Evidence for slope instability and current-induced sediment transport,the RMSTitanic wreck search area,Newfoundland rise

The first map of the sea bed morphology and sedimentary features within the RMSTitanic search area is proposed from the interpretation of SAR side-scan sonar images. Downslope sedimentary features such as erosional furrows and crown scarps constitute a 7 km wide instability corridor. A large field (15 km²) of asymmetrical sediment waves indicating a downslope transport is identified. Current-induced features corresponding to associated sand ribbons and barchan dunes resulting from the Western Boundary Undercurrent action are mapped. The morphology of theTitanic Canyon is also precised from the SAR images. Finally, the origin of the sea bed features is discussed in an attempt to link each bed form to a sedimentary process.     

Geotechnical aspects of fine-grained mass flow deposits: California Continental Borderland

Seismic reflection profiling demonstrates the importance of mass movement in the north-central California Borderland. Bulk properties of surficial hemipelagic sediments in the Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and San Nicolas basins show that different types of mass-transported sediments have different properties, although their general sedimentologic characteristics are very similar. Slump deposits have moderate water contents (48% wet weight basis), high plasticity indices (46%), and moderate activities (1.6). For debris flows these values are low: 28%, 5%, and 0.3, respectively, and for other types (liquefied flow, mudflows, and turbidities) the values are high: 54 to 63%, 49 to 58%, and 1.2 to 1.5, respectively.     

Waveform Shaping of Sonar Transducers for Improving the Vertical Resolution in Sub-bottom Sediments Profiling

Vertical resolution is of fundamental importance in sonar exploration and is directly related to the duration of the acoustic pulse generated by the transducer. The shorter the radiated pulse, the higher the vertical resolution. Many sub-bottom profiling sonar systems use piezoelectric transducers because they are reversible and well understood. Piezoelectric projectors are normally resonant transducers, which are intrinsically narrowband. A piezoelectric transducer is usually driven by a tone-burst. However, it is possible to use Fourier techniques to find a pre-compensated electrical driving function so that the transducer radiates a prescribed wider band acoustic waveform. This technique can be applied to synthesize zero-phase cosine-magnitude, Gaussian, and bionic pulses, with a conventional sandwich transducer. Zero-phase cosine-magnitude waveforms provide minimum length pulses (and therefore maximum resolution) within a prescribed frequency band.The aim of this paper is to illustrate the synthesis of wideband acoustic pulses using an underwater piezoelectric projector. The conventional acoustic waveform radiated when a Tonpiltz transducer is transiently excited using a “click” and allows its frequency response function to be measured. This function is used to design the electrical signal which then drives the transducer so that it radiates the shortest pulse compatible with its mechanical response. The significant resolution enhancement of the waveform shaping process is illustrated by its application to a sediment wedge model.     

Comparison of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon distributions and sedimentary organic matter characteristics in contaminated, coastal sediments from Pensacola Bay, Florida

In this study, we examined the distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a contaminated coastal area and the characteristics of the natural organic matter in tandem. We present a detailed study of PAH concentration, distribution, and organic matter characteristics of three core samples from Pensacola Bay, Florida. Solid-state 13C Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), pyrolysis gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) thermochemolysis GC-MS were applied to obtain structural details about the sedimentary organic matter. Elemental compositions (carbon and nitrogen) and estimates of black carbon contents are also reported. These coastal sediments were found to contain more PAHs in the upper 15 cm layers than in the bottom 15-25 cm samples. The samples that contained the most PAHs also contained the least amount of aromatic carbon and contained a significant amount of paraffinic carbon. Lignin-derived pyrolysis and TMAH thermochemolysis products were abundant and generally higher in all of the samples in comparison to those reported for modern coastal sediments, indicating a large flux of terrestrial carbon. The black carbon contents were found to range from 4.3% to 6.8%, which are significantly lower than other reports of black carbon in sediments, which represent as much as 65% of the total organic carbon content. The low black carbon content suggests that this type of refractory carbon may not be as responsible for regulating PAH distribution as indicated by other researchers.     

Using ocean ambient noise for array self-localization and self-synchronization

Estimates of the travel times between the elements of a bottom hydrophone array can be extracted from the time-averaged ambient noise cross-correlation function (NCF). This is confirmed using 11-min-long data blocks of ambient noise recordings that were collected in May 1995 near the southern California coast at an average depth of 21 m in the 150-700 Hz frequency range. Coherent horizontal wavefronts emerging from the time derivative of the NCF are obtained across the array's aperture and are related to the direct arrival time of the time-domain Green's function (TDGF). These coherent wavefronts are used for array element self-localization (AESL) and array element self-synchronization (AESS). The estimated array element locations are used to beamform on a towed source.     

Copepod grazing during spring blooms: Can Pseudocalanus newmani induce trophic cascades?

