Upwelling of oxygen-depleted water (Sumishio) in Omura Bay,Japan

Wind-induced circulation and the distribution of hypoxia corresponding to the upwelling of oxygen-depleted water (called “Aoshio” in Japan and “Sumishio” locally in Omura Bay) in Omura Bay, Japan, was examined field observations and by three-dimensional modeling. During the calm weather in summer, well-mixed strait water, in rich oxygen at the mouth of the bay intruded into the middle layer of the bay, southward and northward along the west and east coast, respectively, forming basin-scale cyclonic circulation. A stagnant water mass was formed below the center of this cyclonic circulation, and it became hypoxic water. As a result of the prevailing strong southeast (northeast) wind, the bottom hypoxia moved in a southeasterly (northeasterly) direction. This induces the upwelling of hypoxic water, accompanied by mass mortality of marine organisms.     

Enhanced predictions of wave impact pressure by improved incompressible SPH methods

A new criterion is proposed for a more efficient assessment of free-surface particles in a particle-based simulation. Enhanced wave impact simulations are carried out by improved Incompressible SPH (ISPH) methods. The first improvement is the same as that in the Corrected ISPH (CISPH; [Khayyer A, Gotoh, H, Shao SD. Corrected incompressible SPH method for accurate water-surface tracking in breaking waves, Coast Eng 2008; 55 (3): 236–250]) method and is proposed for the improvement of momentum conservation. The second improvement is achieved by deriving and employing a higher order source term based on a more accurate differentiation to obtain a less fluctuating and more accurate pressure field. The enhanced performance of improved ISPH methods is demonstrated through the simulation of several fluid impact simulations in comparison with the experimental data and simulation results by other numerical methods.     

Isotopic composition of gas hydrates in subsurface sediments from offshore Sakhalin Island, Sea of Okhotsk

Hydrate-bearing sediment cores were retrieved from recently discovered seepage sites located offshore Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Okhotsk. We obtained samples of natural gas hydrates and dissolved gas in pore water using a headspace gas method for determining their molecular and isotopic compositions. Molecular composition ratios C₁/_C2+ from all the seepage sites were in the range of 1,500–50,000, while δ¹³C and δD values of methane ranged from ?66.0 to ?63.2‰ VPDB and ?204.6 to ?196.7‰ VSMOW, respectively. These results indicate that the methane was produced by microbial reduction of CO₂. δ¹³C values of ethane and propane (i.e., ?40.8 to ?27.4‰ VPDB and ?41.3 to ?30.6‰ VPDB, respectively) showed that small amounts of thermogenic gas were mixed with microbial methane. We also analyzed the isotopic difference between hydrate-bound and dissolved gases, and discovered that the magnitude by which the δD hydrate gas was smaller than that of dissolved gas was in the range 4.3–16.6‰, while there were no differences in δ¹³C values. Based on isotopic fractionation of guest gas during the formation of gas hydrate, we conclude that the current gas in the pore water is the source of the gas hydrate at the VNIIOkeangeologia and Giselle Flare sites, but not the source of the gas hydrate at the Hieroglyph and KOPRI sites.     

Near-infrared imaging survey of faint companions around young dwarfs in the Pleiades cluster

We conducted a near-infrared imaging survey of 11 young dwarfs in the Pleiades cluster using the Subaru Telescope and the near-infrared coronagraph imager. We found ten faint point sources,with magnitudes as faint as 20 mag in the K-band,with around seven dwarfs.Comparison with the Spitzer archive images revealed that a pair of the faint sources around V 1171 Tau is very red in infrared wavelengths,which indicates very low-mass young stellar objects.However,the results of our follow-up proper motion measure...     

Numerical investigation of the effect of seasonal variations of depthof-closure on shoreline evolution

The current study presents the effects of seasonal variations in the depth-of-closure(Dc)on shoreline evolution using a numerical,one-line shoreline model.Beach erosion of the southern beach of the Nha Trang Coast,which is located in south central of Vietnam,is selected as the study area.This study area is immensely influenced by the tropical monsoon climate that has a clear pattern of large waves in the northeast monsoon season and calm waves in the non-monsoon season.The analysis of the long-term measured shoreline variations from a video-camera system has found a strong correlation of these variations to the monsoon-dominated wave characteristics in the Nha Trang Bay.Therefore,a new approach for determining the depth-of-closure with consideration of the seasonal wave climate changes is purposed in the current study.By implementing this new approach into a numerical,one-line shoreline model,it is found that the seasonal variations of Dc appear to better describe the periodical shoreline evolution due to the monsoon-dominated wave characteristics for the Nha Trang Coast.Such important findings are considered to commonly apply for monsoon-dominated coastal regions in general.These findings are useful information not only for scientific readers but also for the coastal authorities and managers in order to make better countermeasure plans against this kind of erosion mechanism in the future.     

