A terrestrial temperature peak in the first millennia after the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary

<p>The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary marks one of the five major mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic. A bolide impact and flood basalt volcanism compete as triggers for the extinction, but their relative roles remain contentious. This is in part related to a paucity of robust measurements of temperature change at millennial time scales across the K-Pg boundary. Using the distribution of branched tetraether lipids in samples collected from coals (fossil peats), we present the initial findings of an ongoing study attempting to reconstruct temperatures across North America in the latest Cretaceous to earliest Paleogene. The glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (brGDGTs) palaeotemperature proxy – which has been successfully applied to temperature reconstructions in the Pleistocene and Holocene – is being applied to a succession of fossil peats (lignites) that span the K-Pg boundary at ten sites from Colorado in the south to the North West Territories in the north. The Iridium anomaly that is synonymous with bolide impact at the K-Pg boundary can be used as a datum to correlate the coals. Data derived from coals deposited at a latitude of ~55 °N in Saskatchewan (Canada), are interpreted to reveal millennial-scale records of terrestrial mean annual air temperature (MAAT) for an interval spanning the latest Maastrichtian and earliest Paleogene. The MAAT record peaks at 28 °C ~1 ka (+ 4 ka/- 0.3 ka) after the K-Pg boundary, and subsequently recovers to pre-event values in the subsequent ~ 5 ka (+30 ka/-2 ka). Our unique record is consistent with an abrupt increase in atmospheric CO2 that has been widely documented at this time. </p>

Tenets of Community-Engaged Scholarship Applied to Delta Ways Remembered

This essay reviews challenges posed to community-engaged scholars regarding tenure/promotion processes in Canadian universities, with a note to characteristics of community-engaged scholarship that were developed by Catherine Jordan (2007) to address gaps in academic assessment of engaged scholarship. These characteristics are: clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods: scientific rigor and community engagement, significant results/impact, effective presentation/dissemination, reflective critique, leadership and personal contribution, and consistently ethical behavior. These are then applied to a non-peer reviewed work that describes the cumulative effects of environmental change for people in the Slave River Delta Region of the North West Territories, Canada. The reader is asked to view Delta Ways Remembered, a 13-minute video employing an enhanced e-storytelling technique to share and disseminate traditional knowledge about the delta from a compendium of people as a single-voiced narrative. The purpose is to highlight the scholarship underlying non-traditional academic expositions not readily assessed under current paradigms of academic evaluation. This essay strives to illustrate how Jordan’s characteristics can be applied to evaluate non-peer reviewed scholarly work, and also to share rewards and challenges associated with the harmonious blending of Indigenous and western knowledge addressing societal/environmental issues identified by the Indigenous community.

The National Question as Covered in “Lithuanian Diocesan Bulletin” in 1860 – 1890 Years*

In 1893 polemics unfolded on the pages of “Russkoe Obozrenie” (“Russian Review”) conservative journal related to the problem of russification of the North-West territories of the Russian Empire. Committed to clerical traditionalism, Father Joseph (Fudel) condemned the politics of administrative russification of the region, comparing the priests of “militant” type to Father John of Kronstadt. Meanwhile, when one refers to the history of “russification” of the Western territory of in the 1860s, it becomes obvious that the process didn’t have exclusively the bureaucratic nature. The “Vilno Consensus” was part of the post-reform social upsurge, and the clergy could not stay away from it. The complexity of church-public issues in the region was reflected on the pages of regional periodicals, including church ones. Founded in Vilno in 1863, the “Litovskie Eparchialniye Vedomosti” bulletin in the early years strictly adhered to the “system” of M.N. Muraviev and fully complied with the nationalist discourse of the time. Still later they published materials condemning the “extremes” of Vilno “russification group”. In the early 1880s the national pathos of the bulletin intensified - and acquired bureaucratic nuances.

Multiyear variability of ecological-hygienic condition of the land: metals in soils of surroundings of the Astrakhan gas complex

There are presented the results of a 21-year-old (1991-2012) monitoring of Hg concentrations and amounts of metals, including heavy and toxic, Zc(MnCrVNiCoCuAgZnPbSnMo) in soils of the zone of the exposure to emissions from Astrakhan gas complex (AGK), working from 1987 within a radius of 50 km. On those criteria for the period over 1997-2012 there was revealed a steady deterioration of ecological-hygienic conditions of the lands in the control zone. The spatial variability of this condition is largely controlled by the dispersion of the emissions by the prevailing easterly and southeasterly winds. The content of Hg in 2007, remote from AGK by 15 km, increased by 6-8 times on the leeward north-west territories, where the accumulation of the toxicant was 2.5 times more pronounced than in the windward Eastern and North-Eastern side. The significant role in the deterioration of sanitary-ecological state of the territory of the sanitary protection zone when dealing with Hg-containing (70-100 mkg/kg) commodity grey belongs to reblowing of particles and their eolian spread from places of storage, loading and transportation. In separate halos the content of Hg in the soil has reached 285 mkg/kg and become closer to the "target" safe level (300 mkg/ kg), adopted in Western Europe (zone AGK-30 km). The total amount of metals as in the near (up to 5 km of sanitary protection), so far (5-50 km) zones as in background sites has increased steadily. By 2012 in some places, remoted up to 30 km from AGK there were fixed already hygienically dangerous levels of total metals accumulation (up to Zc =34)

The Numbered Treaties: Similar Means to Dichotomous Ends

This essay reflects the recent trend among historians to assign an active role to both the Indians of the North-West Territories and the government during the Numbered Treaty process. The aboriginal peoples and the Canadian government entered the Treaty negotiations hoping to achieve dichotomous ends. Concerned over white settlement and diminishing buffalo herds, the Indians sought to use the concessions granted them under the Treaties to ensure their cultural survival. The government, on the other hand, considered the Numbered Treaties a means of achieving the goal of their Indian policy, namely bringing about the assimilation of the Indian into Euro-Canadian society.