Effects of fish farm waste on Posidonia oceanica meadows: synthesis and provision of monitoring and management tools

This paper provides a synthesis of the EU project MedVeg addressing the fate of nutrients released from fish farming in the Mediterranean with particular focus on the endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica habitat. The objectives were to identify the main drivers of seagrass decline linked to fish farming and to provide sensitive indicators of environmental change, which can be used for monitoring purposes. The sedimentation of waste particles in the farm vicinities emerges as the main driver of benthic deterioration, such as accumulation of organic matter, sediment anoxia as well as seagrass decline. The effects of fish farming on P. oceanica meadows are diverse and complex and detected through various metrics and indicators. A safety distance of 400 m is suggested for management of P. oceanica near fish farms followed by establishment of permanent seagrass plots revisited annually for monitoring the health of the meadows.     

Results from the first ballast water sampling study in the Mediterranean Sea - the Port of Koper study

The ongoing transfer of harmful organisms by shipping, especially via ballast water transport, may result in a change of biodiversity, alteration of ecosystems, negative impacts on human health and economic loss. Species introductions which cause irreversible consequences to receiving environments and economies call for particular attention. One critical issue is a need to evaluate the quantities and processes of species introductions. Consequently ballast water was sampled on 15 ships calling at the Port of Koper, Slovenia. This was the first ballast water sampling study in the Mediterranean Sea. This paper summarises the sampling results. Samples were analysed for all types of aquatic organisms including bacteria. The results may be considered as background information for an initial risk assessment of future species introductions - an important tool for the implementation of ballast water management measures.     

Volcanic tsunami: a review of source mechanisms, past events and hazards in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea)

Southeast Asia has had both volcanic tsunamis and possesses some of the most densely populated, economically important and rapidly developing coastlines in the world. This contribution provides a review of volcanic tsunami hazard in Southeast Asia. Source mechanisms of tsunami related to eruptive and gravitational processes are presented, together with a history of past events in the region. A review of available data shows that many volcanoes are potentially tsunamigenic and present often neglected hazard to the rapidly developing coasts of the region. We highlight crucial volcanic provinces in Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea and propose strategies for facing future events.     

Where fast weathering creates thin regolith and slow weathering creates thick regolith

Weathering disaggregates rock into regolith – the fractured or granular earth material that sustains life on the continental land surface. Here, we investigate what controls the depth of regolith formed on ridges of two rock compositions with similar initial porosities in Virginia (USA). A priori, we predicted that the regolith on diabase would be thicker than on granite because the dominant mineral (feldspar) in the diabase weathers faster than its granitic counterpart. However, weathering advanced 20× deeper into the granite than the diabase. The 20 × ‐thicker regolith is attributed mainly to connected micron‐sized pores, microfractures formed around oxidizing biotite at 20 m depth, and the lower iron (Fe) content in the felsic rock. Such porosity allows pervasive advection and deep oxidation in the granite. These observations may explain why regolith worldwide is thicker on felsic compared to mafic rock under similar conditions. To understand regolith formation will require better understanding of such deep oxidation reactions and how they impact fluid flow during weathering. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Architecture,structural and tectonic significance of the Seagap fault (offshore Tanzania) in the framework of the East African Rift

The Southeastern portion of the East African Rift System reactivates Mesozoic transform faults marking the separation of Madagascar from Africa in the Western Indian Ocean. Earlier studies noted the reactivation of the Davie Fracture Zone in oceanic lithosphere as a seismically active extensional fault, and new 3D seismic reflection data and exploration wells provide unprecedented detail on the kinematics of the sub-parallel Seagap fault zone in continental/transitional crust landward of the ocean-continent transition. We reconstruct the evolution of the seismically active Seagap fault zone, a 400-km-long crustal structure affecting the Tanzania margin, from the late Eocene to the present day. The Seagap fault zone is represented by large-scale localized structures affecting the seafloor and displaying growth geometries across most of the Miocene sediments. The continuous tectonic activity evident by our seismic mapping, as well as 2D deep seismic data from literature, suggests that from the Middle-Late Jurassic until 125 Ma, the Seagap fault acted as a regional structure parallel to, and coeval with, the dextral Davie Fracture Zone. The Seagap fault then remained active after the cessation of both seafloor spreading in the Somali basin and strike-slip activity on the Davie Fracture Zone, till nowaday. Its architecture is structurally expressed through the sequence of releasing and restraining bends dating back at least to the early Neogene. Seismic sections and horizon maps indicate that those restraining bends are generated by strike-slip reactivation of Cretaceous structures till the Miocene. Finally based on the interpretation of edge-enhanced reflection seismic surfaces and seafloor data, we shows that, by the late Neogene, the Seagap fault zone switched to normal fault behaviour. We discuss the Seagap fault's geological and kinematic significance through time and its current role within the microplate system in the framework of the East African rift, as well as implications for the evolution and re-activation of structures along sheared margins. The newly integrated datasets reveal the polyphase deformation of this margin, highlighting its complex evolution and the implications for depositional fairways and structural trap and seal changes through time, as well as potential hazards.     

