North Coast Of Venezuela Research Articles

Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America by Felipe Correa

Reviewed by: Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America by Felipe Correa David J. Keeling Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America. Felipe Correa. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2016. x + 166 pp. $40.00 cloth (ISBN: 978-1-4773-0941-4). South America has experienced three distinct phases of urban change since the mid-nineteenth century, beginning with the Belle Époque that brought railroads, agricultural industrialization, and immigrants primarily to Argentina and Brazil. Import substitution industrialization followed in the mid-twentieth century, with urban impacts beyond the [End Page 207] capital cities. More recently, the forces of globalization have restructured South America’s world cities, as well as the smaller urban centers that support the region’s economic matrix. Often described as an urban donut, where the majority of people live around the coastal margins of the continent, South America has been analyzed most frequently through the lens of these traditional outwardly focused centers, with less attention paid to interior towns and cities. Felipe Correa aims to address this gap in the urban literature by exploring the development of five interior cities that exemplify what he calls “resource extraction urbanism.” These five case studies are framed by an introductory chapter on how resource extraction unfolded in South America over the centuries, and by a concluding chapter on these cities’ legacy for the future economic and urban development of the continent. Resource extraction strategies impacted South America from the early days of colonialism, with the movement of minerals and agricultural products shaping how and where settlements and trade routes were established and maintained. An important argument presented by Correa in his analysis is that regional integration had never been part of the overall strategy of national urban and economic growth until recently. With the foundation of IIRSA (Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America), a supranational organization that commits the majority of the continent’s countries to building infrastructure that will inextricably intertwine resources, consumers, population centers, and exporters, there are many questions about how existing resource extraction sites will be impacted by growth and change across the region. This book explores the historical development of five interior cities against the backdrop of these ongoing integration efforts. Its innovative contribution is to examine the design and social imagination of these cities in the national context and to show how urban concepts and technical expertise external to the region were critical to the success of these projects. Correa’s selection of case studies does not seem to have a particular unifying theme, but rather seems designed to exemplify the different types of resource urbanism that occurred around the continent. Chapter one explores the reasons for building Belo Horizonte in southeastern Brazil, within a zone dominated by mining and coffee production. Planned at the height of the Belle Époque period, the city aimed to symbolize Brazilian progress towards modernity, and it paved the way for future imaginative cities like Goiâna and Brasilia. In chapter two, the Chilean mining town of María Elena is contextualized within the emerging spatial dynamics of nitrate and, later, copper extraction and exemplifies efforts to bring the “city beautiful” movement to South America. A key goal of this movement was to improve the overall quality of life for residents of industrial towns, yet the provision of adequate housing bedeviled María Elena during its heyday as a mining town. Chapter three asks critical questions about the relationship between corporations that establish resource-centered towns and the people who make up these communities. Along the north coast of Venezuela, the petrol towns of Judibana and El Tablazo offer a glimpse into strategies to address the migration to, and urbanization of, western Venezuela driven by the oil economy, and the tensions that inevitably arise between corporate strategies and residents’ needs. Correa argues that, despite the goal of Judibana to demonstrate the positives of public-private partnerships in urban development, the experience of oil camps in Venezuela as model urban projects did not influence other oil-development areas in the Amazon Basin. He is concerned that current oil exploration in South America [End Page 208] presents a “grim environmental scenario for the region” (84...

Application of Artificial Neural Networks on North Atlantic Tropical Cyclogenesis Potential Index in Climate Change

Abstract A methodology using artificial neural networks is presented to project twenty-first-century changes in North Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) genesis potential (GP) in a five-model ensemble of global climate models. Two types of neural networks—the self-organizing maps (SOMs) and the forward-feeding back-propagating neural networks (FBNNs)—were employed. This methodology is demonstrated to be a robust alternative to using GCM output directly for tropical cyclone projections, which generally require high-resolution simulations. By attributing the projected changes to the related environmental variables, Emanuel’s revised genesis potential index is used to measure the GP. Changes are identified in the first (P1) and second (P2) half of the twenty-first century. The early and late summer GP decreases in both the P1 and P2 periods over most of the eastern half of the basin and increases off the East Coast of the United States and the north coast of Venezuela during P1. The peak summer GP over the region of frequent TC genesis is projected to decrease more substantially in P1 than in P2. Vertical wind shear (850–200 hPa), temperature (600 hPa), and potential intensity are the most important controls of TC genesis in the North Atlantic basin (NAB) under the changing climate.

