Marine ecosystem approaches to management: challenges and lessons in the United States

This study examined how the United States’ largest marine resource management agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has begun to change its management strategy away from traditional marine resource management approaches towards an Ecosystem Approach to Management (EAM). Surveys were conducted with 57 NOAA scientists and resource managers in nine NOAA programs in 8 different geographic regions across the United States in 2005. A qualitative analysis examined the attitudes and experiences of participants with respect to implementing EAM and identified four major challenges to enhancing cooperation and understanding of EAM. We conclude with recommendations for concrete initiatives that future efforts in EAM that any management agency can undertake to facilitate further ecosystem management opportunities.     

Vesta: The first pyroxene band from new spectroscopic measurements

New spectral reflectance measurements of asteroid 4 Vesta were obtained using a silicon vidicon spectrometer with a resolution of 0.002–0.004 μm. The major absorption band in the near infrared has a minimum at 0.924 ± 0.004 μm with a bandwidth of 0.18 μm full width at half power (fwhp). The band represents a 30% absorption relative to peak reflectance at 0.75 μm. The absorption band has been interpreted to be due to electronic absorptions in ferrous iron in sixfold coordination in the pyroxene, pigeonite. The increased spectral resolution of these observations compared to earlier spectrophotometry enables us to refine the pyroxene composition, from the position of the Fe²⁺ absorption band, and arrive at a relative calcium content [Ca/(Mg + Fe + Ca)] of 10–12%. The absorption band is symmetric about its center, implying the presence of little or no olivine. The existence of the 2.0-μm pyroxene band which was verified by Larson and Fink (1975) confirms the interpretation based on the 1.0-μm band.     

An alternative model for the Damara Mobile Belt: Ocean crust subduction and continental convergence

The Pan-African Damara Mobile Belt has previously been described as ensialic, possibly resulting from a modified aulacogen.Three features of the Damara Mobile Belt are difficult to reconcile with ensialic models. Firstly, the complex asymmetrical structural pattern of linear zones, with up to 80% shortening across the belt. Secondly, the markedly asymmetric metamorphic pattern broadly follows the structural pattern forming two distinct, parallel metamorphic belts of relatively high (northern belt) and low (southern belt) geothermal gradients, respectively. Abundant granitic intrusions occur in the high-grade metamorphic belt. Thirdly, the evolution of the Damara igneous rocks; the early (Nosib) igneous rocks are alkali; mid-Damara (Matchless Member) amphibolites resemble oceanic-floor basalts. Depleted upper-mantle material representing oceanic lithosphere was tectonically emplaced into the Damara metasediments during early tectonism. An extensive calc-alkali suite (the Salem Suite) intruded the high-grade metamorphic belt during a long period spanning most of the Damara tectonism.A model invoking the formation of alkali rocks, followed by the development of oceanic crust, initiation of northwestward subduction and ocean closure terminating in continental collision is considered to explain the major features.     

Shoreface morphodynamics on wave-dominated coasts

An open ocean shoreface typical of long, wave-dominated sandy coasts has been examined through a combination of extensive field measurements of wave and current patterns with computations of marine bedload transport and sedimentation. Sand transport on the upper shoreface is dominantly controlled by waves with only secondary transport by currents. Sand on the middle and lower shoreface, as well as the inner continental shelf is entrained by storm waves and transported by a complex pattern of bottom boundary layer currents.

Storm events have been studied and modeled for the shoreface off Tiana Beach, Long Island. The dominant effect of coastal frontal storms is to cause significant shore-parallel bedload transport with important shore-normal secondary components. These storms tend to result in net offshore transport of sand removed from the beach and surf zone systems. The bedload transport during a storm is convergent on the shoreface leading to accretion. Most accretion occurs on the upper shoreface with lesser deposits covering the middle and lower shoreface as well as the inner continental shelf. Longer-term equilibrium can be maintained by slow return of sand up the shoreface during non-storm conditions.

Annual and geologic time-scale budgets of shoreface sand transport and sedimentation yield equilibrium, net accretion or net deposition. The annual balance results from an integration of the event-scale bedload transport patterns and morphologic responses. These processes and responses have feedback mechanisms which stabilize the system over longer, but not geologic, time scales. Geologic time scale balances are controlled by relative sea level changes and relative availability of sediment supply with the event-scale shoreface and transporting processes providing the mechanism to produce the changes in long-term morphology and sedimentation patterns. In the area of study, the long-term pattern is one of net shoreface erosion, and the permanent loss of sand to the shelf floor.     

