Neoliberalism and the Institutions for Regional Development in Australia

This paper examines some effects of the pursuit of neoliberalism on regional development policy and practice in Australia, and in particular on the activities and effectiveness of regional development organisations. The paper interprets data from a survey of 505 regional development organisations across Australia through the framework of Jessop's contribution to state theory and his identification of four key trends in economic management under neoliberalism. Regional development policies are seen as a response of governments to electoral pressure from regions, but a response that is constrained by the dominance of neoliberal ideology. The objectives of regional development are predominantly economic, but are often limited to the role of facilitation and the provision of information. Some responsibility for regional development has been shifted downwards to regions, but the effectiveness of the organisations given this responsibility is reduced by the short‐term and competitive nature of much of their funding, the lack of coordination between regional development actors at the local level, the proliferation of agencies and the competition between them. The paper concludes that regional development agencies in Australia are in many ways a product of neoliberalism, since they represent one way in which governments can be seen to be responding to regional pressure for assistance but they can do so without incurring significant costs. Yet regional development bodies are also a victim of neoliberalist thinking, since it denies them the resources and the powers they need to be more successful in their work.     

The Effects of Climate and Socio‐Demographics on Direct Household Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Australia

Household CO₂ emissions are a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and consequently climate warming. Despite this, there has been little consideration of how household CO₂ emissions may be affected by changes in climate. The aim of the present study has been to investigate the way climate, as well as socio‐demographic characteristics, may affect household CO₂ emissions produced from energy use. A national online survey was conducted to determine current household CO₂ emissions in Australia as well as capture the ownership and use of household appliances and installations. Electricity and gas‐based emissions as well as the ownership of a variety of household appliances and installations were found to be strongly associated with temperature. Electricity and gas emissions were found to decrease as annual average temperatures increase. However, as temperatures continue to rise under climate change this pattern may be reversed owing to increased reliance on air conditioners. One option for preventing this from occurring is to encourage houses to adopt more solar‐passive installations. Although this may be expensive, households with higher emissions tend to have higher incomes, indicating that they may have the capacity to pay for such installations.     

“The Enchanter's Wand”: Charles Darwin,Foreign Missions,and the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle*

It often goes unmentioned that one of the primary purposes of the famous circumnavigation of H.M.S. Beagle was foreign missions. Charles Darwin, the voyage's most famous participant, was at best noncommittal about the missionary activity surrounding him for most of the trip. He emerged from the voyage, however, as an enthusiastic and outspoken proponent of missions. The British missions at Tahiti prompted him to change his view. Sailing to Tahiti, he read several accounts about the South Sea missions, and had already begun making arrangements to publish his “Diary” as a travel journal. Darwin became convinced that missionaries helped “advance” the natives toward “civilization” and thereafter enthusiastically defended missionaries in an ongoing public debate.     

MICROZONATION OF THE EXPECTED SEISMIC SITE EFFECTS ACROSS PORT VILA,VANUATU

The city of Port Vila, Vanuatu, is located in one of the most active seismic regions on earth. Earthquakes are felt frequently and, due to very rapid plate convergence rates, return period of large earthquakes (M>6) in the New Hebrides Benioff zone can be less than 10 years. Even though Port Vila does not lie on an identified seismic fault zone, strong motions by nearby earthquakes have to be expected due to the city's geographical location close to the plate boundary of New Hebrides convergence zone. An accurate estimation of the seismic ground motion across the city is of prime importance for urban developments and mitigation of earthquake risk. Following many examples of monitored strong earthquakes in the current century, it is evident that the local site effects may have a dominant contribution to the intensity of damage and destruction. In this study we focussed on the first stage of associating site effects and seismic hazard by preparing a microzonation map for Port Vila. The seismic microzonation of the city has been carried out to provide a detailed map of the zones that exhibit site effects in terms of resonance frequencies and approximated amplification of the ground shaking. Having in mind that these data will be used in improving building design to sustain strong ground motions, our analysis is limited to the frequency band of 1–10 Hz, corresponding to the expected resonance of different types of buildings in Port Vila. The Nakamura technique has been used to estimate site amplification effects from single station noise recordings. Interestingly, excluding one site located on an old dump zone, the amplification factors at about the 100 sites surveyed in Port Vila remain below 3 with an average well below 2 in the 1 to 10 Hz frequency band. These results suggest that there is no significant Vs velocity change in consequently layered material and that the uppermost sedimentary layers in the surveyed down town area are relatively thin. These observations are in agreement with the mapping of limestone terraces throughout Port Vila area. However, both the surface geology and results from seismic zonation indicate a thicker (up to several tens of meters) sedimentary cover around the Bauerfield airport and in the Mele terrace zone. Low resonance frequencies (around and below 1 Hz) and amplification factor of the order of 5 were observed over this large area, immediately outside Port Vila. Any building development in this area should take these results into account.     

