Composition and Useful Properties of Tailings of Marine Manganese Nodules and Crusts

ABSTRACT

Marine manganese nodules and crusts, when processed, yield tailings which may be utilized for environmental and economic benefit. The key to the reasonable and effective utilization of these tailings lies in making a systematic appraisal of their composition and properties. This article gives an introduction to the investigation of manganese tailings properties. The tailings have a high iron and/or manganese content, high surface area, high porosity, and fine grain size. Some tailings have a high rare earth element content which is valuable. They may also have high SO₃, arsenic, and uranium contents which are harmful. Depending on the process used to produce the tailings, there will likely be some differences in chemical composition, mineral assemblages, surface area and adsorption capability, pore diameter and volume, density and pH. In assigning potentially beneficial applications for these tailings, these differences should be taken into account to optimize utilization.     

Evaluation of policy options for the live reef food fish trade in the province of Palawan,Western Philippines

The live reef food fish (LRFF) trade has an estimated annual retail value of US$1 billion in the Asia-Pacific region and at least US$30 million in the Philippines. Palawan Province is the trade's center accounting for as much as 55% of the commodity's total export. Concern about the LRFF trade has caused the Palawan Provincial government to take action to regulate the trade. Four key policy options to address the short-term policy objective of developing a sustainable LRFF industry through the reduction of threats associated with destructive fishing and overfishing were proposed. These four policy options and associated analyses were presented to stakeholders at three separate policy consultations. The stakeholders reached a consensus that a regulated LRFF trade was the most sensible option. As a result, the Provincial Government of Palawan took action to enact “The Palawan Live Reef Fish Ordinance of 2006”, which provides for the sustainable and integrated regulation of the LRFF industry. This provincial ordinance will assist in crafting a national policy for the LRFF trade and may also be useful in revising the 1998 Philippine Fisheries Code. The key challenge is how to translate the ordinance provisions into effective on-the-ground actions.     

Honey, I cooled the cods: Modelling the effect of temperature on the structure of Boreal/Arctic fish ecosystems

Historically colder regions of the North Atlantic had fisheries dominated by only a few fish species; principally cod and capelin. Possible population dynamic mechanisms that lead to such dominance are investigated by considering how a charmingly simple published multispecies model of the North Sea would react if the system operated at a lower temperature. The existing model equations were modified to describe temperature effects on growth, fecundity and recruitment and the model was rerun based on typical temperatures for the North Sea and a colder system. The results suggest that total fish biomass in the colder system increases but the community is more vulnerable to a given rate of fishing mortality. In the colder system, within species density dependence is reduced but relative predation rates are higher. Consequently, intermediate-sized species are vulnerable to relatively high levels of predation throughout their life history and tend to be excluded, leading to a system dominated by small and large species. The model helps to explain how temperature may govern coexistence and competitive exclusion in fish communities and accounts for the observed dominance of small and large species in Boreal/Arctic ecosystems.     

Dynamics of ocean cables with local low-tension regions

A general set of 3-D dynamic field equations for a cable segment is derived based on the classical Euler-Kirchhoff theory of an elastica. The model includes flexural stiffness to remove the potential singularity when cable tension vanishes and can be reduced to the equations for a perfectly flexible cable. A hybrid model and a solution scheme by direct integration are then proposed to solve the oceanic cable/body system with a localized low-tension region. Numerical examples demonstrate the capability and validity of the formulation and the numerical algorithm.     

浅海和陆相地层的高分辨率层序地层对比——以东犹他州书崖地区白垩系黑鹰组Sunnyside段为例

现代地层学研究中一个关键的问题是陆相和浅海相地层的对比和整和,尽管层序地层学在两种地层中均有很大发展,可是很少有成功的两者对比研究,本文的目的就是用陆地有机相和海相地层水进水退来产生一种新的层序地层演化的整和模式。     

A note on ocean surface drift with application to surface velocities measured with HF Radar

The ocean drift current consists of a (local) pure drift current generated by the interaction of wind and waves at the sea surface, to which the surface geostrophic current is added vectorially. We present (a) a similarity solution for the wave boundary layer (which has been validated through the prediction of the 10-m drag law), from which the component of pure drift current along the direction of the wind (and hence the speed factor) can be evaluated from the 10-m wind speed and the peak wave period, and (b) a similarity solution for the Ekman layers of the two fluids, which shows that under steady-state neutral conditions the pure drift current lies along the direction of the geostrophic wind, and has a magnitude 0.034 that of the geostrophic wind speed. The co-existence of these two similarity solutions indicates that the frictional properties of the coupled air-sea system are easily evaluated functions of the 10-m wind speed and the peak wave period, and also leads to a simple expression for the angle of deflection of the pure drift current to the 10 m wind. The analysis provides a dynamical model for global ocean drift on monthly and annual time scales for which the steady-state neutral model is a good approximation. In particular, the theoretical results appear to be able to successfully predict the mean surface drift measured by HF Radar, which at present is the best technique for studying the near surface velocity profile.     

Assessing the Measurement Consistency Between the Jason-2/AMR and SARAL/AltiKa/DFMR Microwave Radiometers Using Simultaneous Nadir Observations

SARAL/AltiKa has a Dual Frequency Microwave Radiometer (DFMR), and Jason-2 has an Advanced Microwave Radiometer (AMR). Both microwave radiometer sensors include a 23.8 GHz primary water sensing channel. The measurement consistencies between DFMR and AMR are important for establishing a consistent altimetry data set between SARAL/AltiKa and Jason-2 in order to accurately assess sea level rise in a long-term time series. This study investigates the measurement consistency in the 23.8 GHz channel between DFMR and AMR at the Simultaneous Nadir Overpasses (SNO's) between the two satellites and also at coldest ocean brightness temperature locations. Preliminary results show that while both instruments show no significant trends over the one year since the launch of SARAL, a consistent relative bias of 2.88 K (DFMR higher than AMR) with a standard deviation of 0.98 K is observed. The relative bias at the lowest brightness temperature from the SNO method (-3.82 K) is consistent with that calculated from coldest ocean method (-3.74 K). The relative bias exhibits strong latitude (and scene temperature) dependency, changing from -3.82 K at high latitudes to -0.92 K near the equator. There also exists an asymmetry between the northern and southern hemisphere. The relative bias increases toward the lower end of brightness temperature.     

On topographic coupling of surface and internal tides

The problem of the generation of internal tides through the interaction of surface tides with oceanic bottom topography is re-examined, taking into account the horizontal components of the Earth's rotation. It is shown that previous models that have omitted these terms may be readily extended to include them, and changes in the magnitude and character of the barotropic to baroclinic conversion are estimated. For semi-diurnal tides the energy conversion is increased, but only by about 2%. However, the character of the waves differs at high latitudes, where the phase and location of the wave energy may change by as much as 14%. Accordingly, inclusion of these terms is recommended in future studies with these models.