Millennial-scale oscillations of the westerly jet path during the last glacial period

It has been established that East Asian summer monsoon intensity varies with Dansgaard–Oeschger cycles, suggesting a connection between the climates of East Asia and the North Atlantic on a millennial timescale. However, the dynamics of such a connection are still unsolved. Here we demonstrate that temporal changes in the provenance of aeolian dust in Japan Sea sediments, which we interpret to reflect changes in the westerly jet path over East Asia, exhibit variations in harmony with Dansgaard–Oeschger cycles. The dominance of dust with a Mongolian Gobi provenance during stadials suggests a westerly jet axis located to the south of the Himalaya–Tibetan Plateau throughout most of the year, whereas the co-dominance of dust from both the Taklimakan Desert and the Mongolian Gobi during interstadials suggests that the westerly jet axis jumped to the north of the Tibetan Plateau at latest in summer. As the shift of the westerly jet axis to the north of the Tibetan Plateau is closely related to the onset of the East Asian summer monsoon, changes of the westerly jet path apparently critically affect the teleconnection between the climates of Asia and North Atlantic on a millennial timescale.     

Gold Mineralization in Banded Iron Formation in the Amalia Greenstone Belt,South Africa: A Mineralogical and Sulfur Isotope Study

The Blue Dot gold deposit, located in the Archean Amalia greenstone belt of South Africa, is hosted in an oxide (± carbonate) facies banded iron formation (BIF). It consists of three stratabound orebodies; Goudplaats, Abelskop, and Bothmasrust. The orebodies are flanked by quartz‐chlorite‐ferroan dolomite‐albite schist in the hanging wall and mafic (volcanic) schists in the footwall. Alteration minerals associated with the main hydrothermal stage in the BIF are dominated by quartz, ankerite‐dolomite series, siderite, chlorite, muscovite, sericite, hematite, pyrite, and minor amounts of chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite. This study investigates the characteristics of gold mineralization in the Amalia BIF based on ore textures, mineral‐chemical data and sulfur isotope analysis. Gold mineralization of the Blue Dot deposit is associated with quartz‐carbonate veins that crosscut the BIF layering. In contrast to previous works, petrographic evidence suggests that the gold mineralization is not solely attributed to replacement reactions between ore fluid and the magnetite or hematite in the host BIF because coarse hydrothermal pyrite grains do not show mutual replacement textures of the oxide minerals. Rather, the parallel‐bedded and generally chert‐hosted pyrites are in sharp contact with re‐crystallized euhedral to subhedral magnetite ± hematite grains, and the nature of their coexistence suggests that pyrite (and gold) precipitation was contemporaneous with magnetite–hematite re‐crystallization. The Fe/(Fe+Mg) ratio of the dolomite–ankerite series and chlorite decreased from veins through mineralized BIF and non‐mineralized BIF, in contrast to most Archean BIF‐hosted gold deposits. This is interpreted to be due to the effect of a high sulfur activity and increase in fO₂ in a H₂S‐dominant fluid during progressive fluid‐rock interaction. High sulfur activity of the hydrothermal fluid fixed pyrite in the BIF by consuming Fe²⁺ released into the chert layers and leaving the co‐precipitating carbonates and chlorites with less available ferrous iron content. Alternatively, the occurrence of hematite in the alteration assemblage of the host BIF caused a structural limitation in the assignment of Fe³⁺ in chlorite which favored the incorporation of magnesium (rather than ferric iron) in chlorite under increasing fO₂ conditions, and is consistent with deposits hosted in hematite‐bearing rocks. The combined effects of reduction in sulfur contents due to sulfide precipitation and increasing fO₂ during progressive fluid‐rock interactions are likely to be the principal factors to have caused gold deposition. Arsenopyrite–pyrite geothermometry indicated a temperature range of 300–350°C for the associated gold mineralization. The estimated δ³⁴S_ΣS (= +1.8 to +2.5‰) and low base metal contents of the sulfide ore mineralogy are consistent with sulfides that have been sourced from magma or derived by the dissolution of magmatic sulfides from volcanic rocks during fluid migration.     

