Short period internal waves over the Huanghe (Yellow River) delta front

Internal waves with periods of about 5 minutes and trough to crest heights of up to 6.2 m were observed acoustically over the actively accreting delta front of the Huanghe (Yellow River) in the western portion of the Gulf of Bohai, Peoples Republic of China. The radian frequency of the internal waves was close to the locally-observed Brunt-Vaisala frequency. Through the relatively short (one hour) duration of an internal wave train, the amplitude was observed to decrease progressively with time. These internal waves may cause resuspension of delta-front sediments.     

Observed storminess patterns and trends in the circum-Arctic coastal regime

Storm event statistics for the open-water season (June–October) were extracted from the terrestrial-based observational record throughout the circumpolar coastal regime over the period 1950–2000. The Barents/Norwegian and Kara regions exhibited an active spring/quiet summer signature typical of the mid-latitudes. The Kara and Laptev Sea regions had a strong June peak possibly associated with early sea ice breakup. The Chukchi sector exhibited large storm power values (defined as speed²*duration). Storm counts declined from 1950 to 1970, shifted rapidly from 1970 to 1974 to a level of greater mean activity and greater inter-annual variability, and declined after 1988.     

New seismic data in the Mozambique Channel

This paper presents seismic reflection and refraction data from the Mozambique Channel, collected between 1971 and 1973. A deep sedimentary basin (up to 5 km of sediments) opens southwards to the Mozambique Basin, and is bounded to the east by the Davie Ridge and beyond by the marginal plateau of Malagasy. A continuous reflector (C), possibly of Cretaceous age, is identified between layers having seismic interval velocities of 2.4–2.8 km/s and 3.1–3.4 km/s. The deepest sediments have velocities of 4.5–4.9 km/s and overlie a layer with velocity 5.5 km/s, which may be volcanic in the north-east of the Channel.The crust occupying most of the Channel is probably pre-Cretaceous in age, and may be largely continental in nature. This is supported by subdued magnetic anomalies and the possibility of a continuous Karroo sedimentary section across the northern Channel. The oceanic crust of the Mozambique Basin may extend as far north as 24°S, into the western Channel only. The problem of the origin of the Mozambique Channel remains unresolved, although a long sedimentary history indicates that Malagasy may have separated from Mainland Africa prior to Karroo times. The Davie Ridge may possibly represent a relict strike-slip fault, which permitted movement along a north-south line.     

Atmospheric forcing of fine-sand transport on a low-energy inner shelf: south-central Louisiana,USA

Hydrodynamic and sediment transport measurements from instrumentation deployed during a 54-day winter period at two sites on the Louisiana inner shelf are presented. Strong extratropical storms, with wind speeds of 7.8 to 15.1 m s^-1, were the dominant forcing mechanism during the study. These typically caused mean oscillatory flows and shear velocities about 33% higher than fair weather (averaging 12.3 and 3.2 cm s^-1 at the landward site, and 11.4 and 2.7 cm s^-1 at the seaward site, respectively). These responses were coupled with mean near-bottom currents more than twice as strong as during fair weather (10.3 and 7.5 cm s^-1 at the landward and seaward sites, respectively). These flowed in approximately the same direction as the veering wind, causing a net offshore transport of fine sand. Weak storms were responsible for little sediment transport whereas during fair weather, onshore sand transport of approximately 25-75% of the storm values appears to have occurred. This contradicts previous predictions of negligible fair-weather sediment movement on this inner shelf.     

Freezing as a method of sample preservation for the analysis of dissolved inorganic nutrients in seawater

It is often desirable or necessary to store collected seawater samples prior to analysis for dissolved inorganic nutrients. It is therefore important to establish preservation and storage techniques that will ensure sample integrity and will not alter the precision or accuracy of analysis. We have performed a series of experiments on the storage of nutrient samples collected at the oligotrophic North Pacific benchmark Station ALOHA, using both standard autoanalyses and low-level techniques. Our results reveal that for oligotrophic oceanic waters, the immediate freezing of an unfiltered water sample in a clean polyethylene bottle is a suitable preservation method. This procedure is simple, it avoids potentially contaminating sample manipulations and chemical additions, and it adequately preserves the concentrations of nitrate + nitrite, soluble reactive phosphate, and soluble reactive silicate within a single water sample.     

