Concentration and Isotopic and Elemental Composition of Organic Matter in Subsea Thawed and Permafrost Deposits of Buor-Khaya Bay

Oceanology - A comparative analysis of the content and composition of organic matter (OM) in samples of bottom sediments and subaqueous permafrost rocks by the concentration of organic carbon (OC),...     

Geophysical Studies of the Seymour Sewell Seamount on the Flank of the Central Indian Ridge

Oceanology - The volcanic structure of the Seymour Sewell seamount appears to have formed over a relatively long time in at least two stages. Its main massif was formed as a result of volcanic...     

Spatiotemporal Variations in the Content of Pollutants in the Moscow Air Basin and Their Emissions

Izvestiya, Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics - The location of Moscow on a plain within higher latitudes when compared to other megacities creates conditions for the chemical transformation of...     

Pockmarks in the inner Oslofjord,Norway

Multibeam bathymetric surveys of the Inner Oslofjord, Norway have revealed a high density of pockmarks in the 179-km² inner fjord area, which contains over 500 pockmarks of varying size, typically 20–50 m in diameter and 2–10 m deep. These pockmarks have been investigated with a variety of techniques, including acoustic subbottom profiling, sedimentological and geochemical analyses of cores, remotely operated vehicle observation, and morphometry. Both the distribution and shapes of the pockmarks suggest that they are related to structures in the bedrock underlying relatively thin (<50 m) unconsolidated glacial and postglacial sediments. The data provide no direct indication of a particular mode of pockmark formation, but release of large amounts of biogenic, shallow methane seems unlikely. Several lines of evidence point to a continuous process of pockmark formation followed by inactivity, with some pockmarks recently active whereas others have been inactive for a considerable time. Some pockmarks are characterised by coarse sediment in their centres. The density, variety and easy access make this pockmark field an ideal model area for pockmark research. John S. Gray is deceased.     

Describing and generating facies models for reservoir characterisation: 2D map view

This paper documents a new method for describing channel-related sedimentary deposits based on formal language theory. Using this method an analogue model of a sedimentary deposit can be encoded as a grammar. A program, called a parser, has been developed which can generate stochastic maps of these sedimentary deposits based on information in a specified grammar. The maps of sedimentary deposits generated by the parser have the same type, spatial arrangement, shape and size distribution as the analogue model. The successful generation of depositional maps represents a crucial step in the ongoing development of a new technique designed to generate 3D static geological models of sedimentary successions. The maps can be conditioned to match sparse hard data in the form of channel segments interpreted from seismic horizon maps.     

Seasonal changes in community composition and trophic structure of fish populations of five salt marshes along the Essex coastline, United Kingdom

European intertidal salt marshes are important nursery sites for juvenile fish and crustaceans. Due to the increasing threat of habitat loss, the seasonal changes of salt marsh fish communities need to be understood in order to appreciate the ecological and economic importance of the saltmarsh habitat. This study was the first in Great Britain to investigate the seasonal changes of salt marsh fish communities and the variation in community structure between closely located marsh habitats. Between February 2007 and March 2008, five marshes on three estuaries of the Essex coastline were sampled using flume nets to block off intertidal creeks at high tide. Fourteen fish species were caught. The community overall was dominated by three species that made up 91.6% of the total catch: the common goby Pomatoschistus microps (46.2% of the total catch), juvenile herring Clupea harengus (24.3%), and juvenile and larval sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax (21.2%). Cluster analysis demonstrated clear seasonal patterns, with some community structures unique to specific marshes or estuaries. The marsh fish community shifts from a highly diverse community during spring, to a community dominated by D. labrax and P. microps in autumn, and low diversity during winter months. Gravimetric stomach content analysis of fish community identified three main trophic guilds; macroinvertivores, planktivores and omnivores. The macroinvertivore feeding guild contained D. labrax and P. microps, the two most frequently occurring species. This investigation demonstrates the importance of British salt marshes as nursery habitats for commercial fish species.     

Two-dimensional analysis of the semidiurnal tide in some regions of the white sea

An improved method of two-dimensional kinematical structural analysis of tides (the “method of the orbits”) is presented. This method allows us to determine the parameters of the primary tidal waves shaping the observed tidal structure. The construction of the vertical orbits for the individual tidal harmonics is performed along the horizontal coordinate axes; one of them is oriented along the so-called “reactive azimuth,” which coincides with the direction of the tidal current at the instant of the zero tidal level. In this case, the orbit parameters include information on the amplitude-phase relations of the interfering waves and allow us to determine the angle of the waves crossing. The suggested method enables us to quantitatively describe the mechanism of the tidal formation with oblique interference both close to the shore and in the open sea. We tested the new method in two local zones of the White Sea (Morzhovets Island and in the vicinity of the entrance to Kandalaksha Gulf) where the presence of rotating semidiurnal tidal currents evidences the significant role of oblique interference of tidal waves. In these zones, the developed method made it possible to perform a detailed quantitative analysis of the local tide structure caused by the M₂ tidal wave, which plays the dominant role in the White Sea. The result describes the structure of the propagation of the primary tidal waves better than the field of “pure” energy fluxes that was used earlier.     

Penetration of internal waves into the ocean’s thickness

The data of beam propagation of internal waves into the ocean are confirmed by several analytical solutions of the linear long wave theory. The obtained solutions are applied to calculate the mode of the internal waves.     

Validating and assessing the sensitivity of the climate model with an ocean general circulation model developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics,Russian Academy of Sciences

A new version of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS), climate model (CM) has been developed using an ocean general circulation model instead of the statistical-dynamical ocean model applied in the previous version. The spatial resolution of the new ocean model is 3° in latitude and 5° in longitude, with 25 unevenly spaced vertical levels. In the previous version of the oceanic model, as in the atmospheric model, the horizontal resolution was 4.5° in latitude and 6° in longitude, with four vertical levels (the upper quasi-homogeneous layer, seasonal thermocline, abyssal ocean, and bottom friction layer). There is no correction for the heat and momentum fluxes between the atmosphere and ocean in the new version of the IAP RAS CM. Numerical experiments with the IAP RAS CM have been performed under current initial and boundary conditions, as well as with an increasing concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The main simulated atmospheric and oceanic fields agree quite well with observational data. The new version’s equilibrium temperature sensitivity to atmospheric CO₂ doubling was found to be 2.9 K. This value lies in the mid-range of estimates (2–4.5 K) obtained from simulations with state-of-the-art models of different complexities.