A cross-ecosystem comparison of spatial and temporal patterns of covariation in the recruitment of functionally analogous fish stocks

Temporal and spatial patterns of recruitment (R) and spawning stock biomass (S) variability were compared among functionally analogous species and similar feeding guilds from six marine ecosystems. Data were aggregated into four regions including the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank, the Norwegian/Barents Seas, the eastern Bering Sea, and the Gulf of Alaska. Variability was characterized by calculating coefficients of variation and anomalies for three response variables: ln(R), ln(R/S), and stock–recruit model residuals. Patterns of synchrony and asynchrony in the response variables were examined among and between ecosystems, between- and within-ocean basins and among functionally analogous species groups using pair-wise correlation analysis corrected for within-time series autocorrelation, multivariate cross-correlation analyses and regime shift detectors. Time series trends in response variables showed consistent within basin similarities and consistent and coherent differences between the Atlantic and Pacific basin ecosystems. Regime shift detection algorithms identified two broad-scale regime shift time periods for the pelagic feeding guild (1972–1976 and 1999–2002) and possibly one for the benthic feeding guild (1999–2002). No spatial patterns in response variable coefficients of variation were observed. Results from multivariate cross-correlation analysis showed similar trends. The data suggest common external factors act in synchrony on stocks within ocean basins but temporal stock patterns, often of the same species or functional group, between basins change in opposition to each other. Basin-scale results (similar within but different between) suggest that the two geographically broad areas are connected by unknown mechanisms that, depending on the year, may influence the two basins in opposite ways. This work demonstrates that commonalities and synchronies in recruitment fluctuations can be found across geographically distant ecosystems but biophysical causes of the fluctuations remain difficult to identify.     

Evidence for enhanced hydration on the northern flank of Olympus Mons, Mars

In this paper we report about a small region on the northern scarp of Olympus Mons showing an increase of the 3 μm hydration band in the OMEGA spectra, together with low superficial temperatures. Although water ice clouds can occurs on the flank of big martian volcanoes, radiative transfer modeling indicates that atmospheric water ice alone cannot justify the shape of the observed band. A fit of the 1.9–3 μm absorption features is obtained by hypothesizing that the study region consists of a mixture of dust and water ice covered by an optically thin (τ=0.08 at 3 μm) layer of dust. Thermal modeling also suggests that water ice in this region may be stable during most of the martian year due to the saturation of the atmosphere. If water ice is responsible for the observed spectral behavior, it might consist of a number of ice or snow patches possibly deposited in small depressions.     

Comagmatic lamprophyres and diabases on the south coast of Norway

Two lamprophyre-diabase associations on the south coast of Norway are described. The lamprophyres and the diabases contain feldspathic leucocratic segregations in the shape of ocelli, ocellar pipes, sheets, or irregular veins and schheren. The origin of the lamprophyres is considered to be related to the formation of the leucocratic segregations. It is believed that the behaviour of alkaline volatiles under the influence of tensional stress and gravity accounts for the differentiation.     

On the consistency of the current conventional EOP series and the celestial and terrestrial reference frames

Precise transformation between the celestial reference frames (CRF) and terrestrial reference frames (TRF) is needed for many purposes in Earth and space sciences. According to the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) recommendations, the accuracy of positions and stability of reference frames should reach 1 mm and 0.1 mm year\(^{-1}\), and thus, the Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP) should be estimated with similar accuracy. Different realizations of TRFs, based on the combination of solutions from four different space geodetic techniques, and CRFs, based on a single technique only (VLBI, Very Long Baseline Interferometry), might cause a slow degradation of the consistency among EOP, CRFs, and TRFs (e.g., because of differences in geometry, orientation and scale) and a misalignment of the current conventional EOP series, IERS 08 C04. We empirically assess the consistency among the conventional reference frames and EOP by analyzing the record of VLBI sessions since 1990 with varied settings to reflect the impact of changing frames or other processing strategies on the EOP estimates. Our tests show that the EOP estimates are insensitive to CRF changes, but sensitive to TRF variations and unmodeled geophysical signals at the GGOS level. The differences between the conventional IERS 08 C04 and other EOP series computed with distinct TRF settings exhibit biases and even non-negligible trends in the cases where no differential rotations should appear, e.g., a drift of about 20 \(\upmu \)as year\(^{-1 }\)in \(y_{\mathrm{pol }}\) when the VLBI-only frame VTRF2008 is used. Likewise, different strategies on station position modeling originate scatters larger than 150 \(\upmu \)as in the terrestrial pole coordinates.     

Pressure dependence of viscosity of rhyolitic melts

Viscosity of silicate melts is a critical property for understanding volcanic and igneous processes in the Earth. We investigate the pressure effect on the viscosity of rhyolitic melts using two methods: indirect viscosity inference from hydrous species reaction in melts using a piston cylinder at pressures up to 2.8 GPa and direct viscosity measurement by parallel-plate creep viscometer in an internally-heated pressure vessel at pressures up to 0.4 GPa. Comparison of viscosities of a rhyolitic melt with 0.8 wt% water at 0.4 GPa shows that both methods give consistent results. In the indirect method, viscosities of hydrous rhyolitic melts were inferred based on the kinetics of hydrous species reaction in the melt upon cooling (i.e., the equivalence of rheologically defined glass transition temperature and chemically defined apparent equilibrium temperature). The cooling experiments were carried out in a piston-cylinder apparatus using hydrous rhyolitic samples with 0.8-4 wt% water. Cooling rates of the kinetic experiments varied from 0.1 K/s to 100 K/s; hence the range of viscosity inferred from this method covers 3 orders of magnitude. The data from this method show that viscosity increases with increasing pressure from 1 GPa to 3 GPa for hydrous rhyolitic melts with water content ?0.8 wt% in the high viscosity range. We also measured viscosity of rhyolitic melt with 0.13 wt% water using the parallel-plate viscometer at pressures 0.2 and 0.4 GPa in an internally-heated pressure vessel. The data show that viscosity of rhyolitic melt with 0.13 wt% water decreases with increasing pressure. Combining our new data with literature data, we develop a viscosity model of rhyolitic melts as a function of temperature, pressure and water content.     

