Distribution of the Neogene Utsira Sand and the succeeding deposits in the Viking Graben area, North Sea

The sandy quartzose parts of the Utsira Formation, the Middle Miocene to mid Pliocene Utsira Sand, extends north–south along the Viking Graben near the UK/Norwegian median line for more than 450 km and 75–130 km east–west. The Utsira Sand is located in basin-restricted seismic depocentres, east of and below prograding sandy units from the Shetland Platform area with Hutton Sands. The Utsira Sand reaches thicknesses up to ca. 300 m in the southern depocentre and 200 m in the two northern depocentres with sedimentation rates up to 2–4 cm/ka. Succeeding Plio–Pleistocene is divided into seismic units, including Base Upper Pliocene, Shale Drape, Prograding Complex and Pleistocene. The units mainly consist of clay, but locally minor sands occur, especially at toes of prograding clinoforms (bottom-set sands) and in the Pleistocene parts, and the total thickness covering the Utsira Sand is in most places more than 800 m, but thins towards the margins.     

Rare species, habitat diversity and functional redundancy in marine benthos

Macro-ecological theories relating species richness, abundance, range size, biological traits and environmental tolerance have rarely been tested in marine soft-sediments, despite the spatial extent of these habitats and the inherent richness of resident communities. This study examines the contribution of rare species to marine soft-sediment communities from New Zealand, focussing on the relationships of range size with abundance, environment, habitat diversity and life history traits. 54% of the 351 species sampled exhibited restricted ranges (found at ≤ 2 sites). In contrast to many terrestrial systems, we observed only a weak positive relationship between abundance and frequency of occurrence. Restricted-range species were not randomly distributed, with their distribution related to habitat characteristics, suggesting an important link between habitat diversity and rarity. They exhibited a similar range of traits to the total observed species pool, suggesting that they are not only important to biodiversity but could play a role in stability. Restricted range species were generally not small and this, together with the number of different biological traits represented, suggests that rare species are important to the functioning of marine systems. Thus, our results highlight the importance of considering rare species in habitat-based approaches to conservation.     

Three-parameter model of turbulence for the atmospheric boundary layer over an urbanized surface

A modified three-parameter model of turbulence for a thermally stratified atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is presented. The model is based on tensor-invariant parametrizations for the pressure-strain and pressure-temperature correlations that are more complete than the parametrizations used in the Mellor-Yamada model of level 3.0. The turbulent momentum and heat fluxes are calculated with explicit algebraic models obtained with the aid of symbol algebra from the transport equations for momentum and heat fluxes in the approximation of weakly equilibrium turbulence. The turbulent transport of heat and momentum fluxes is assumed to be negligibly small in this approximation. The three-parameter E ? ε ? 2> model of thermally stratified turbulence is employed to obtain closed-form algebraic expressions for the fluxes. A computational test of a 24-h ABL evolution is implemented for an idealized two-dimensional region. Comparison of the computed results with the available observational data and other numerical models shows that the proposed model is able to reproduce both the most important structural features of the turbulence in an urban canopy layer near the urbanized ABL surface and the effect of urban roughness on a global structure of the fields of wind and temperature over a city. The results of the computational test for the new model indicate that the motion of air in the urban canopy layer is strongly influenced by mechanical factors (buildings) and thermal stratification.     

The regime shift of the 1920s and 1930s in the North Atlantic

During the 1920s and 1930s, there was a dramatic warming of the northern North Atlantic Ocean. Warmer-than-normal sea temperatures, reduced sea ice conditions and enhanced Atlantic inflow in northern regions continued through to the 1950s and 1960s, with the timing of the decline to colder temperatures varying with location. Ecosystem changes associated with the warm period included a general northward movement of fish. Boreal species of fish such as cod, haddock and herring expanded farther north while colder-water species such as capelin and polar cod retreated northward. The maximum recorded movement involved cod, which spread approximately 1200 km northward along West Greenland. Migration patterns of “warmer water” species also changed with earlier arrivals and later departures. New spawning sites were observed farther north for several species or stocks while for others the relative contribution from northern spawning sites increased. Some southern species of fish that were unknown in northern areas prior to the warming event became occasional, and in some cases, frequent visitors. Higher recruitment and growth led to increased biomass of important commercial species such as cod and herring in many regions of the northern North Atlantic. Benthos associated with Atlantic waters spread northward off Western Svalbard and eastward into the eastern Barents Sea. Based on increased phytoplankton and zooplankton production in several areas, it is argued that bottom-up processes were the primary cause of these changes. The warming in the 1920s and 1930s is considered to constitute the most significant regime shift experienced in the North Atlantic in the 20th century.     

