Occurrence of juvenile Atlantic sturgeon,Acipenser oxyrhynchus,in the upper tidal Delaware River

Eighty-nine juvenile Atlantic sturgeon,Acipenser oxyrhynchus oxyrhynchus, including 10 recaptures, were collected, tagged and released in the upper tidal Delaware River between July 1981 and December 1984. All were captured in the river channel between Roebling and Trenton, New Jersey, using bottom-set experimental gill nets during daylight hours. The species was present from July through December and collected in increased numbers in the past two years. The fork lengths ranged from 284 to 862 mm (mean±SD = 516 mm±106 mm) and the weights from 140 to 4,250 g (mean±SD = 1,369 g±815 g). Ten juvenile Atlantic sturgeon were recaptured between September 1983 and December 1984 and were at large from one to 418 d. Recapture data suggest that these sturgeon utilize this area annually from July through December, possibly as a nursery. Juvenile Atlantic sturgeon appear to utilize the upper tidal portion of the Delaware River for a much longer period of time and at lower temperatures than in other river systems.     

Ethnicity as a cause of migration in Eastern Europe

Migration within and from Eastern Europe has recently risen as a topic of significance on the European political agenda. One aspect of this complex migration matrix relates to ethnic unrest. This paper examines the scale and spatial ramifications of this movement on a part of the continent recently freed from communist rule.An attempt is made to divide the ethnic quilt of Eastern Europe into those countries with few such problems and those with many. It is possible then to define areas of active migration (hot spots) from those of potential migration (inflammable spots) based on predictions from the current situation.Active ethnic migration results from the present political/military instability in the western Balkans, where refugees have left for other parts of Europe to escape the present Croat-Serb-Muslim conflict. War escalation could encourage potential ethnic migration from Kosovo, the Sandzak and Vojvodina regions,and Macedonia within the former Yugoslavia. Future disquiet elsewhere could stimulate ethnic groups such as the Turks in Bulgaria,and the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania to join this migration movement scenario.     

Deep-sea smokers: windows to a subsurface biosphere?

Since the discovery of hyperthermophilic microbial activity in hydrothermal fluids recovered from "smoker" vents on the East Pacific Rise, the widely accepted upper temperature limit for life (based on pure culture data) has risen from below the boiling point of water at atmospheric pressure to approximately 115 degrees C. Many microbiologists seem willing to speculate that the maximum may be closer to 150 degrees C. We have postulated not only higher temperatures than these (under deep-sea hydrostatic pressures), but also the existence of a biosphere subsurface to accessible seafloor vents. New geochemical information from the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge indicative of subsurface organic material caused us to re-examine both the literature on hyperthermophilic microorganisms cultured from deep-sea smoker environments and recent results of microbial sampling efforts at actively discharging smokers on the Endeavour Segment. Here we offer the case for a subsurface biosphere based on an interdisciplinary view of microbial and geochemical analyses of Endeavour smoker fluids, a case in keeping with rapidly evolving geophysical understanding of organic stability under deep-sea hydrothermal conditions.     

Organic matter of the Mulhouse Basin, France: a synthesis

The lower Oligocene evaporite sequence of the Mulhouse Basin (France) contains organic matter-rich marl deposits. These marls display an overall cyclic variation of sedimentation rate, organic carbon content, hydrogen index and selected molecular parameters over a 30 m thick stratigraphic interval. The integration of all sedimentological and geochemical parameters has allowed the reconstruction and characterization of the paleoenvironment of deposition. The marls were deposited in a perennial lake that was at times connected to the sea. Two organic facies end members could be assigned to a lake stage with a marine connection and a lake stage that received dominantly continental water input. The overall stratigraphic variation in the organic matter content is interpreted to reflect the adaptation of the Oligocene flora to the changing paleoclimate and environmental conditions.     

Mesozoic interaction of the Kula plate and the western margin of north america

Oceanic crust west of North America at the beginning of the Jurassic belonged to the Kula plate. The development of the western margin of North America since the Jurassic reflects interaction with the Kula plate, the Kula-Farallon spreading center and the Farallon plate. The Kula plate ceased to exist in the Paleocene and later developments were caused by interaction of the Farallon plate and, subsequently, collision with the East Pacific Rise.At the beginning of the Jurassic, when spreading between North and South America began, the Kula-Farallon-Pacific triple junction moved to the north relative to North America, and the eastern end of the Kula-Farallon spreading center swept northwards along the continental margin.During the Paleocene, Kula-Pacific spreading ceased and the Kula plate fused to the Pacific plate. Throughout the Mesozoic, subduction of the Kula plate took place along the Alaskan continental margin. When the Kula plate joined the Pacific plate a new subduction zone formed along the line of the present Aleutian chain.Wrangellia and Stikinia, anomalous terrains in Alaska and northwestern Canada respectively, were emplaced by transport on the Kula plate from lower latitudes. Hypotheses which require transport of these plates in the Mesozoic from the “far reaches of the Pacific” ignore the problem of transport across either the Kula-Pacific or Kula-Farallon spreading centers. The interaction of the Kula plate and western North America throughout the Jurassic and the Cretaceous should result in emplacement of these terrains by motion oblique to the continental margin. Tethyan faunas in Stikinia must come from the western end of Tethys between North and South America, not the Indonesian region at the eastern end of Tethys.As the northeastern end of the Kula-Farallon ridge moved northward, the sense of motion changed from right lateral shear between the Kula and North American plates to collision or left lateral shear between the Farallon and North American plates. Left lateral shear along zones analogous to the Mojave-Sonora megashear may have been the means by which anomalous terrains were transported to the southeast into the gap between North and South America forming present day Central America. Such a model overcomes the overlap difficulties suffered in previous attempts to reconstruct the Mesozoic paleogeography of Central America.     

