Spawning of the frostfish,Lepidopus caudatus (Pisces: Trichiuridae), in New Zealand waters

Frostfish spawning, as indicated by the presence of planktonic eggs, was observed mainly in north‐eastern, but also in south‐western, New Zealand waters in spring to autumn. Spawning takes place in the afternoon in outer shelf waters 50–200 m deep, with surface temperatures and salinities between 17.5 and 22.0°C and 35.3 and 35.6‰ respectively. Egg and oil droplet diameters ranged from 1.65 to 1.75 mm and 0.40 to 0.43 mm respectively.     

Use of fluorescein as a ground water tracer in brackish water aquifers

A drift and pumpback experiment was conducted in a brackish water sandfill. The sandfill was reclaimed from the sea in the eastern part of Singapore and contains sands with low organic and clay/silt contents. The high salinity in the ground water precludes the use of chloride and bromide as tracers in such an environment, and a field experiment was conducted to assess the viability of using fluorescein as a tracer in brackish water aquifers. Nitrate was used as a second tracer to serve as a check. Initial laboratory studies showed that fluorescence was unaffected over the range of electrical conductivity and pH of the ground water. Results from the field experiment show that fluorescein appears to behave conservatively.     

Performing environmental governance

This essay reflects on issues of researcher positionality within participant observation and action research, and the specific methodological issues surrounding research on neoliberal governance strategies, using my experience at the US Environmental Protection Agency as case material. Although I was initially concerned about participating with the anti-progressive Bush Administration, I attempted to adopt the interests and subjectivity of an environmental bureaucrat. Doing so proved to be an extremely effective way of exploring the multi-vocality and cross-cutting interests constituting the state, which often appears from the outside to be a policy monolith. Participant research among elites in the neoliberal state is an effective way to observe such complexity. It became apparent that, because mainstream economics tends to adopt a totalizing epistemology, both its casual and dogmatic adherents usually do not conceive of a coherent external critique. This often means that researchers of any theoretical background can be quite frank concerning their purposes, background, and interests, even as participants.     

Radiolarian biochronology of Mesozoic deep-water successions in NW Syria and Cyprus: implications for south-Tethyan evolution

ABSTRACT New radiolarian biostratigraphical data have shed light on the Mesozoic tectonic evolution of South-Tethys in the Baer–Bassit region of NW Syria. Radiolarian assemblages of Late Triassic, Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age were extracted from radiolarites in five measured sections. The results are compared with published radiolarian ages from the Mamonia Complex, western Cyprus. These two areas are interpreted as preserved fragments of the conjugate margins of a small South Tethyan oceanic basin formed by Triassic rifting. In the southerly (i.e. Arabian) margin, proximal successions were dominated by shallow-water-derived carbonate, whereas distal successions reveal seamount-type alkaline/peralkaline volcanism, dated as both Late Triassic and Middle Jurassic–Early Cretaceous. Along the inferred northern margin (i.e. western Cyprus) proximal successions are dominantly terrigenous, whereas distal settings include Late Triassic oceanic crust and seamount-type lavas.     

Subduction,ophiolite genesis and collision history of Tethys adjacent to the Eurasian continental margin: new evidence from the Eastern Pontides,Turkey

This paper presents several types of new information including U–Pb radiometric dating of ophiolitic rocks and an intrusive granite, micropalaeontological dating of siliceous and calcareous sedimentary rocks, together with sedimentological, petrographic and structural data. The new information is synthesised with existing results from the study area and adjacent regions (Central Pontides and Lesser Caucasus) to produce a new tectonic model for the Mesozoic–Cenozoic tectonic development of this key Tethyan suture zone.