Electronic atlas of the Russian Arctic coastal zone

A set of digital maps including geology, Quaternary sediments, landscapes, engineering-geological, vegetation, geocryological and the series of regional sources have been selected to characterize the Russian Arctic coast. Based on this data, new maps of engineering geocryological zoning and zoning of the coast with respect to the intensity of exogenous geological processes and risk of technogenic impacts have been generated at the scales of 1:4,000,000–1:8,000,000. These maps are a tool to assess the impact of industry on the Arctic coast of the country.     

Target echo enhancement using a single-element time reversal mirror

Iterative Time Reversal (TR) procedures have been demonstrated to be successful in detecting scatterers even in a highly reverberant environment. The success of the method is attributable to a Time Reversal Mirror (TRM) consisting of an array of transceivers that allows one to reconstruct and reverse-propagate wavefronts of interest. This paper deals with the limiting case of a TRM reduced to a single transceiver, tested using a tank experiment with three scattering objects in free-field conditions. It is shown that it is possible to excite a resonance between the TR operator and the strongest mode of the target in the bandwidth of insonification. A simple free-field scattering model is used to study the mechanisms of convergence and to drive the physics-based analysis of data.     

Simple determination of dimethylsulfide (DMS) and dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) using solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a simple, sensitive and less destructive method for the determination of dimethylsulfide (DMS) in seawater. Combined with detection by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), the method had sufficient sensitivity (minimum detectable concentration of DMS was 0.05 nM), and practical levels of reproducibility (relative standard deviation ≤7%) and linearity (r ² > 0.995) over a wide concentration range (0.5 to 910 nM). The protocol developed was applied to a Sagami Bay water sample to determine concentrations of DMS and DMSP, and in situ DMSP-lyase activity.     

High-resolution measurements of chromophoric dissolved organic matter in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River plume regions

Chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) was measured in the spring and summer in the northern Gulf of Mexico with the ECOShuttle, a towed, instrumented, undulating vehicle. A submersible pump mounted on the vehicle supplied continuously flowing, uncontaminated seawater to online instruments in the shipboard laboratory and allowed discrete samples to be taken for further analysis. CDOM in the northern Gulf of Mexico was dominated by freshwater inputs from the Mississippi River through the Birdfoot region and to the west by discharge from the Atchafalaya River. CDOM was more extensively dispersed in the high-flow period in the spring but in both time periods was limited by stratification to the upper 12 m or so. Thin, subsurface CDOM maxima were observed below the plume during the highly stratified summer period but were absent in the spring. However, there was evidence of significant in situ biological production of CDOM in both seasons.The Mississippi River freshwater end member was similar in spring and summer, while the Atchafalaya end member was significantly higher in the spring. In both time periods, the Atchafalaya was significantly higher in CDOM and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) than the Mississippi presumably due to local production and exchange within the coastal wetlands along the lower Atchafalaya which are absent along the lower Mississippi. Nearshore waters may also have higher CDOM due to outwelling from coastal wetlands. High-resolution measurements allow the differentiation of various water masses and are indicative of rapidly varying (days to weeks) source waters. Highly dynamic but conservative mixing between various freshwater and marine end members apparently dominates CDOM distributions in the area with significant in situ biological inputs (bacterial degradation of phytoplankton detritus), evidence of flocculation, and minor photobleaching effects also observed. It is clear that high-resolution measurements and adaptive sampling strategies allow a more detailed examination of the processes that control CDOM distributions in river-dominated systems.