China Science

Nearly 600 bottom-hole temperature data from the northern continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico, each corrected for drilling disturbance, yielded a regional map of geothermal gradient down to approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) sub-sea floor. Two geographic trends can be seen on the map. First, from east to west, the geothermal gradient changes from values between 0.025 and 0.03 K/m (0.014 and 0.016 degreeF/ft) off the Alabama-Mississippi shore to lower values of 0.015-0.025 K/m (0.008-0.014 degreeF/ft) off eastern Louisiana and to higher values of 0.03-0.06 K/m (0.016-0.033degreeF/ft) off western Louisiana through Texas. Second, thermal gradients tend to be lower toward the outer continental shelf (less than 0.02 K/m [0.0112 degree F/ft]). We believe that the observed variations are primarily attributable to the thermal effect of rapid and regionally variable sediment accumulation during the Cenozoic era, which resulted in the occurrence of the geopressured zone in the Texas -Louisiana shelf. In the eastern Louisiana shelf, where accumulation was fastest, sediments down to about 6 km (3.7 mi] are relatively young (about <15 Ma) and have not had enough time to fully equilibrate with deeper, hotter sediments. That resulted in the low thermal gradient. As the depocenter migrated farther offshore, younger sediments accumulated more in the outer shelf and resulted in an even lower thermal gradient there. However, this mechanism alone cannot explain the fact that geothermal gradients in the Texas shelf are higher than those in the Alabama shelf, where Cenozoic sedimentation has been much slower. It may be suggested that the contrasting sedimentation history between the Texas and Alabama shelves has resulted in some difference in overall thermal conductivity of sediment, and that the geothermal gradients reflect such difference. However, it is more plausible if additional mechanisms enhance heat flow through sediment in the Texas shelf, such as (1) upward migration of pore fluid expelled from deep, overpressured sands and/or (2) a greater amount of heat released from the igneous basement. Deep sedimentary temperatures in the high-thermal-gradient areas suggest higher risks of hydrogen sulfide occurrence and reservoir quality degradation because of quartz cementation.

Seiichi Nagihara?Michael A. Smith
Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409; Minerals Management Service, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123

Robert Brock’s lawsuit seeking reparations for slavery never got anywhere. Now the Washington, D.C., legal activist (at right) heads a group that lobbies for legislative redress. He and others make the legal case that African-Americans deserve damages for wrongs endured by their ancestors. Theirs is a growing movement that may be key to the nation’s search for racial harmony.

Jeffrey Ghannam

This paper examines the relationship between the body and the self for women accounting professionals. It explores how they come to embody the identity of accountant and what happens when forms of organizational and professional embodiment coincide with other forms of gendered embodied self, such as that experienced during pregnancy and in early motherhood. These forms of embodiment can be seen simultaneously both as a mechanism of social control, and as a form of self-expression and empowerment for women.

Kathryn Haynes aEmail:kh20@york.ac.uk
[a]The York Management School, Sally Baldwin Building, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom

Previous empirical evidence provides mixed results on the relationship between corporate environmental performance and the level of environmental disclosures. We revisit this relation by testing competing predictions from economics based and socio-political theories of voluntary disclosure using a more rigorous research design. In particular, we improve on the prior literature by focusing on purely discretionary environmental disclosures and by developing a content analysis index based on the Global Reporting Initiative sustainability reporting guidelines to assess the extent of discretionary disclosures in environmental and social responsibility reports. This index better captures firm disclosures related to its commitment to protect the environment than the indices employed by prior studies. Using a sample of 191 firms from the five most polluting industries in the US, we find a positive association between environmental performance and the level of discretionary environmental disclosures. The result is consistent with the predictions of the economics disclosure theory but inconsistent with the negative association predicted by socio-political theories. Nevertheless, we show that socio-political theories explain patterns in the data (“legitimization”) that cannot be explained by economics disclosure theories.

Peter M. ClarksonaEmail:p.clarkson@business.uq.edu.au?Yue LicEmail:yueli@rotman.utoronto.ca?Gordon D. Richardsonc Email:gordon.richardson@rotman.utoronto.ca?Florin P. VasvaridEmail:fvasvari@london.edu
[a]UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Australia;[b]Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Canada;[c]Joseph Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 105 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3E6;[d]London Business School, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Nearly 600 bottom-hole temperature data from the northern continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico, each corrected for drilling disturbance, yielded a regional map of geothermal gradient down to approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) sub-sea floor. Two geographic trends can be seen on the map. First, from east to west, the geothermal gradient changes from values between 0.025 and 0.03 K/m (0.014 and 0.016 degreeF/ft) off the Alabama-Mississippi shore to lower values of 0.015-0.025 K/m (0.008-0.014 degreeF/ft) off eastern Louisiana and to higher values of 0.03-0.06 K/m (0.016-0.033degreeF/ft) off western Louisiana through Texas. Second, thermal gradients tend to be lower toward the outer continental shelf (less than 0.02 K/m [0.0112 degree F/ft]). We believe that the observed variations are primarily attributable to the thermal effect of rapid and regionally variable sediment accumulation during the Cenozoic era, which resulted in the occurrence of the geopressured zone in the Texas -Louisiana shelf. (more…)

ObjectivesTo assess professional status (PS) differences in the risk of road crash involvement (RCI) (irrespective of crash severity), and to examine the underlying mechanism by evaluating the role of exposure to road risk (ERR).MethodA total of 15,271 subjects selected from the French GAZEL cohort were studied. A proportional hazard model for recurrent events was used to calculate the relative risks (RR) of RCI associated with PS. (more…)

Basic information on the risk factors of road traffic injuries in Iran is scarce. This case–control study was conducted to determine the association of potential risk factors with the incidence of injury among motor vehicle drivers and motorcyclists on Qazvin-Loshan Road. (more…)

Brasilochondria riograndensis Thatcher et Pereira, 2004 (Copepoda,Chondracanthidae) is redescribed based on newly collected material from the branchial cavity offlounder, Paralichthys orbignyanus (Valenciennes, 1842), from the coasts of Buenos Aires Province,Argentina. A number of details were overlooked and some appendages were misidentified in originaldescription and are included herein. (more…)