New biocide-free anti-fouling paints are toxic

A number of new anti-fouling paints claimed to be more friendly to the environment, have entered the market since prohibition of biocide containing paints have been enforced in many areas. Leakage waters from five new anti-fouling paints were tested for toxic effects to the macro algae Ceramium tenuicorne and Ceramium strictum and to the crustacean Nitocra spinipes. A banned copper and irgarol 1051 containing anti-fouling paint was used as reference. Five of the six paints tested were toxic to all or some of the organisms after two weeks of leakage with EC50 ranging from 0.08 to around 2% leakage water and LC50 ranging from 1.1% to 88%. The toxicity of leakage water from these paints was still high after 16 weeks. We conclude that these paints contain substances toxic to common organisms in the coastal Baltic ecosystem. A silicone based paint did not exhibit toxic effects to the two organisms. We recommend that biological tests should be used to identify the most harmful products before they are released on the market.     

Imaging and regional distribution of basalt flows in the Faeroe-Shetland Basin

We demonstrate that the use of long-offset seismic data allows wide-angle reflections and diving waves to be recorded, and that these can be used in conjunction with prestack depth migrations to constrain and to image the base of the basalt flows and the underlying structure in the Faeroe-Shetland Basin. Crustal velocity models are built first by inverting the traveltimes of the recorded reflections and diving waves using ray-tracing methods. Finer details of the velocity structure can then be refined by analysis of the amplitudes and waveforms of the arrivals. We show that prestack depth migration of selected wide-angle arrivals of known origin, such as the base-basalt reflection, using the crustal velocity model, allows us to build a composite image of the structure down to the pre-rift basement. This has the advantage that the wide-angle first-arriving energy must be primary, and not from one of the many multiples or mode-converted phases that plague near-offset seismic data. This allows us to ‘tag’ these primary arrivals with confidence and then to identify the same arrivals on higher-resolution prestack migrations that include data from all offsets. Examples are drawn from the Faeroe-Shetland Basin, with a series of regional maps of the entire area showing the basalt depths and the thickness of the basalt flows and underlying sediment down to the top of the pre-rift basement. The maps show how the basalts thin to the southeast away from their presumed source west of the present Faeroe Islands, and also show the extent to which the structure of the pre-rift basement controls the considerable variations in sediment thickness between the basement and the cap formed by the overlying basalt flows.     

Nitrogen cycling in deep-sea sediments of the Porcupine Abyssal Plain, NE Atlantic

Rates of transformation, recycling and burial of nitrogen and their temporal and spatial variability were investigated in deep-sea sediments of the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP), NE Atlantic during eight cruises from 1996 to 2000. Benthic fluxes of ammonium (NH₄) and nitrate (NO₃) were measured in situ using a benthic lander. Fluxes of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and denitrification rates were calculated from pore water profiles of DON and NO₃, respectively. Burial of nitrogen was calculated from down core profiles of nitrogen in the solid phase together with ¹⁴C-based sediment accumulation rates and dry bulk density. Average NH₄ and NO₃-effluxes were 7.4 ± 19 μmol m⁻² d⁻¹ (n = 7) and 52 ± 30 μmol m⁻² d⁻¹ (n = 14), respectively, during the period 1996–2000. During the same period, the DON-flux was 11 ± 5.6 μmol m⁻² d⁻¹ (n = 5) and the denitrification rate was 5.1 ± 3.0 μmol m⁻² d⁻¹ (n = 22). Temporal and spatial variations were only found in the benthic NO₃ fluxes. The average burial rate was 4.6 ± 0.9 μmol m⁻² d⁻¹. On average over the sampling period, the recycling efficiency of the PON input to the sediment was 94% and the burial efficiency hence 6%. The DON flux constituted 14% of the nitrogen recycled, and it was of similar magnitude as the sum of burial and denitrification. By assuming the PAP is representative of all deep-sea areas, rates of denitrification, burial and DON efflux were extrapolated to the total area of the deep-sea floor (>2000 m) and integrated values of denitrification and burial of 8 ± 5 and 7 ± 1 Tg N year⁻¹, respectively, were obtained. This value of total deep-sea sediment denitrification corresponds to 3–12% of the global ocean benthic denitrification. Burial in deep-sea sediments makes up at least 25% of the global ocean nitrogen burial. The integrated DON flux from the deep-sea floor is comparable in magnitude to a reported global riverine input of DON suggesting that deep-sea sediments constitute an important source of DON to the world ocean.     

Development of hepatic CYP1A and blood vitellogenin in eel (Anguilla anguilla) for use as biomarkers in the Thames Estuary, UK.

The potential of eel (Anguilla anguilla) as a monitoring species for the Thames Estuary, UK, was examined. Hepatic cytochrome P4501A [7-ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) activity] and blood vitellogenin (Western analysis) were investigated as biomarkers of exposure to, respectively, organic contaminants and to contaminants showing estrogenic activity. Hepatic microsomal EROD activities in A. anguilla from seven sites in the Thames Estuary in May 1998 varied three-fold (111 +/- 24 to 355 +/- 42 pmol min-1 mg protein-1) (mean +/- S.E.M.) and showed correlation with salinity; however, the latter relationship was not maintained at other times of the year. The range of EROD activities was two- to eight-fold higher than the 37 +/- 8 pmol min-1 mg-1 for A. anguilla from the relatively clean Tamar Estuary. beta-Naphthoflavone treatment (5 mg kg-1 wet wt.; 2 days) of Thames A. anguilla produced a two-fold increase in hepatic microsomal EROD activity. Comparing the Thames EROD data with those for A. anguilla from well-characterised contaminated sites in the Netherlands (Van der Oost, R., Goks?yr, A., Celander, M., Heida, H., & Vermeulen, N. P. E. 1996. Aquatic Toxicology, 36, 189-222), the Thames is suggested to be moderately impacted by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and related contaminants. 17-beta-Estradiol treatment produced the appearance of a plasma protein of 211 Kd app. mol. wt. (recognised by antibodies to vitellogenin of Morone saxatilis), but putative vitellogenin could not be detected in A. anguilla from selected sites in the Thames Estuary.     

