中扬子台地北缘灯影组白云岩研究

研究区白云岩成因类型可划分出准同生白云石化、回流渗透白云石化、混合水白云石化、压溶白云石化和埋藏白云石化。本文详细研了各成因类型的白云岩矿物岩石学特征和地球化学特征，重点探讨了埋藏白云石化Ｍｇ２＋来源及其搬运机理。认为埋藏白云石化Ｍｇ２＋来自粒间残留古海水，迁移机制与地下异常高压孔隙流体的驱动和襄樊－广济同沉积断裂的活动有关。五类白云岩中以混合水白云石化和埋藏白云石化的岩石类型储集性能最好。     

中扬子台地北缘灯影组碳酸盐岩成岩作用序列及成岩模式

研究区主要的成岩作用类型有胶结、溶解、硅化、白云石化、压实－压溶和去白云石化作用等，详细研究了每种成岩作用的矿物岩石学特征及对孔隙形成，演化的影响。把研究区成岩环境划分为大气淡水成岩环境、海水成岩环境、混合水成岩环境、埋藏成岩环境和晚期表生成岩环境五大类，总结了每种成岩环境的成岩组构特征，成岩标志、ε＾１８Ｏ和δ＾１３Ｃ及微量元素Ｎａ＾２＋、Ｓｒ＾２＋的分布规律。此外，还探讨了深水斜坡相粉－细晶白     

The most temperature-adapted corals have an Achilles' Heel

The corals of the Persian/Arabian Gulf are better adapted to temperature fluctuations than elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific. The Gulf is an extreme marine environment displaying the highest known summer water temperatures for any reef area. The small and shallow sea can be considered a good analogue to future conditions for the rest of the world’s oceans under global warming. The fact that corals can persist in such a demanding environment indicates that they have been able to acclimatize and selectively adapt to elevated temperature. The implication being that colonies elsewhere may be able to follow suit. This in turn provides hope that corals may, given sufficient time, similarly adapt to survive even in an impoverished form, under conditions of acidification-driven lowering of CaCO₃ saturation state, a further consequence of raised atmospheric CO₂. This paper demonstrates, however, that the uniquely adapted corals of the Gulf may, within the next three centuries, be threatened by a chronic habitat shortage brought about by the dissolution of the lithified seabed on which they rely for colonisation. This will occur due to modifications in the chemical composition of the Gulf waters due to climate change.     

Application of enterococci antibiotic resistance patterns for contamination source identification at Huntington Beach,California

Huntington Beach, California, one of the most popular surfing spots in the world, is plagued by sporadic, elevated levels of fecal bacteria. To assist with pollution source identification, we analyzed antibiotic resistance patterns (ARPs) of enterococci from four known sources (bird feces, urban runoff, coastal marsh sediment and sewage effluent from local sanitation district) and one unknown source (seawater) using seven antibiotics at four concentrations each. Of 2491 enterococci tested, all were resistant to at least one antibiotic at some level. Discriminant analysis indicated that the average correct classification rates for bird feces and urban runoff sources were above 80%. Sewage effluent contained mixed fecal sources. Sixty-four percent of the sewage isolates classified with the sewage category, while the other 35% of isolates were assigned evenly across the other three categories. When enterococci isolated from the seawater were classified using the known ARP database, it was evident that bird feces were the source of surf zone contamination on some days while the coastal salt marsh and sewage plume may have impacted the surf zone water quality to various degrees during other times.     

Modelling potential impacts of bottom trawl fisheries on soft sediment biogeochemistry in the North Sea

Bottom trawling causes physical disturbance to sediments particularly in shelf areas. The disturbance due to trawling is most significant in deeper areas with softer sediments where levels of natural disturbance due to wave and tidal action are low. In heavily fished areas, trawls may impact the same area of seabed more than four times per year. A single pass of a beam trawl, the heaviest gear routinely used in shelf sea fisheries, can kill 5–65% of the resident fauna and mix the top few cm of sediment. We expect that sediment community function, carbon mineralisation and biogeochemical fluxes will be strongly affected by trawling activity because the physical effects of trawling are equivalent to those of an extreme bioturbator, and yet, unlike bioturbating macrofauna, trawling does not directly contribute to community metabolism. We used an existing box-model of a generalised soft sediment system to examine the effects of trawling disturbance on carbon mineralisation and chemical concentrations. We contrasted the effects of a natural scenario, where bioturbation is a function of macrobenthos biomass, with an anthropogenic impact scenario where physical disturbance results from trawling rather than the action of bioturbating macrofauna. Simulation results suggest that the effects of low levels of trawling disturbance will be similar to those of natural bioturbators but that high levels of trawling disturbance prevent the modelled system from reaching equilibrium due to large carbon fluxes between oxic and anoxic carbon compartments. The presence of macrobenthos in the natural disturbance scenario allowed sediment chemical storage and fluxes to reach equilibrium. This is because the macrobenthos are important carbon consumers in the system whose presence reduces the magnitude of available carbon fluxes. In soft sediment systems, where the level physical disturbance due to waves and tides is low, model results suggest that intensive trawling disturbance could cause large fluctuations in benthic chemical fluxes and storage.     

First Mass-resolved Measurement of High-Energy Cosmic-Ray Antiprotons

We report new results for the cosmic-ray antiproton-to-proton ratio from 3 to 50 GeV at the top of the atmosphere. These results represent the first measurements, on an event-by-event basis, of mass-resolved antiprotons above 18 GeV. The results were obtained with the NMSU-WIZARD/CAPRICE98 balloon-borne magnet spectrometer equipped with a gas-RICH (Ring-Imaging Cerenkov) counter and a silicon-tungsten imaging calorimeter. The RICH detector was the first ever flown that is capable of identifying charge-one particles at energies above 5 GeV. The spectrometer was flown on 1998 May 28-29 from Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The measured p&d1;/p ratio is in agreement with a pure secondary interstellar production.