Composition and Flux of Holocene Sediments on the Eastern Laptev Sea Shelf, Arctic Siberia

A 467-cm-long core from the inner shelf of the eastern Laptev Sea provides a depositional history since 9400 cal yr. B.P. The history involves temporal changes in the fluvial runoff as well as postglacial sea-level rise and southward retreat of the coastline. Although the core contains marine fossils back to 8900 cal yr B.P., abundant plant debris in a sandy facies low in the core shows that a river influenced the study site until 8100 cal yr B.P. As sea level rose and the distance to the coast increased, this riverine influence diminished gradually and the sediment type changed, by 7400 cal yr B.P., from sandy silt to clayey silt. Although total sediment input decreased in a step-like fashion from 7600 to 4000 cal yr B.P., this interval had the highest average sedimentation rates and the greatest fluxes in most sedimentary components. While this maximum probably resulted from middle Holocene climate warming, the low input of sand to the site after 7400 cal yr B.P. probably resulted from further southward retreat of the coastline and river mouth. Since about 4000 cal yr B.P., total sediment flux has remained rather constant in this part of the Laptev Sea shelf due to a gradual stabilization of the depositional regime after completion of the Holocene sea-level rise.     

Observed precipitation in the Paraná-Plata hydrological basin: long-term trends, extreme conditions and ENSO teleconnections

The Paraná-Plata basin is the second largest hydrological basin in South America and is of great importance for the countries of the region (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay). The present study focuses on the long-term trends in basin-scale precipitation with special emphasis on the role of distribution changes in extreme large-scale precipitation events and on the characteristics and evolution of ENSO teleconnections over the last 50 years. First, we defined a Paraná-Plata basin total precipitation index (PTPI) as the precipitations spatially averaged over the hydrological basin. On interannual time scales, such an index is mainly representative of anomalous monsoon precipitations in the northern part of the basin and large convective precipitation anomalies in the center of the basin (Paraguay-southern Brazil-Uruguay-northern Argentina) typical of the canonical ENSO teleconnection pattern. Our major findings clearly highlight a positive trend in yearly averaged PTPI mainly from the late 1960s to the early 1980s with a strong dependence from month-to-month. The largest precipitation increase is observed from November to May in southern Brazil and Argentina. A close examination of PTPI distributions during the two halves of the period 1950–2001 shows that the changes in the mean state from 1950–1975 to 1976–2001 result from significant changes in each calendar month mean state and in the tails of the PTPI anomaly distributions in May with lesser and weaker large-scale dry events and stronger large-scale wet events. Further studies will be needed to assess whether the observed trend in large-scale extreme precipitation conditions can be related to natural climate variability or anthropogenic activities and whether it is associated to changes in local/regional extreme events. The stronger wet conditions in different months seem to be associated to changes in ENSO characteristics (amplitude, propagation, spatial structure, ...) since the 1982–1983 El Niño. Indeed, spatial ENSO teleconnections (stronger in November and April–May) have greatly evolved from 1950–1975 to 1976–2001. Moreover, we demonstrate that there is a strong modulation and displacement of the teleconnection patterns from one event to another, impeding the definition of robust statistical relationship between ENSO and precipitation in the Paraná-Plata basin (except maybe over a very limited area near the common border between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil). Finally, the non-antisymmetrical patterns of precipitation between El Niño and La Niña conditions and the non-linear relationship between precipitation and either Niño3.4 or Niño1+2 sea surface temperature indices show that linear statistical forecast systems are actually of very limited use for impact predictions on society on a local or regional scale.     

Moscow and St. Petersburg, a sequence of capitals, a tale of two cities

From early modern times until the present, Russia (temporarily extended to the USSR) had two capital cities: Moscow and Petersburg. Moscow was the original capital, it was succeeded by Petersburg from the beginning of the 18th century. From the early 20th century onward Moscow again became the capital, but it became a different kind of capital at the end of the 20th century. The paper describes the evolution of the representation of the state function in the appearance of the capital cities by way of the state buildings, the monuments, the street names. In addition it analyses the fate of the former capitals (first Moscow, then Petersburg) in terms of their symbolic functions. Petersburg originated as a capital turned to the outside emphasizing Russia's European vocation, while Moscow was at first the inward looking capital city representing the distinctive spiritual values of Russia. Changes had to do with the changes in the nature of the successive political regimes and with the changing roles of the two cities within those regimes.     

Evolutionary status of T Tauri stars

The problem of determining the masses and ages of T Tauri star(TTS) using their evolutionary status is discussed. We test four pre-main sequence evolutionary models using well determined observational parameters of 12 binary TTSs and two binary red dwarfs. It is shown that the masses derived using the tracks of all models are in good agreement with the masses obtained from the observations of TTSs with masses M 0.7 M_⊙(mean error ε ~ 10%). Low-mass stars with M ≤ 0.7 M_⊙have significantly greater mean error: ε ~ 50% for the tracks of Bressan et al. and Chen et al., and ε ~ 30% for the other tracks. The isochrones of all tested evolutionary models diverge for stars with masses M ≤ 0.7 M_⊙. The difference increases with the mass decrease and can reach 10% of KelvinHelmholtz time for stars with mass M = 0.2 M_⊙. The ages of most of the considered TTSs are smaller than the Kelvin-Helmholtz time. This confirms their evolutionary status of being pre-main sequence stars.     

Magnetotactic bacteria from the human gut microbiome associated with orientation and navigation regions of the brain

Journal of Oceanology and Limnology - Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB), ubiquitous in soil and fresh and saltwater sources have been identified in the microbiome of humans and many animals. MTB...     

Intertidal meiofauna of Jeju Island,Korea

For the first time, the structure of the meiobenthos community and marine nematodes in particular was investigated in the different intertidal zones of Jeju Island (South Sea of Korea). A relationship was found between the density of meiobenthic communities and the type of the bottom sediment. In addition, in the silty sediments, nematodes were dominant, while in the sandy sediments harpacticoids and ostracods were dominant groups. Sixty eight species belonging to 60 genera and 19 families of nematodes were found in the whole area. Four different nematode taxocenosis were distinguished using a cluster analysis. Dominant feeding groups were omnivores (2B) and epistratum-feeders (2A). The highest number of non-selective deposit-feeders (1B) was detected in the lagoon with the bottom silty sediments.     

An assessment of the climate change impacts on groundwater recharge at a continental scale using a probabilistic approach with an ensemble of GCMs

This study used 16 Global Climate Models and three global warming scenarios to make projections of recharge under a 2050 climate for the entire Australian continent at a 0.05° grid resolution. The results from these 48 future climate variants have been fitted to a probability distribution to enable the results to be summarised and uncertainty quantified. The median results project a reduction in recharge across the west, centre and south of Australia and an increase in recharge across the north and a small area in the east of the continent. The range of results is quite large and for large parts of the continent encompasses both increases and decreases in recharge. This makes it difficult to utilise for water resources management so the results have been analysed with a risk analysis framework; this enables the future projections for groundwater recharge to be communicated to water managers in terms of likelihood and consequence of a reduction in recharge. This highlights an important message for water resource managers that in most areas of Australia they will be making decisions on water allocations under considerable uncertainty as to the direction and magnitude of recharge change under a future climate and that this uncertainty may be irreducible.