The Tethyan suture zone in NE Turkey (Ankara–Erzincan–Kars suture zone) exemplifies stages in the subduction, suturing and post-collisional deformation of a Mesozoic ocean basin that existed between the Eurasian (Pontide) and Gondwanan (Tauride) continents. Ophiolitic rocks, both as intact and as dismembered sequences, together with an intrusive granite (tonalite), formed during the Early Jurassic in a supra-subduction zone (SSZ) setting within the ?zmir–Ankara–Erzincan ocean. Basalts also occur as blocks and dismembered thrust sheets within Cretaceous accretionary melange. During the Early Jurassic, these basalts erupted in both a SSZ-type setting and in an intra-plate (seamount-type) setting. The volcanic-sedimentary melange accreted in an open-ocean setting in response to Cretaceous northward subduction beneath a backstop made up of Early Jurassic forearc ophiolitic crust. The Early Jurassic SSZ basalts in the melange were later detached from the overriding Early Jurassic ophiolitic crust.

Sedimentary melange (debris-flow deposits) locally includes ophiolitic extrusive rocks of boninitic composition that were metamorphosed under high-pressure low-temperature conditions. Slices of mainly Cretaceous clastic sedimentary rocks within the suture zone are interpreted as a deformed forearc basin that bordered the Eurasian active margin. The basin received a copious supply of sediments derived from Late Cretaceous arc volcanism together with input of ophiolitic detritus from accreted oceanic crust.

Accretionary melange was emplaced southwards onto the leading edge of the Tauride continent (Munzur Massif) during latest Cretaceous time. Accretionary melange was also emplaced northwards over the collapsed southern edge of the Eurasian continental margin (continental backstop) during the latest Cretaceous. Sedimentation persisted into the Early Eocene in more northerly areas of the Eurasian margin.

Collision of the Tauride and Eurasian continents took place progressively during latest Late Palaeocene–Early Eocene. The Jurassic SSZ ophiolites and the Cretaceous accretionary melange finally docked with the Eurasian margin. Coarse clastic sediments were shed from the uplifted Eurasian margin and infilled a narrow peripheral basin. Gravity flows accumulated in thrust-top piggyback basins above accretionary melange and dismembered ophiolites and also in a post-collisional peripheral basin above Eurasian crust. Thickening of the accretionary wedge triggered large-scale out-of-sequence thrusting and re-thrusting of continental margin and ophiolitic units. Collision culminated in detachment and northward thrusting on a regional scale.

Collisional deformation of the suture zone ended prior to the Mid-Eocene (~45?Ma) when the Eurasian margin was transgressed by non-marine and/or shallow-marine sediments. The foreland became volcanically active and subsided strongly during Mid-Eocene, possibly related to post-collisional slab rollback and/or delamination. The present structure and morphology of the suture zone was strongly influenced by several phases of mostly S-directed suture zone tightening (Late Eocene; pre-Pliocene), possible slab break-off and right-lateral strike-slip along the North Anatolian Transform Fault.

In the wider regional context, a double subduction zone model is preferred, in which northward subduction was active during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, both within the Tethyan ocean and bordering the Eurasian continental margin.     

Overview of the Late Tertiary–Recent tectonic and palaeo-environmental development of the Mediterranean region