The timescale and mechanisms of fault sealing and water‐rock interaction after an earthquake

Hydrogeochemical monitoring of a basalt‐hosted aquifer, which contains Ice Age meteoric water and is situated at 1220 m below sea level in the Tjörnes Fracture Zone, northern Iceland, has been ongoing since July 2002. Based on hydrogeochemical changes following an earthquake of magnitude (M_w) 5.8 on 16 September 2002, we constrained the timescales of post‐seismic fault sealing and water–rock interaction. We interpret that the earthquake ruptured a hydrological barrier, permitting a rapid influx of chemically and isotopically distinct Ice Age meteoric water from a second aquifer. During the two subsequent years, we monitored a chemical and isotopic recovery towards pre‐earthquake aquifer compositions, which we interpret to have been mainly facilitated by fault‐sealing processes. This recovery was interrupted in November 2004 by a second rupturing event, which was probably induced by two minor earthquakes and which reopened the pathway to the second aquifer. We conclude that the timescale of fault sealing was approximately 2 years and that the approach to isotopic equilibrium (from global meteoric water line) was approximately 18% after >10⁴ years.     

Solubility of quartz in crustal fluids: experiments and general equations for salt solutions and H2O–CO2 mixtures at 400–800°C and 0.1–0.9 GPa

The solubility of quartz has been measured in a wide range of salt solutions at 800°C and 0.5 GPa, and in NaCl, CaCl₂ and CsCl solutions and H₂O–CO₂ fluids at six additional P–T conditions ranging from 400°C at 0.1 GPa to 800°C at 0.9 GPa. The experiments cover a wide range of compositions along each binary. At P–T conditions where the density of pure water is low (0.43 g cm^?3), addition of most salts produces an enhancement of quartz solubility at low to moderate salt concentrations (salt‐in effect), although quartz solubility falls with further decrease in X_H2O. At higher fluid densities (0.7 g cm^?3 and greater), the salt‐in effect is generally absent, although this depends on both the cation present and the actual P–T conditions. The salt‐in effect is most readily produced by chloride salts of large monovalent cations, while CaCl₂ only produced a salt‐in effect at the most extreme conditions of high‐T and low‐P investigated (800°C at 0.2 GPa). Under most crustal conditions, the addition of common salts to aqueous fluids results in a lowering of quartz solubility relative to that in pure water (salt‐out effect). Comparing quartz solubility in different fluids by calculating X_H2O on the basis that all salts are fully associated under all conditions yields higher quartz solubility in solutions of monovalent salts than in solutions of divalent salts, absolute values are also influenced by cation radius. Quartz solubility measurements have been fitted to a Setchenow‐type equation, modified to take account of the separate effects of both the lowering of X_H2O and the specific effects of different salts, which are treated as arising through distinct patterns of non‐ideal behaviour, rather than the explicit formation of additional silica complexes with salt components. Quartz solubility in H₂O–CO₂ fluids can be treated as ideal, if the solvation number of aqueous silica is taken as 3.5. For this system the solubility (molality) of quartz in the binary fluid, S is related to its solubility in pure water at the same P–T conditions, S^o, by: Quartz solubility in binary salt systems (H₂O–RCl_n) can be fitted to the relationship: where salt concentration mRCl_n is expressed as molality and the exponent b has a value of 1 except under conditions where salting‐in is observed at low salt concentrations, in which case it is <1. Under most crustal conditions, the solubility of quartz in NaCl solutions is given to a good approximation by: We propose that quartz solubility in multicomponent fluids can be estimated from an extended expression, calculating X_H2O based on the total fluid composition (including dissolved gasses), and adding terms for each major salt present. Our experimental results on H₂O–NaCl–CO₂ fluids are satisfactorily predicted on this basis. An important implication of the results presented here is that there are circumstances where the migration of a fluid from one quartz‐bearing host into another, if it is accompanied by re‐equilibration through cation exchange, may lead to dissolution or precipitation of quartz even at constant P and T, with concomitant modification of the permeability structure of the deep crust.     

FOURTH MILLENNIUM BC SILVER FROM TELL ESH-SHUNA, JORDAN: ARCHAEOMETALLURGICAL INVESTIGATION AND SOME THOUGHTS ON CERAMIC SKEUOMORPHS

Summary. Analytical and contextual details are given for a piece of silver sheet recovered by dry-sieving from a fourth millennium B.C. deposit at Tell esh-Shuna in the north Jordan Valley. Analysis proved that the fragment was composed of a silver-gold-copper alloy. The possible origin of such aurian silver artefacts is considered in the light of current geological evidence, and alternative mechanisms for their appearance reviewed, taking into consideration recent data pertaining to the use of 'non-utilitarian' metals in the southern Levant during the fifth and fourth millennia B.C. Reasons are given for believing that silver artefacts are under-represented in the archaeological record, and the imitation of silver vessels is suggested as a possible explanation for the appearance in Palestine of the distinctive Grey Burnished ceramics at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age.