Development of New Zealand according to the fore-arc model of crustal evolution

Analysis of New Zealand geology using a fore-arc model (Crook, 1980a) leads to the recognition of four arc terrains. The west facing Tuhua volcanic arc was active from the Late Proterozoic until the Middle or Late Cambrian. Post-subduction sediments, neritic in the east and flysch in the west, accumulated on the Tuhua accretionary prism from the Late Cambrian until the Early Devonian. Thermal equilibration, metamorphism, granitoid plutonism and penetrative deformation occurred in the Middle to Late Devonian. A small area of Permian platform cover has escaped later erosion. The east-facing Rangitata Terrain records subduction from Early Permian to late Early Cretaceous. Much of its accretionary prism consists of a submarine fan complex derived from Western Antarctica and carried sideways into the trench. The accretionary prism is thick and completely kratonized in southern New Zealand, but the thickness is more variable northwards. There the overlying Upper Cretaceous to Upper Oligocene post-subduction sequence comprises shelf sediments (implying an intermediate-thickness prism) or flysch followed by shelf sediments (implying a thin prism). During the accumulation of this sequence the Rangitata Terrain was a passive continental margin. The south-facing Jurassic-late Oligocene Northland Terrain collided with this passive margin in northern New Zealand at the end of the Oligocene, forming the Northland Allochthon. Subduction then flipped and the oldest part of the Kaikoura Terrain volcanic arc formed on the outer part of the Northland Terrain. Originally this terrain faced northeast and consumed the southwestern part of the South Fiji Basin crust, but during the Miocene the arc migrated clockwise to assume its present northeastern orientation. The fore-arc model employed here satisfactorily explains most first-order and many second-order features of New Zealand geology without requiring modification, thus attesting to the model's versatility and robustness. New Zealand provides a basis for elaborating some aspects of the model, particularly the transition from the syn- to post-subduction phases of fore-arc evolution. Combination of this study with a similar study of the southeastern Australian Paleozoic yields insights into the Phanerozoic evolution of the Australian: Pacific Plates' active margin.     

Crustal strain phenomena in the Solomon Islands, constraints from field evidence, and relationship to the India-Pacific plates' boundary

The Solomon Islands lie along the India-Pacific plates' margin and have recorded a history of deformation resulting from the interaction of these two plates. Various kinematic models have been proposed for the Solomons and these have involved a variety of plate tectonic processes. It is pointed out that almost without exception these models have been based on a provincial geological classification of the island group in which it is assumed that two of these provinces—Pacific and Central provinces—commenced their geological development in regions distant from one another. Invariably such models require that Santa Isabel represents part of a collision zone between these two provinces, though field evidence from Santa Isabel for such a collision has in the past been largely lacking.These various kinematic models are examined in the light of more recent field evidence, and a premise on which they have been based—initial separate development for two of the provinces—is questioned. Rather it is here suggested that the Central and Pacific provinces developed in roughly similar positions, one with the other as they occur today, and that they were at least in part separated from Oligocene time onward by a linear peridotite-gabbro ridge, Korighole-Florida high, which acted as a sediment barrier to much of the coarser clastic and volcanogenic sedimentation.The initial development of the Solomon Islands began in an oceanic environment with the extrusion of extensive submarine tholeiitic ‘flood basalts’ and intrusion of associated gabbroic and ultramafic rocks at depth, during the Late Mesozoic to Early Tertiary. This igneous phase occurred with the whole of the island group representing the western margin of the Ontong Java Plateau. Subsequent asymmetric development of the Solomons during the Eocene and Oligocene resulted in uplift, shearing, and the initiation of arc volcanism, plutonism, and arc-related sedimentation in the Central province to the west. In contrast, through much of the Tertiary the Pacific province to the east continued to receive dominantly pelagic sediments before undergoing uplift and renewed deformation in the Pliocene. The recognition that the ophiolite crust in the Solomon Islands represents an autochthonous entity, which has acted as basement to subsequent arc volcanism, has significant implications on geochemical studies of these islands now being undertaken.     

The geochemistry and petrogenesis of the Lower Paleozoic granitoids of the Lleyn Peninsula,North Wales

The Lleyn Peninsula of North Wales is penetrated by at least twenty stocks varying from microtonalite through to microgranite and these are closely associated with Caradocian volcanic rocks which include andesitic lavas.Major and trace element analyses show that the sample population may be separated into a peralkaline group and a sub-alkaline group. This latter group may be sub-divided into three compositional series which range from andesite to granite. The andesites are represented by the Caradocian lavas of the Moel y Penmaen district and these plot at one end of major and trace element variation diagrams. Their coherent relationships to the granitoids demonstrate the latter to be Ordovician and therefore ends a longstanding controversy concerning their age. The distinctive geochemistry of the andesites indicates the strong probability that they have evolved from transitional tholeiitic magma by low-pressure crystal fractionation. Apatite fractionation has strongly controlled the rare earth element abundances in the granitoids and for most compositions from andesite through granite their bulk distribution coefficient is greater than unity.The association of peralkaline granites, transitional tholeiites and other geological and geophysical evidence suggests that the area was a region of ensialic crustal tension during the mid-Ordovician.