The Late Tertiary history of the Mediterranean region exemplifies processes of ocean basin closure and continental collision, as determined from integrated land and marine evidence. During the Mesozoic–Early Tertiary, tectonic settings were dominated by evolution of Neotethys. This ocean generally widened eastwards, with a number of oceanic strands in the Eastern Mediterranean area. Great diversity of tectonic settings and palaeo-environments developed during the Tertiary closure history of these oceanic basins. In the Eastern Mediterranean region, more northerly Neotethyan strands were closed by the Mid Tertiary, while oceanic crust remained in the south in the present Eastern Mediterranean Sea area. Northwards subduction of the remaining southerly Neotethyan strand was probably active by the Early Miocene. Different areas exhibit different stages of convergence and ocean basin closure. In the east, the amalgamated Eurasian plate had collided with the Arabian margin (Africa) by the Late Miocene, while oceanic crust still persisted further west. Steady-state subduction during the Late Tertiary gave rise to the Mediterranean ridge, as a substantial mud-dominated accretionary wedge. In the Aegean area, sufficient northward subduction took place to activate arc volcanism and pervasive back arc extension, short of marginal basin opening. In the easternmost Mediterranean, only limited subduction took place, associated with supra-subduction zone extension (e.g. in Cyprus). Today, steady state-subduction continues only locally, where vestiges of Neotethys remain (e.g. Herodotus abyssal plain). In the Western Mediterranean area, suturing of the African and Eurasian plates initially took place in the Betic region (Early–Mid Tertiary), where the Neotethys had existed only as a narrow connection with the Central North Atlantic. In the Central Mediterranean region, where the Western Neotethys was wider, northward subduction was active, apparently as early as the Late Cretaceous. In a widely accepted interpretation, an Andean-type magmatic arc developed along the southern margin of Europe and was then rifted off in the Late Oligocene-Early Miocene, to form the Corsica-Sardinia Block, opening the North Balearic marginal basin in its wake. The migrating subduction zone and microcontinent then collided diachronously with North Africa-related continental units (North Africa and Apulia) from Late Oligocene-Early Miocene, giving rise to collisional thrust belts in the Northern and Southern Apennines and along the North African continental margin (i.e. the Maghrebian chain) to the Betic-Rif area. From the Early Miocene onwards, a separate subduction system became active, related to removal of Neotethyan oceanic crust to the southeast (Ionian Sea), fueling suprasubduction zone extension and opening of the Tyrrhenian Sea. ‘Orogenic collapse’ is an alternative mechanism of such extension, and is widely believed to have caused divergent thrusting in the Betic and Rif regions of the westernmost Mediterranean, at the same time as crustal extension and subsidence of the Alboran Sea.     

Latest Miocene and Pleistocene ages of faulting, determined by 40Ar/39Ar single-crystal dating of airfall tuff and silicic extrusives of the Erciyes Basin, central Turkey: evidence for intraplate deformation related to the tectonic escape of Anatolia

The Ericiyes Basin is a trans‐tensional basin situated 20 km north of the regional Ecemi? Fault Zone. Recently it has been hypothesized that faulting within the Erciyes Basin links with the Ecemi? Fault Zone further south as part of a regional Central Anatolian Fault Zone. New ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating of volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks adjacent to faults, both along the margins and in the centre of the Erciyes Basin, constrains the timing of basin inception and later faulting. Extensional faulting occurred along the eastern and western margins of the basin during the Early Messinian (latest Miocene). Sinistral and minor normal faulting were active along the axis of the basin during the early Pleistocene. These fault timings are similar to those inferred for the Ecemi? Fault Zone further south, and support the hypothesis that faulting within the Erciyes Basin and the Ecemi? Fault Zone are indeed linked.     

Eratosthenes Seamount: collisional processes in the easternmost Mediterranean in relation to the Plio-Quaternary uplift of southern Cyprus

Important new light is shed on subduction and incipient collisional processes in the Easternmost Mediterranean, notably the Plio-Quaternary uplift of the Troodos ophiolite, from new geophysical information collected during a cruise of the R.V. Gelendzhik in July 1993, as part of the Training-through-Research' programme. The data collected over the Eratosthenes Seamount formed part of the site-survey work for Leg 160 of the Ocean Drilling Program scheduled for spring 1995. The main results are that the Eratosthenes Seamount is in the process of actively subsiding, breaking-up and being thrust, beneath both Cyprus to the north and the Levantine Basin to the south. Northwards thrusting appears to post-date the Messinian, when evaporites accumulated around the lower flanks of a pre-existing seamount feature. Comparison with the geology of southern Cyprus and offshore areas suggests a causative link between northward underthrusting of the Eratosthenes Seamount and late Pliocene-mid Quaternary uplift of southern Cyprus, focused on the centre of the Troodos ophiolite.