Timing and mechanisms of Central Himalayan exhumation: discriminating between tectonic and erosion processes

The ability to deduce exhumation mechanisms from thermochronological data is hampered by the fact that assumptions on the thermal state of the lithosphere have to be made. Additional argumentation is generally required to discriminate between erosion-controlled and tectonically induced exhumation. This problem can be overcome by studying the spatial distribution of zircon and apatite (U-Th)/He and fission track data. In this work the variation of four different low temperature isotopic systems generating age trends along a sampling line is used to infer mechanisms of Quaternary exhumation in the Central High Himalayan Metamorphic Belt. Observed zircon age trends with southwards increasing cooling ages (from 0.5 to 1.7 Ma) are attributed to tectonically induced exhumation. The uniform apatite cooling ages clustered c. 0.5 Ma are attributed to erosion.     

Basic model of water- and gas-flow through smectite clay buffers

Canister embedment of highly compacted Na bentonite forms a low-permeable medium of significant homogeneity both macro- and microscopically. However, despite the fact that a large part of the porewater is in interlamellar positions and not mobile by ordinary hydraulic gradients, there are still a number of pore passages that let water and gas through even at very high bulk densities. A preliminary model for flow and diffusion has been outlined on the basis of generalized, quantitative microstructural data and basic physical relationships. It accounts for actually recorded hydraulic and gas conductivities as well as for commonly measured swelling pressures. Qualitatively, it is in agreement also with published ion diffusion data.     

Antimoniferous mineralization from the Mid-European Saxothuringian Zone: mineralogy,geology, geochemistry and ensialic origin

In the North Bavarian Basement (FR Germany) as well as in the Thuringian Forest (GDR) both of which belonging to the Saxothuringian Zone antimony mineralizations have been worked up to the early fifties. Mineralogical and geological investigations led to the following classification of antimony ore deposits and -concentrations:

1. Stratabound and stratiform fahlore (Fahlerz) mineralization in Silurian and Lower Devonian black shales.
2. Sulphosalt- and stibnite-bearing veins (partly associated with native gold) in wall rocks of the Late Variscan granites.
3. Monometallic and monomineralic antimony lodes along anticlinal structures.
4. Sulphosalt-bearing lead-zinc veins.

Antimony in the black shales was concentrated during late diagenetic cementation along with copper. The sulpho-salt-bearing stibnite veins in the metamorphic country rocks of the granites are genetically associated with the granitic intrusions nearby. This is proved by trace element chemistry and structural as well as mineralogical features of those veins. U/Pb age dating of contemporaneous pitchblende from the »polymetallic uranium paragenesis« from Hoehensteinweg uranium deposit yielded a late Variscan age of formation for these veins of type 2. Early Paleozoic rocks (metavolcanics) are suggested to have been the parent material for these granite-related Sb concentrations. However the monotonous Sb veins are more akin to the basic protore in deeper crustal sections. The thermal aureole of a deep-seated heat source is preserved by the Ag/Sb ratio of galena in Pb-Zn veins (type 4), which shows a marked variation along the SW plunging Berga Anticline from increased Ag/Sb ratios near the core of the anticline towards reduced values in mining sites more peripheral to this fold structure. Pb isotopes of stibnite as well as Pb sulphides point to a crustal derivation of both elements. An in-situ re-deposition and leaching of Sb from the wall rocks as well as antimoniferous black shales may be ruled out. It has to be emphasized that intra-crustal mass movements (A subduction) and the late Vanscan igneous activity are the major factors controling release of Sb from the Early Paleozoic low metal concentrations within metavolcanic rocks and subsequent discharge of Sb-bearing fluids within joints and fractures related to late Variscan tectonic movements. A schematic exploration concept is outlined.     

Facies architecture and sedimentology of a meandering fluvial system: a Palaeogene example from the Weisselster Basin, Germany

The Schleenhain open pit coal mine, located 30 km south of Leipzig, Germany, exposes Upper Eocene and Oligocene non-marine strata representing fluvial deposition in the centre of the Weisselster Basin. Active mining and successive cuts provided the rare opportunity to obtain a three-dimensional perspective of laterally extensive surface outcrops. These were used to construct a detailed fence diagram, which provided the basis for recognition of key architectural elements in the weakly consolidated meandering stream deposits. In addition to the eight basic architectural elements of Miall (1985 ), the element SL (shallow lake deposits) was newly defined and the element CH (channel) was subdivided into CHg (palaeo-river system) and CHk (small channel). The profiles contain parts of two fining-upward cycles, which are separated by an unconformity spanning the Early Oligocene. Deposits of the first cycle begin with transverse sand bars (downstream accretion deposits-DA) and point bars (lateral accretion deposits-LA). The upper part of the cycle is represented by overbank fines (OF) and the element SL, which consists of laterally discontinuous lenses of dark, plant-bearing, kaolinite-rich clays, that were deposited in shallow lakes adjacent to the active channel. Coal seams interlayered with palaeosols are the main constituents of element OF. Sheetlike bodies of medium to fine gravels (gravel bars and bedforms-GB) on an erosive coal surface mark the beginning of the second cycle. Dissolution of underlying Permian salts and sulphates prior to, during, and after the deposition of the Palaeogene strata caused the development of two synclines within the outcrop. Coal seams and clay horizons which thicken and dip towards the centre of the synclines, provide evidence for their chronological development.