Isotope Approach to Assess Hydrologic Connections During Marcellus Shale Drilling

Water and gas samples were collected from (1) nine shallow groundwater aquifers overlying Marcellus Shale in north‐central West Virginia before active shale gas drilling, (2) wells producing gas from Upper Devonian sands and Middle Devonian Marcellus Shale in southwestern Pennsylvania, (3) coal‐mine water discharges in southwestern Pennsylvania, and (4) streams in southwestern Pennsylvania and north‐central West Virginia. Our preliminary results demonstrate that the oxygen and hydrogen isotope composition of water, carbon isotope composition of dissolved inorganic carbon, and carbon and hydrogen isotope compositions of methane in Upper Devonian sands and Marcellus Shale are very different compared with shallow groundwater aquifers, coal‐mine waters, and stream waters of the region. Therefore, spatiotemporal stable isotope monitoring of the different sources of water before, during, and after hydraulic fracturing can be used to identify migrations of fluids and gas from deep formations that are coincident with shale gas drilling.     

Short-term changes in the aerosol characteristics at Kharagpur (22°19′N, 87°19′E) during winter

In-situ measurements of number density, size distribution, and mass loading of near-surface aerosols were carried out at Kharagpur, a site on the eastern part of Indo-Gangetic Plains during the winter month of December 2004. The data have been used to investigate wintertime characteristics of aerosols and their effects on the occurrence of haze. The aerosol number density is found to be of the order of 10⁹ m^?3 and mass loading is ~265±70 μg m^?3 (5–8 times that reported from south Indian sites). The diurnal patterns and day-to-day variations in aerosol number density and mass loading are closely associated with atmospheric boundary layer height. During haze events, the number density of submicron particles is found to be 2–5 times higher than that during non-hazy period. This could be attributed to the enhanced concentration of anthropogenic aerosols, low atmospheric boundary layer height/ventilation coefficient and airflow convergence.     

Influence of sieving time on the efficiency and accuracy of grain‐size analysis of beach and dune sands

Grain size is a fundamental property of sediments and is commonly used to describe sedimentary facies and classify sedimentary environments. Among the various conventional techniques utilized to determine grain‐size frequency distributions, sieving is the most widely applied procedure. The accuracy of such analyses is, among other factors, strongly dependent on the sieving time. However, despite a substantial amount of research in this field, optimal sieving times for different types of sediments have, to date, not been established. In this article, the influence of sieving time on grain‐size analyses of medium‐grained microtidal and mesotidal beach and dune sands has been determined. To assess the precision of important textural parameters, such as median grain size, sorting, skewness and kurtosis, an error analysis was carried out for different sieving times (2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes). After calibrating the analytical and sampling methodologies, significant deviations were registered when sieving time was less than 10 minutes. However, such deviations were very small and grain‐size distributions remained almost identical for sieving times of 10 minutes and longer, relative errors being as low as 0% in some cases.     

The R{\overline{3}} c \to R{\overline{3}} m transition in nitratine, NaNO3, and implications for calcite, CaCO3

The temperature dependences of the crystal structure and superstructure intensities in sodium nitrate, mineral name nitratine, NaNO₃, were studied using Rietveld structure refinements based on synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction. Nitratine transforms from $R{\overline{3}} c\;\hbox{to}\;R{\overline{3}} m$ at T _c = 552(1) K. A NO₃ group occupies, statistically, two positions with equal frequency in the disordered $R{\overline{3}} m$ phase, but with unequal frequency in the partially ordered $R{\overline{3}} c$ phase. One position for the NO₃ group is rotated by 60° or 180° with respect to the other. The occupancy of the two orientations in the $R{\overline{3}} c$ phase is obtained from the occupancy factor, x, for the O1 site and gives rise to the order parameter, S = 2x ? 1, where S is 0 at T _c and 1 at 0 K. The NO₃ groups rotate in a rapid process from about 541 to T _c, where the a axis contracts. Using a modified Bragg–Williams model, a good fit was obtained for the normalized intensities (that is, normalized, NI^1/2) for the (113) and (211) reflections in $R{\overline{3}} c\hbox {\,NaNO}_{3},$ and indicates a second-order transition. Using the same model, a reasonable fit was obtained for the order parameter, S, and also supports a second-order transition.