual variation of hunted populations' reproductive efforts.

Social being and cultural practices

Human societies are held together by relationships, conventions, traditions, institutions, and tacit understandings. These things are intangible, and while humans themselves are reproduced as corporeal beings, their societies are sustained by practical activities that continually recreate knowledge, customs, and interpersonal bonds. Just as a language would ultimately disappear if it ceased to be used as a means of communication, so the rules and routines of social life are maintained only if they are practised. The corollary of this is that societies are not fixed and bounded entities as much as arrangements that are continually coming into existence, works (if you like) that are never completed. But material things are also in flux, constantly ripening, maturing, being made, being used consecutively in different ways through their ‘lifespans’, eroding and decaying: so that the social and substantial worlds are as one in being in an unending state of becoming. Nonetheless, objects often have the capacity to endure longer than habits, rules, or affiliations. They continue to exist independently of human beings and their actions. As a result, old artefacts and places occupied in the past can serve to give structure to current practices and transactions, providing cues and prompts, or reminding us of past events and appropriate modes of conduct. Hunter-gatherers have generally lived a way of life that involves making continual reference to natural features and landmarks. Certain distinctive cliffs, hills, islands, trees, and lakes have represented places to return to, or at which to arrange meetings or encounter game. As such they will have been places of periodic resort, and were incorporated into collective history and mythology. Meanwhile, other places acquired a meaning simply because specific people camped there, or met there, or died there. During the Mesolithic in Britain, some locations seem to have been persistently returned to over very long periods of time. One example is the site at North Park Farm, Bletchingley in Surrey, which appears to have been visited sporadically over hundreds of years, although the structural evidence for this at the site was sparse, being limited to a group of fireplaces.

Field guide to Laramide basin evolution and drilling activity in North Park and Middle Park, Colorado

This two-day field trip provides an overview of the geologic history of the North Park–Middle Park area and its past and recent drilling activity. Stops highlight basin formation and the consequences of geologic configuration on oil and gas plays and development. The trip focuses on work from ongoing U.S. Geological Survey research in this area (currently part of the Cenozoic Landscape Evolution of the Southern Rocky Mountains Project funded by the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program). Surface mapping is integrated with perspective from petroleum exploration within the basin. The starting point is the west flank of the Denver Basin to compare and contrast the latest Cretaceous through Eocene basin fill on both flanks of the Front Range. The next stop continues on the south end of the North Park–Middle Park area, about 60 miles [95km] west from the first stop. A general clockwise loop is described by following U.S. Highway 40 from Frasier via Granby and Kremmling to Muddy Pass after which CO Highway 14 is followed to Walden for an overnight stay. On the second day after a loop north of Walden, the Continental Divide is crossed at Willow Creek Pass for a return to Granby via Highway 125. The single structural basin that underlies both physiographic depressions of North Park and Middle Park originated during the latest Cretaceous to Eocene Laramide orogeny (Tweto, 1957, 1975; Dickinson et al., 1988). It largely filled with Paleocene to Eocene sediments and is bordered on the east by the Front Range, on the west by the Park Range and Gore Range, on the north by Independence Mountain and to the south by the Williams Fork and Vasquez Mountains (Figure 1). This larger Paleocene-Eocene structural basin is continuous underneath the Continental Divide, which dissects the basin in two approximately equal physiographic depressions, the ‘Parks.’ Therefore Cole et al. (2010) proposed the name ‘Colorado Headwaters Basin’ or ‘CHB,’ rather than North Park–Middle Park basin (Tweto 1957), to eliminate any confusion between the underlying larger Paleocene-Eocene basin and the two younger depressions that developed after the middle Oligocene. The name was derived from the headwaters of the Colorado, North Platte, Laramie, Cache La Poudre, and Big Thompson Rivers which are all within or near the study area. In this field guide, we will use the name Colorado Headwaters Basin (CHB) over North Park–Middle Park basin. Several workers have described the geology in the basin starting with reports from Marvine who was part of the Hayden Survey and wrote about Middle Park in 1874, Hague and Emmons reported on North Park as part of the King Survey in 1877, Cross on Middle Park (1892), and Beekly surveyed the coal resources of North Park in 1915. Further reconnaissance geologic mapping was performed by Hail (1965 and 1968) and Kinney (1970) in the North Park area and by Izett (1968, 1975), and Izett and Barclay (1973) in Middle Park. Most research has focused on coal resources (Madden, 1977; Stands, 1992; Roberts and Rossi, 1999), and oil and gas potential (1957, all papers in the RMAG guidebook to North Park; subsurface structural geologic analysis of both Middle Park and North Park (the CHB) by oil and gas geologist Wellborn (1977a)). A more comprehensive overview of all previous geologic research in the basin can be found in Cole et al. (2010). Oil and gas exploration started in 1925 when Continental Oil's Sherman A-1 was drilled in the McCallum field in the northeast part of the CHB. It produced mostly CO2 from the Dakota Sandstone and was dubbed the ‘Snow cone’ well. Later wells were more successful finding oil and/or gas, and exploration and production in the area is ongoing, most notably in the unconventional Niobrara play in the Coalmont-Hebron area.