Crustal reworking in a shear zone: transformation of metagranite to migmatite

This study uses field, microstructural and geochemical data to investigate the processes contributing to the petrological diversity that arises when granitic continental crust is reworked. The Kinawa migmatite formed when Archean TTG crust in the São Francisco Craton, Brazil was reworked by partial melting at ~730 °C and 5–6 kbar in a regional‐scale shear zone. As a result, a relatively uniform leucogranodiorite protolith produced compositionally and microstructurally diverse diatexites and leucosomes. All outcrops of migmatite display either a magmatic foliation, flow banding or transposed leucosomes and indicate strong, melt‐present shearing. There are three types of diatexite. Grey diatexites are interpreted to be residuum, although melt segregation was incomplete in some samples. Biotite stable, H₂O‐fluxed melting is inferred via the reaction Pl + Kfs + Qz + H₂O = melt and geochemical modelling indicates 0.35–0.40 partial melting. Schlieren diatexites are extremely heterogeneous; residuum‐rich domains alternate with leucocratic quartzofeldspathic domains. Homogeneous diatexites have the highest SiO₂ and K₂O contents and are coarse‐grained, leucocratic rocks. Homogeneous diatexites, quartzofeldspathic domains from the schlieren diatexites and the leucosomes contain both plagioclase‐dominated and K‐feldspar‐dominated feldspar framework microstructures and hence were melt‐derived rocks. Both types of feldspar frameworks show evidence of tectonic compaction. Modelling the crystallization of an initial anatectic melt shows plagioclase appears first; K‐feldspar appears after ~40% crystallization. In the active shear zone setting, shear‐enhanced compaction provided an essentially continuous driving force for segregation. Thus, Kinawa migmatites with plagioclase frameworks are interpreted to have formed by shear‐enhanced compaction early in the crystallization of anatectic melt, whereas those with K‐feldspar frameworks formed later from the expelled fractionated melt. Trace element abundances in some biotite and plagioclase from the fractionated melt‐derived rocks indicate that these entrained minerals were derived from the wall rocks. Results from the Kinawa migmatites indicate that the key factor in generating petrological diversity during crustal reworking is that shear‐enhanced compaction drove melt segregation throughout the period that melt was present in the rocks. Segregation of melt during melting produced residuum and anatectic melt and their mixtures, whereas segregation during crystallization resulted in crystal fractionation and generated diverse plagioclase‐rich rocks and fractionated melts.     

Surface water–groundwater exchange dynamics in a tidal freshwater zone

In coastal rivers, tides can propagate for tens to hundreds of kilometres inland beyond the saltwater line. Yet the influence of tides on river–aquifer connectivity and solute transport in tidal freshwater zones (TFZs) is largely unknown. We estimate that along the TFZ of White Clay Creek (Delaware, USA), 11% of river water exchanges through tidal bank storage zones. Additional hyporheic processes such as flow through bedforms likely contribute even more exchange. The turnover length associated with tidal bank storage is 150 km, on the order of turnover lengths for all hyporheic exchange processes in non‐tidal rivers of similar size. Based on measurements at a transect of piezometers located 17 km from the coast, tides exchange 0.36 m³ of water across the banks and 0.86 m³ across the bed per unit river length. Exchange fluxes range from ?1.66 to 2.26 m day^?1 across the bank and ?0.84 to 1.88 m day^?1 across the bed. During rising tide, river water infiltrates into the riparian aquifer, and the downstream transport rate in the channel is low. During falling tide, stored groundwater is released to the river, and the downstream transport rate in the channel increases. Tidal bank storage zones may remove nutrients or other contaminants from river water and attenuate nutrient loads to coasts. Alternating expansion and contraction of aerobic zones in the riparian aquifer likely influence contaminant removal along flow paths. A clear need exists to understand contaminant removal and other ecosystem services in TFZs and adopt best management practices to promote these ecosystem services. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geoarchaeology of the Boca Negra Wash Area,Albuquerque Basin,New Mexico,USA

Dozens of Paleoindian sites, including the Boca Negra Wash (BNW) Folsom site (LA 124474), are scattered across a basalt plateau (the West Mesa) on the western side of the Albuquerque Basin, and adjacent uplands. The BNW site, like many others in the area, is located near a small (˜60 × 90 m) playa basin that formed in a depression on the basalt surface and was subsequently covered by an eolian sand sheet (Unit 1) dated by OSL to ˜23,000 yr B.P. Most of the basin fill is ˜2 m of playa mud (Units 2 and 3) dating ˜13,970 ¹⁴C yr B.P. (17,160–16,140 cal yr B.P.) at the sand–mud interface to ˜2810 ¹⁴C yr B.P. (˜2960–2860 cal yr B.P.) at the top. C/N ratios suggest that the BNW playa basin probably held water more often during the Folsom occupation; stable carbon isotope values indicate C3 vegetation was more common as well, but C4 grasses became dominant in the Holocene. Cores extracted from four playa basins nearby revealed a similar stratigraphy and geochronology, documenting presence of wetlands on playa floors during the Paleoindian occupation of the area. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.