Petrozuata - An Application of Multiphase-Metering Technology

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 89870, "Petrozuata - An Application of Multiphase-Metering Technology," by Luigi Bortolin, Petrozuata C.A.; Parviz Mehdizadeh, SPE, Production Technology Inc; and Gordon Stobie, SPE, ConocoPhillips, prepared for the 2004 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Houston, 26-29 September. Previous applications of multiphase meters (MPMs) usually deployed only a few meters. Petrozuata, in Venezuela, installed an operation with 37 MPMs, and the system has been in use for more than 5 years. This paper describes the facility and the operations of the MPMs. The full-length paper details the difficulties experienced and the operational results from the extensive use of such measurement techniques. Introduction Petrozuata is a joint-venture strategic association owned by ConocoPhillips (50.1%) and Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), the national oil company of Venezuela (49.9%). The project is a fully integrated crude-oil production and processing business, in the state of Anzoátegui, Venezuela. Although commercial operations began 12 April 2001, first production of the extra-heavy crude oil (EHCO) was in mid-1998. Petrozuata’s primary function is to produce EHCO from the Zuata region of the Orinoco oil belt, transport it to the Jose industrial complex on the north coast of Venezuela, upgrade it into 19 to 26.5°API synthetic crude, and market it along with 14°API oil and associated byproducts (e.g., liquified petroleum gas, sulfur, and petroleum coke). The strategic association has a 35-year operating life, during which more than 750 wells will be drilled. The estimated recovery is approximately 1.6 billion bbl of EHCO. This facility uses a proprietary coking technology to upgrade heavy crude oil into lighter synthetic crude at a capacity of 120,000 BOPD. Currently, Petrozuata produces more than 125,000 B/D of EHCO. Since 1997, Petrozuata has drilled more than 260 wells (currently, 195 active producers) in a 56,000-acre area of the Zuata region. A further 490 wells will be drilled during the next 30 years to drain the reservoir. The wells are clustered around 37 production pads. Production is moved around the field by eleven 2,000-hp multiphase pumps (MPPs), with the EHCO diluted with naphtha. Within the field, the production is metered and allocated by use of 37 MPMs, one at each production pad, as shown in Fig. 1. The diluted crude is processed (degassed and dewatered) at a central processing facility, after which it is fiscally metered and pumped to the upgrader through a 125-mile-long 36-in.-diameter pipeline. Heavy- and Extraheavy-Oil Production Two of the major problems recognized early in the development of the Petrozuata field were the process issues posed by the oil viscosity and by gas/oil foam and oil/water emulsion. The diluent-based production scheme is effective for reducing the viscosity. As Fig. 2 shows, because fluid viscosity is inverse additive, a relatively small volume of diluent greatly reduces the mixed-fluid viscosity. Also, the day and night ambient-temperature variations have a significant effect on the fluid viscosity. The original reservoir pressure was below the bubblepoint. Therefore, the oil was foamy at reservoir conditions.

Heavy metals in sediments, mussels and oysters from Trinidad and Venezuela.

The Gulf of Paria is bordered by both Trinidad and Venezuela, from which various metallic pollutants and other contaminants can originate. The Gulf is still a significant source of fish, crabs and shellfish for human consumption to both countries, where concerns over the quality of this marine environment have been long expressed but never properly addressed. In addition, the circulatory current patterns in the Gulf ensure that contaminants originating from either country are likely to affect both countries eventually. Heavy metals were determined in oysters (Crassostrea rhizophorae and C. virginica), green mussels (Perna viridis) and sediments from the Gulf of Paria. Samples were obtained at four sites in Trinidad and three sites in Venezuela in the Gulf of Paria, in addition to comparative samples collected from three sites on the north coast of Venezuela. Edible tissues of twelve shellfish from each location were blended and aliquots digested with concentrated nitric acid, for extraction of cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc. The solutions were analysed by flame atomic absorption spectroscopy. Mercury was extracted with a mixture of nitric, hydrochloric and sulphuric acids and determined by cold vapour atomic absorption. Sediments were oven-dried at 60'C, before being similarly extracted. Results showed that mercury in sediments at all sites in Trinidad and Venezuela exceeded NOAA and Canadian sediment quality guidelines, while cadmium, copper, nickel, lead and zinc also exceeded these guidelines at several sites. Heavy metal levels in oysters and green mussels varied widely with location. However, oysters from the Gulf of Paria contained significantly higher mean levels of cadmium, copper, nickel and zinc than those from the north coast of Venezuela, but this difference was not apparent in mussels. Cadmium, mercury and zinc in sediments were significantly correlated with those of mussels, but not of oysters, in which copper and zinc at several sites in the Gulf of Paria exceeded local maximum permissible levels (Cu = 20 microg g(-1) wet wt; Zn = 50 microg g(-1) wet wt) for human consumption. These findings indicate that while mussels may be better biological indicators of heavy metal pollution in sediments than oysters, the latter may provide copper and zinc contamination. Further research is needed to determine the most appropriate biological indicators of heavy metal and other pollutants in the local marine environment and to develop protocols for their use.