During late winter and spring of 2002 and 2003, 24 two- to three-day cruises were conducted to Dabob Bay, Washington State, USA, to examine the grazing, egg production, and hatching success rates of adult female Calanus pacificus and Pseudocalanus newmani. Here, we discuss the results of our grazing experiments for P. newmani. Each week, we conducted traditional microzooplankton dilution experiments and “copepod dilution” experiments, each from two different layers. Grazing was measured by changes in chlorophyll concentration and direct cell counts. Clearance rates on individual prey species, as calculated by cell counts, showed that Pseudocalanus are highly selective in their feeding, and may have much higher grazing rates on individual taxa than calculated from bulk chlorophyll disappearance. The grazing rates of the copepods, however, are typically an order of magnitude lower than the grazing rates of the microzooplankton community, or the growth rates of the phytoplankton. P. newmani ingested diatoms, but, at certain times fed preferentially on microzooplankton, such as ciliates, tintinnids, and larger dinoflagellates. Removal of the microzooplankton may have released the other phytoplankton species from grazing pressure, allowing those species’ abundance to increase, which was measured as an apparent “negative” grazing on those phytoplankton species. The net result of grazing on some phytoplankton species, while simultaneously releasing others from grazing pressure resulted in bulk chlorophyll-derived estimates of grazing which were essentially zero or slightly negative; thus bulk chlorophyll disappearance is a poor indicator of copepod grazing. Whether copepods can significantly release phytoplankton from the grazing pressure by microzooplankton in situ, thus causing a trophic cascade, remains to be verified, but is suggested by our study.     

Null broadening with snapshot-deficient covariance matrices in passive sonar

Adaptive-array beamforming achieves high resolution and sidelobe suppression by producing sharp s in the adaptive beampattern. Large-aperture sonar arrays with many elements have small resolution cells; interferers may move through many resolution cells in the time required for accumulating a full-rank sample covariance matrix. This leads to "snapshot-deficient" processing. In this paper, the -broadening technique originally developed for an ideal stationary problem is extended to the snapshot-deficient problem combined with white-noise constraint (WNC) adaptive processing. Null broadening allows the strong interferers to move through resolution cells and increases the number of degrees of freedom, thereby improving the detection of weak stationary signals.     

Simulation of green water flow on deck using non-linear dam breaking theory

Experiments carried out with models of floating production, storage and offloading platforms (FPSOs) showed that the flow of water over the deck edge, onto the deck resembled a suddenly released wall of water rather than a breaking wave. Therefore green water flow onto the deck was simulated using dam breaking theory, but the theory’s shallow-water assumptions may be limiting. In this paper a non-linear dam breaking problem is formulated. Equations of motion in the Lagrangian form are used and the solution is sought as an infinite series in time. Comparisons with the shallow water approximation are carried out.     

Robust adaptive control of underactuated ships on a linear course with comfort

This paper addresses an important problem in ship control application—the robust stabilization of underactuated ships on a linear course with comfort. Specifically, we develop a multivariable controller to stabilize ocean surface ships without a sway actuator on a linear course and to reduce roll and pitch simultaneously. The controller adapts to unknown parameters of the ship and constant environmental disturbances induced by wave, ocean current and wind. It is also robust to time-varying environmental disturbances, time-varying change in ship parameters and other motions of the ship such as surge and heave. The roll and pitch can be made arbitrarily small while the heading angle and sway are kept to be in reasonably small bounds. The controller development is based on Lyapunov’s direct method and backstepping technique. A Lipschitz continuous projection algorithm is used to update the estimate of the unknown parameters to avoid the parameters’ drift due to time-varying environmental disturbances. Simulations on a full-scale catamaran illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed controller.     

A nitrate and silicate budget in the equatorial Pacific Ocean: a coupled physical–biological model study

A coupled physical–biological model was developed to simulate the low-silicate, high-nitrate, and low-chlorophyll (LSHNLC) conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and used to compute a detailed budget in the Wyrtki box (5°N–5°S, 180–90°W) for the major sources and cycling of nitrogen and silicon in the equatorial Pacific. With the incorporation of biogenic silicon dissolution, NH₄ regeneration from organic nitrogen and nitrification of ammonia in the model, we show that silicon recycling in the upper ocean is less efficient than nitrogen. As the major source of nutrients to the equatorial Pacific, the Equatorial Undercurrent provides slightly less Si(OH)₄ than NO₃ to the upwelling zone, which is defined as 2.5°N–2.5°S. As a result, the equatorial upwelling supplies less Si(OH)₄ than NO₃ into the euphotic zone in the Wyrtki box, having a Si/N supply ratio of about 0.85 (2.5 vs. 2.96 mmolm⁻² day⁻¹). More Si(OH)₄ than NO₃ is taken up with a Si/N ratio of 1.17 (2.72 vs. 2.33 mmolm⁻² day⁻¹) within the euphotic zone. The difference between upwelling supply and biological uptake is balanced by nutrient regeneration and horizontal advection. Excluding regeneration, the net silicate and nitrate uptakes are nearly equal (1.76 vs. 1.84 mmolm⁻² day⁻¹). However, biogenic silica export production is slightly higher than organic nitrogen (1.74 vs. 1.59 mmolm⁻² day⁻¹) following a 1.1 Si/N ratio. In the central equatorial Pacific, low silicate concentrations limit diatom growth; therefore non-diatom new production accounts for most of the new production. Higher silicate supply in the east maintains elevated diatom growth rates and new production associated with diatoms dominate upwelling zone. In contrast, the new production associated with small phytoplankton is nearly constant or decreases eastward along the equator. The total new production has a higher rate in the east than in the west, following the pattern of surface silicate. This suggests that silicate regulates the diatom production, total new production, and thereby carbon cycle in this area. The modeled mean primary production is 48.4 mmolCm⁻² day⁻¹, representing the lower end of direct field measurements, while new production is 15.0 mmolCm⁻² day⁻¹, which compares well with previous estimates.