Distribution and Diversity of Ibla cumingi Darwin [Crustacea, Cirripedia) from the Gulf of Elat (Red Sea)

Abstract. The distribution of Ibla cumingi DARWIN on different types of hard substrata along 30 km of coast in the Gulf of Elat was studied. I. cumingi was found among and underneath Tetraclita squamosa rufotincta , in oyster beds, underneath slabs of beachrock, and in fissures in igneous rocks. In the Tetraclita belt, I. cumingi is most frequent in empty shells of dead Tetraclita while in the oyster bed it is common inside the meshwork made by the oysters. The distribution is regarded as clustered distribution. The density and size of the clusters of I. cumingi is determined by the available sheltered space within the midlittoral zone. The form of the habitat determines the shape of the animals. Those found in the oyster bed and fissures are usually longer than those found in the Tetraclita belt due to the depth of the fissures or to the bigger spaces within the oyster bed. I. cumingi is orientated so that the capitulum with the cirri is projecting towards the open water, and the water current. It is concluded that I. cumingi can withstand the physical stress encountered in a tropical intertidal zone, but that the distribution pattern is caused by predation.     

Rapid visualization of plankton abundance and taxonomic composition using the Video Plankton Recorder

Traditional methods for determining spatial distributions of planktonic taxa involve net, pump, and bottle collections followed by the tedious and time-consuming task of plankton sample analysis. Thus, plankton ecologists often require months or even years to process samples from a single study. In this paper, we present a method that allows rapid visualization of the distribution of planktonic taxa while at sea. Rapid characterization of plankton distributions is essential in the dynamic physical environment, where biological and physical patterns can change quickly. Such a “sample-and-observe” capability is necessary for mapping ephemeral features (such as patches, eddies, jets, plumes) and determining appropriate locations to conduct more localized sampling, including in situ observational studies. We describe the techniques used in imaging the plankton, analyzing the video, and visualizing the data. We present an example of at-sea data analysis conducted aboard R.V. Columbus Iselin on Georges Bank in May 1994 and visualizations of the 3-dimensional distribution of selected planktonic taxa in a 2 × 2 km × 90 m volume of seawater. A video of the image processing and visualization is included on the CD-ROM accompanying this volume and is an essential part of this paper.     

Laboratory wave reflection analysis using co-located gages

Most coastal and ocean engineering laboratories employ techniques that use two or three spatially separated wave gages to estimate reflection of irregular waves in two-dimensional wave flumes. This paper presents a frequency domain method for separating incident and reflected wave spectra from co-located gages (gages located on the same vertical line). The technique is based on linear wave theory, and it can be applied to time series of sea surface elevation and horizontal water velocity collected in a vertical array, or it can be used with horizontal and vertical water velocity time series collected at the same point in the water column. Application of the method is limited to those frequencies showing good coherence between time series signals. Outside the range of good coherence, gross inaccuracies occur.The utility of the co-located gage method is illustrated using water velocity data collected in a wave flume with a laser Doppler velocimeter, and the method is validated for the case of complete reflection by a vertical wall. Side-by-side comparison to the spatially-separated wave gage method of Goda and Suzuki (1976) exhibited close agreement for a variety of irregular wave trains being weakly reflected by a mild sloping beach. The co-located gage method is useful in situations where there are spatial variations in the wavelength, such as on a mildly sloping bottom, or in the region close to highly reflective structures where errors arising from spatial variations in characteristic wave parameters would corrupt estimates made using the spatially-separated wave gage method.     

Petrology and mineral chemistry of sedimentary rocks from the Western Solomon Sea

Multichannel seismic reflection profiles recorded in the northern Red Sea show structures that we interpret to be a result of the intrusion of uppermost Miocene salt. We believe that the evaporites are underlaid by attenuated continental crust and the flow of salt is due to renewed faulting of basement in the Pliocene when sea floor spreading began between latitudes 21°N and 15°30°N.