On lipid surface films on the sea. I. A simple method for sampling and studies of composition

A method for collection of surface films on the sea has been developed and tested at various places along the Swedish West Coast. Considerable amounts of lipids on the sea surface were found even when no seaslicks were observed. Triglycerides, free fatty acids, and wax esters are the dominating constituents, and there are characteristic deviations in the fatty-acid patterns compared to the corresponding lipids dissolved in the sub-surface water. Organochlorine residues, phthalic acid esters and heavy metals also occur in considerable amounts.     

Improving the representation of major landforms in analytical relief shading

Relief shading is the most common type of cartographic relief representation for print and digital maps. Manual relief shading results in informative and visually pleasing representations of terrain, but it is time consuming and expensive to produce. Current analytical relief shading can be created quickly, but the resulting maps are not as aesthetically appealing and do not show landscape features in an explicit manner. This article introduces an automated digital method that produces shaded relief with locally adjusted illumination directions to simulate the techniques and cartographic principles of manual relief shading. Ridgelines and valley lines are derived from a digital terrain model, vectorized, and used in a diffusion curve algorithm. A graph analysis generalizes the lines before using them for diffusion curve shading. The direction of illumination is adjusted based on the spatial orientation of ridgelines and valley lines. The diffusion curve shading is combined with standard analytical relief shading to create a final diffusion relief shading image. Similar to manual relief shading, major landforms and the structure of the terrain are more clearly shown in the diffusion relief shading. The presented method best highlights major landforms in terrain characterized by sharp, clearly defined ridges and valleys.     

The Mesoproterozoic in the Nordic countries

During the Mesoproterozoic, central Fennoscandia and Laurentia （Greenland） were characterized by a weakly extensional stress regime, as evident from episodic rapakivi granites, dolerite dykes, continental rift intrusives, sandstone basins and continental flood basalts. Along the southwestern active margin of Fennoscandia, the 1.64-1.52 Ga Gothian and 1.52-1.48 Ga Telemarkian accretionary events resulted in oceanwards continental growth. The 1.47-1.42 Ga Hallandian- Danopolonian event included high-grade metamorphism and granite magmatism in southern Fennoscandia. The pre-Sveconorwegian 1.34-1.14 Ga period is characterized by bimodal magmatism associated with sedimentation, possibly reflecting transcurrent tectonics. The Sveconorwegian orogeny involved polyphase imbrication of terranes between 1.14 and 0.97 Ga, as a result of a collision between Baltica and another major plate, followed by relaxation and post-collisional magmatism between 0. 96 and 0. 90 Ga. Recent geologic data support classical models restoring the Sveconorwegian belt directly to the east of the Grenville belt of Laurentia at 1.0 Ga. Fragments of Paleo-to Mesoproterozoic crust showing late Grenvillian-Sveconorwegian （1.00-0.92 Ga） magmatism and/or metamorphism are exposed in several tectonic levels in the Caledonides of Scandinavia, Svalbard and East Greenland, on both sides of the inferred Iapetus suture. Linking these fragments into a coherent late-Grenvillian tectonic model, however, require additional study.     

Participatory action research in a poststructuralist vein

This paper introduces a participatory action research process that has been shaped by poststructuralist thought. We report on the stages and outcomes of a project conducted in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia, a resource region that has experienced downsizing and privatising of its major employer, the state-owned power industry. Through a participatory action research process involving community members, local Council and academic researchers the singular economic identity of the region was challenged and a more enabling representation developed. Drawing on a discourse of the diverse economy and the asset-based approach to community development the project shed light on the wide range of economic activities residents were already engaged in and the multitude of abilities and ideas they possessed. This exercise produced a new representation of the economy of the Latrobe Valley that helped to shift the vision of what was possible in the region. In the final stage of the project this alternative vision was acted on as groups turned shared ideas into projects and those who were most used to being defined as economically dependent and victims of economic circumstances increasingly came to identify as active and contributing economic subjects in the diverse economy. The paper considers the role of subjectivity, representation and micropolitics in participatory action research and concludes with a reflection on the project’s strengths and weaknesses.     

A third catalogue of high-speed plasma streams in the solar wind - data for 1978–1982

Interplanetary magnetic field data obtained from near-Earth spacecraft are used to compile a catalogue of high-velocity solar wind streams for the period June 1978 through October 1982 (Bartels rotations 1980–2039). The compilation of high-velocity streams is a continuation of two previous lists which covered the periods 1964–1975 and 1975–1978, respectively. The total number of high-speed solar wind streams listed in the catalogues is 637 of which 520 are corotating streams and 117 are classified as flare-associated streams.