Comparative studies in method for stratigraphical structure measurement of ice cores: Identification of cloudy bands

1　IntroductionCloudybandsaretypicalstratigraphicstructureindeepicecoresandtheylookwhitecolorwhenaflorescentlightwasirradiated.InWisconsinice ageiceattheGreenland ,manycloudybandsarelocatedincoldperiodsiceandcloudybandsareusedfordatingofdeepicecoresincepairofseriescloudybandandclearlayercorrespondstoannuallayer(Alleyetal.1 997;Meeseetal.1 997) .AndcloudybandcorrespondstovolcaniclayerfortheAntarcticicecore (GowandWilliamson 1 976) .Therefore,identificationofcloudybandsisimportantworkfordatin…     

Comparison of landslide susceptibility based on a decision-tree model and actual landslide occurrence: The Akaishi Mountains, Japan

This paper proposes a statistical decision-tree model to analyze landslide susceptibility in a wide area of the Akaishi Mountains, Japan. The objectives of this study were to validate the decision-tree model by comparing landslide susceptibility and actual landslide occurrence, and to reveal the relationships among landslide occurrence, topography, and geology. Landslide susceptibility was examined through ensemble learning with a decision tree. Decision trees are advantageous in that estimation processes and order of important explanatory variables are explicitly represented by the tree structures. Topographic characteristics (elevation, slope angle, profile curvature, plan curvature, and dissection and undissection height) and geological data were used as the explanatory variables. These topographic characteristics were calculated from digital elevation models (DEMs). The objective variables were landslide occurrence and reactivation data between 1992 and 2002 that were depicted by satellite image analysis. Landslide susceptibility was validated by comparing actual data on landslides that occurred and reactivated after the model was constructed (between 2002 and 2004).This study revealed that, from 2002 to 2004, landslides tended to occur and reactivate in catchments with high landslide susceptibility. The landslide susceptibility map thus depicts the actual landslide occurrence and reactivation in the Akaishi Mountains. This result indicates that the decision-tree model has appropriate accuracy for estimating the probabilities of future landslides. The tree structure indicates that landslides occurred and reactivated frequently in the catchments that had an average slope angle exceeding ca. 29° and a mode of slope angle exceeding 33°, which agree well with previous studies. A decision tree also quantitatively expresses important explanatory variables at the higher order of the tree structure.     

Seismological monitoring on the 2003 Tokachi-oki earthquake, derived from off Kushiro permanent cabled OBSs and land-based observations

Japan Marine Science and Technology Center installed a cabled geophysical observatory system off Kushiro, Hokkaido Island in July 1999. This observatory system comprises three ocean bottom seismographs (OBSs), two tsunami gauges, and a geophysical/geochemical monitoring system. 4 years and 2 months after the installation, a megathrust earthquake (the 2003 Tokachi-Oki earthquake, 26th September in Japan Standard Time (JST), M_JMA 8.0) occurred along a plate boundary underneath a forearc basin where the system is located. The system recorded clear unsaturated seismograms just at 28.6 km from the epicenter. This paper demonstrates advantages brought by the cabled observatory to record the megathrust earthquake showing how earthquake detectability is improved dramatically combining permanent OBS and land-based observations around the region, and importance of the in situ monitoring on the seismogenic zone. In the present study, processing OBSs and land-based network together, and comparing magnitudes of common observed earthquakes with national authorized network, event detection level improved down to M 1.5, which is much lower than the previously designed as down to M  2. Comparing detection level before and after installing OBSs, we found dramatic improvement of the earthquake detection level in the interesting region. Real-time continuous observations of microearthquakes since 1999 have brought us tremendous findings. First, a seismic quiescence started about 10 days before the 2003 Tokachi-Oki earthquake. Second, aftershock distribution is not uniform over the focal area and can be divided into several sub-regions, which might indicate an existence of several asperities. We think that the geophysical observations helped to understand the initiation process of the rupture of the 2003 Tokachi-Oki earthquake and that observations including seismological, geodynamic, hydrogeological, and the other multidisciplinary observations would provide a clue to future understanding of seismogenic processes at subduction zones.