Nutrient (P, N) dynamics in the southwestern Kattegat, Scandinavia: sedimentation and resuspension effects

 The yearly nutrient supply from land and atmosphere to the study area in SW Kattegat is 10 900 tons of N and 365 tons of P. This is only few percent of the supply from adjacent marine areas, as the yearly transport through the study area is 218 000 tons of N and 18 250 tons of P. Yearly net deposition makes up 1340 tons of N (on average 2.5 g m^–2 yr^–1) and 477 ton of P (on average 0.9 g m^–2 yr^–1). Shallow-water parts of the study area have no net deposition because of frequent (>35% of the year) resuspension. Resuspension frequency in deep water is <1% of the year. Resuspension rates, as averages for the study area, are 10–17 times higher than net deposition rates. Because of resuspension, shallow-water sediments are coarse lag deposits with small amounts of organic matter (1.1%) and nutrients (0.04% N and 0.02% P). Deep-water sediments, in contrast, are fine grained with high levels of organic matter (11.7%) and nutrients (0.43% N and 0.15% P). Laboratory studies showed that resuspension changes the diffusive sediment water fluxes of nutrients, oxygen consumption, and penetration into the sediment. Fluxes of dissolved reactive phosphate from sediment to water after resuspension were negative in organic-rich sediments (13.2% organic matter) with low porosity (56) and close to zero in coarse sediments with a low organic matter content (2.3%) and high porosity (73). Fluxes of inorganic N after resuspension were reduced to 70% and 0–20% in relation to the rates before resuspension, respectively. Received: 10 July 1995 · Accepted: 19 January 1996     

Application of beam forming techniques to measurements of acoustic scattering from the ocean bottom

Signals from an explosive source backscattered from the seafloor and received at long range by hydrophones of a towed array are processed to estimate the directional distribution of energy for a given time increment. As assembly of these data shows the time and amplitude of scattering features, and after conversion to distance, the geographic location of the return. A frequency-domain beam-forming procedure is used in which beam levels are averaged over a given band of a broad-band source. The processing is applied to experimental data obtained in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. The major backscattering occurred at the Baconi Seamounts and the coastal margin of Sardinia.     

The western lapidary tradition in early geological literature: medicinal and magical minerals

Nowadays, when someone refers to lapidary they usually mean the process of polishing, engraving or working stones. The term is much broader than that, however, encompassing an entire genre of literature which formed the basis of much geological observation even before the word 'geology' was ever coined.     

The Early Pleistocene Praetiglian and Ludhamian pollen stages in the North Sea Basin and their relationship to the marine isotope record

In this paper, the currently accepted correlation of the Early Pleistocene Ludhamian stage of England with the Tiglian‐A sub‐stage of the Netherlands is challenged. Recent investigations of Early Pleistocene marine North Sea deposits from a borehole near Noordwijk (the Netherlands) yielded evidence from molluscs, dinoflagellate cysts and sporomorphs for an alternation of warm‐temperate and arctic intervals within the Praetiglian and Tiglian stages. Marine equivalents of the terrestrial‐based pollen sub‐stages Tiglian A and B have been recognised in the upper part of the sequence. A Praetiglian age can be assigned to the lower part of the sequence on the basis of mollusc analysis. Within the Praetiglian, an alternation of warm and cold phases has been recognised from both the dinoflagellate cyst and molluscan records. Three cold phases within the Praetiglian are tentatively correlated with marine isotope stages (MIS) 96–100. The molluscan assemblages provide evidence for climate forcing of the sea level: highest sea levels are reached in the warm‐temperate intervals. Within the Praetiglian, an interval with an acme zone of the dinoflagellate cyst Impagidinium multiplexum, is correlated with the Ludhamian and tentatively linked to MIS 97 and/or MIS 96. The cold molluscan assemblages from the Noordwijk borehole include an acme zone of Megayoldia thraciaeformis, the first and only occurrence of this North Pacific bivalve in the North Sea Basin. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

OSCR wave measurements-some preliminary results

OSCR is an HF radar system that has been developed for high spatial resolution coastal surface current measurement. This paper describes preliminary results that demonstrate that wave measurement can be successfully obtained from suitably processed OSCR data. Comparisons with data from a WAVEC directional buoy are presented and show encouraging agreement. Some of the limitations to the measurement process are discussed and indicate a maximum range of about 20 km. Surface current variability on short time scales presents the most serious obstacle to wave measurement. This appears to be more of a problem when the mean currents are large, in that in these circumstances the data fail initial quality control criteria. However, in lower mean currents, the effect is often still present and leads to errors in long wave measurement     

Application of an improved self-starter to geoacoustic inversion

The self-starter is improved using the operator of the split-step Pade solution. In addition to providing greater stability and being applicable closer to the source, the improved self-starter is an efficient forward model for geoacoustic inversion. It is necessary to solve only O(10) tridiagonal systems of equations to obtain the acoustic field on a vertical array located O(10) wavelengths from a source. This experimental configuration is effective for geoacoustic inverse problems involving unknown parameters deep in the ocean bottom. For problems involving depth-dependent acoustic parameters, the improved self-starter can be used to solve nonlinear inverse problems involving O(10) unknown sediment parameters in less than a minute on the current generation of workstations