Two new “flagship” ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from Venezuela: Sleighophrys pustulata and Luporinophrys micelae

Sleighophrys pustulata nov. gen., nov. spec. and Luporinophrys micelae nov. gen., nov. spec. were discovered in a slightly saline mud and soil sample from some flat, dry puddles in the Maracay National Park on the north coast of Venezuela. Their morphology was studied in vivo, in protargol preparations, and in the scanning electron microscope. The new genera are monotypic and belong to the trachelophyllid haptorids. They are characterized by the unique shape of the epicortical scales (lepidosomes). Sleighophrys pustulata, which has a size of about 180×23 μm, possesses type I and unique type V lepidosomes which are hat-shaped and about 7×7 μm in size. Luporinophrys micelae, which has a size of about 200×35 μm, possesses types I, II, and unique type VI lepidosomes which are narrow, about 10 μm high cones composed of fibrous stripes connected by polygonal meshes. The conspicuous body size and the richly structured, comparatively large lepidosomes make S. pustulata and L. micelae biogeographic flagships which may help to cast some light on the pending question whether or not microorganisms have biogeographies. The available data suggest that both species have a restricted geographic distribution, not only because they were not described previously, but mainly because they were absent in about 2000 freshwater samples from central Europe and in about 1000 soil samples collected globally.

Apofrontonia lametschwandtneri nov. gen., nov. spec., a new peniculine ciliate (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from Venezuela

Apofrontonia lametschwandtneri was discovered in a highly saline mud and soil sample from a flooded area on the north coast of Venezuela (Maracay National Park). Its morphology was studied in vivo and in silver preparations, as well as in the scanning electron microscope. The new genus Apofrontonia belongs to the family Frontoniidae and is characterized by a combination of three features, viz., a pyriform vestibular opening occupying more than half of the body length; a bowl-shaped vestibulum that posteriorly gradually merges into the cell surface, completely exposing three similarly-structured peniculi; many (>6) vestibular kineties covering the sigmoidal right vestibular wall and not extending beyond the oral cavity. Apofrontonia lametschwandtneri nov. spec. differs from a European congener, A. obtusa (Song and Wilbert 1989) nov. comb. (basionym: Frontonia obtusa Song and Wilbert 1989), by body size (180 m vs. 80 m), number of somatic (155 vs. 90) and vestibular kineties (13 vs. 9), and the number (25 vs. 4–5) and location (scattered vs. lateral) of contractile vacuoles. Considering that A. lametschwandtneri has not been found in Europe, although it is a very large, conspicuous ciliate, it might be endemic to South America.

Bird Behavior During a Total Solar Eclipse

I report avian behavioral responses to a total solar eclipse on the north coast of Venezuela during the afternoon of 26 February 1998. Magnificent Frigate-birds (Fregata magnificens), Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), and Royal Terns (Sterna maxima), which had been foraging over the water before the eclipse, left the bay 39 (terns) or 13 (frigate-birds and pelicans) min before the eclipse became total. The frigate-birds flew inland and the pelicans went to roosts on cliffs bordering the bay. Residents of the local village, who knew the birds' behavior well, remarked that the frigate-birds and pelicans were behaving as they normally did at sunset. Laughing Gulls (Larus atricilla) ceased foraging and flew rapidly back and forth over the water in a tight flock during the 3 min 40 s of totality. Twelve minutes after the solar disc emerged, the frigate-birds and pelicans began to return to the bay, and they and the gulls resumed foraging. The terns still had not reappeared more than 1 hr after totality. Solar eclipses, although of brief duration, apparently reduce light levels sufficiently to temporarily interrupt normal avian diurnal behavior.

Recent Natural Hazards in North Coast of Venezuela

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Ecophysiology of xerophytic and halophytic vegetation of a coastal alluvial plain in northern Venezuela: III. Bromelia humilis Jacq., a terrestrial CAM bromeliad.

The terrestrial CAM plant Bromelia humilis was examined in the salinas of the Ciénega el Ostional, on the north coast of Venezuela, in the rainy and dry seasons. Three colour forms were distinguished; yellow (in full sun), green exposed (also in sun) and green shaded (beneath woodland). Plant size decreased with increasing irradiance. An examination was made of the three phenotypes in terms of CO2 exchange (Jco2 ), dawn-dusk changes in titratable acidity (ΔH+ ) and malate and citrate levels, osmotic pressure, xylem tension, sugar and amino acids levels, nitrogen and ion concentrations and ambient temperature fluorescence. All phenotypes exhibited lowered Jco2 and ΔH+ in the dry as compared to the rainy season. Citrate, as well as malate, showed dawn-dusk fluctuations. Soluble sugars were the major source of carbon skeletons for nocturnal organic acid production. The dawn-dusk changes in osmotic pressure were negligible. Yellow plants performed poorly in contrast to shaded plants in both seasons. The former showed higher dawn-dusk changes of citrate levels and contained much less nitrogen than shaded plants. Nocturnal recycling of respiratory CO2 was more important in yellow plants and, in the dry season, reached 87%. These differences were reflected in the overall productivity, shaded plants showing increases in size whereas yellow plants utilized energy mainly for leaf replacement. Water availability and nitrogen supply appear to be the overriding factors determining higher productivity and CO2 assimilation in partially shaded plants as compared with plants in full sun.

Teleconnections of rainfall anomalies and of the Southern Oscillation over the entire tropics and their seasonal dependence

The teleconnections between rainfall anomalies of selected areas within the tropics to each other are investigated with respect to their seasonal dependence, employing a cross correlation analysis technique. They are related to the Southern Oscillation. The magnitude and phase of these rainfall anomalies are computed for a typical El Nino event using a so-called composite analysis. Rainfall anomalies persist for almost an entire year over the islands of the equatorial Central Pacific, whereas over most areas in and around the tropical Indian and Pacific Ocean, they only tend to persist for a season or two. Seasons during which rainfall anomalies are most persistent (in a particular region) are also seasons, during which teleconnections between rainfall anomalies of these regions to each other are strongest. The Southern Oscillation is negative-correlated with the majority of the rainfall anomalies except for those from India, Indonesia, Hawaii and the Northcoast of Venezuela. The rainfall anomalies calculated for a typical El Nino event fit into this general scheme of teleconnections. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0870.1987.tb00295.x

Boconó Fault, Venezuelan Andes: Evidence of Postglacial Movement

Postglacial, right-lateral, strike-slip movement along the Boconó fault, measured on detailed topographic maps, averages 66 meters. The rate of movement was approximately 0.66 centimeter per year, as indicated by carbon-14 dating of associated soil. This evidence suggests that postglacial movement between the Caribbean and Americas plates occurred mainly along the Boconó fault and the north coast of Venezuela.

Termites of the West Indies: The Bahamas, and Bermuda

Many of the termites of the West Indies are endemic, and so far as known, have a very limited distribution, often recorded from only a few islands. Kalotermes mona Banks is endemic to Mona Island and is found nowhere else. By contrast, many of the termites occuring in Cuba are also found in the United States, those of Jamaica in Panamá and Central America, and those of Trinidad in South America. The truly tropicosmopolitan Cryptotermes brevis (Walker) and Nasutitermes costalis (Holmgren) readily become established in new localities, islands or countries in which the environmental conditions are at all suitable. The comparatively large island of Trinidad, close to the mainland of South America and mostly with a continental fauna, has the largest number of species of termites of any of the West Indies: 31. The island of Curacao, also near the coast of South America, but small and arid has but 2, and none is recorded from Aruba, Margarita or the other smaller islands off the north coast of Venezuela. The comparatively small island of Tobago, northeast from Trinidad, has 8 species of termites recorded, and Barbados 7, but none is listed from St. Vincent, and most of the other Lesser Antilles have at most but 3 or 4. None is reported from Nevis, Saba, or St. John, but St. Croix of the U. S. Virgin Islands has 10, St. Thomas 5, and Culebra and Vieques 1 each. Fifteen species of termites are recorded from Puerto Rico, and 4 from Mona. In the large island of Hispaniola, only 8 species of termites are recorded from the eastern portion: the Dominican Republic, while 18 are known from Haiti. Sixteen species of termites are known in Jamaica, and 9 from the widely dispersed islands of the Bahamas. The large island of Cuba, closest of any to continental North America, has 22; the comparatively minute, and most distant Bermuda has 4. All recorded species may be identified by means of keys based on the characters of the soldiers, or of the winged adults.