The Comparison of δ<Superscript>13</Superscript>C Values of a Deposit- and a Suspension-Feeder Bio-Indicates Benthic vs. Pelagic Couplings and Trophic Status in Contrasted Coastal Ecosystems

δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values of two generalists primary consumers, a strict deposit-feeder polychaete (Arenicola marina), and a strict suspension-feeder bivalve (Crassostrea gigas), were investigated to typify the trophic functioning of two contrasted marine coastal ecosystems (eutrophic and mesotrophic, east and west Cotentin peninsula, respectively, English Channel, Normandy, France). On average, δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values of lugworms mirrored those of sediment organic matter (SOM), whereas δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N of oysters mirrored those of suspended particulate organic matter (SPOM). δ¹³C values of the two species displayed significant differences on the west coast (mesotrophic) contrary to the east coast (eutrophic; significant interactions). δ¹⁵N values differed only between sites and not between species. Diet of A. marina relied exclusively on microphytobenthos (MPB) and detritus of macroalgae (ULV) on the mesotrophic coast, whereas diet of C. gigas relied mainly on SPOM. Conversely, on the eutrophic ecosystem (the east coast), both species displayed the same diet, which was a mixture of pelagic sources (SPOM), benthic sources (MPB and ULV) and to a lesser extent riverine particulate organic matter (rPOM). These results were explained by the intensity of benthic vs. pelagic couplings (i.e. benthic-pelagic and pelagic-benthic) which differed in the two ecosystems. Low trophic coupling occurred on the mesotrophic (west) coast, whereas benthic-pelagic (SOM resuspension) and pelagic-benthic (settling of SPOM such as phytoplankton blooms) couplings were typified on the eutrophic (east) coast. This higher particulate organic matter (POM) pelagic-benthic coupling on the east coast was probably enhanced by nutrient enrichment caused by eutrophication. Comparison of δ¹³C ratios of both the strict deposit-feeder (e.g. A. marina) and the strict suspension-feeder (e.g. C. gigas) was then proposed as a bio-indicator of the trophic status and of POM benthic vs. pelagic couplings of soft-bottom coastal ecosystems.     

Nutrient dynamics at the sediment-water interface in a Mediterranean lagoon (Thau, France): influence of biodeposition by shellfish farming activities

The Thau Lagoon, a French Mediterranean shallow lagoon, is a site where extensive shellfish farming occurs. The aim of the present work is to evaluate the role of this activity on nutrient exchange at the sediment-water interface in relation to organic matter (OM) sedimentation and degradation. Two stations inside (C5) and outside (C4) of the shellfish farming areas were sampled at three seasons. Porewater chemistry surveys and calculated diffusive fluxes were used to evaluate the trophic status of the Thau lagoon. Quantitative (Particulate Organic Carbon) as well as qualitative OM (Hydrogen Index, Carbohydrates) analyses were performed on sediments to assess OM characteristics. Results emphasized that surficial sediments at C5 are always more enriched in OM. Porewater nutrient concentrations are 10-20 times higher at C5 than at C4. In June 2003, the porewater profiles exhibit a sharp gradient at the bottom waters, indicating a hypereutrophic status, leading to an anoxic crisis.     

Forward kinematic modelling of a regional transect in the Northern Emirates using geological and apatite fission track age constraints on paleo-burial history

This paper aims to simulate the kinematic evolution of a regional transect crossing the Northern Emirates in the northernmost part of the Semail Ophiolite and the Dibba zone, just south of the Musandam Platform exposures. The studied section comprises, from top to bottom and from inner to outer zones, (1) the erosional remnants of the Semail Ophiolite, mainly made up of serpentinized ultramafics in the west and gabbros in the east, (2) high-grade metamorphic rocks which are currently exposed in the core of a nappe anticline near Masafi, (3) far-travelled Hawasina basinal units and Sumeini paleo-slope units of the Dibba Zone, (4) parautochthonous platform carbonates, which are currently well exposed in the Musandam area, and (5) a flexural basin filled with uppermost Cretaceous to Neogene sediments. Two main compressional episodes are generally identified, resulting first in the obduction of the Semail Ophiolite and then in the stacking of underlying platform carbonate units of the former Arabian passive margin, thus accounting for the present architecture of this transect: (1) first, deformation at the plate boundary initiated in the Late Cretaceous, resulting in the obduction of the Semail Ophiolite and the progressive accretion of the Hawasina and Sumeini tectonic wedge on top of the Arabian foreland, leading to a progressive bending of its lithosphere and development of a wide flexural basin; (2) compression resumed during the Neogene, leading to the tectonic stacking of the parautochthonous platform duplexes of Musandam and Margham trends, the development of out-of-sequence thrusts and triangle zones, refolding of the sole thrust of the former Late Cretaceous accretionary wedge and coeval normal (?) high-angle faulting along the contact between the Musandam and Dibba zones. However, seismic profiles and paleo-thermometers also help in identifying another erosional event at the boundary between the Paleogene Pabdeh and the Neogene Fars series. Evidenced by the local erosional truncation of the Pabdeh series in the vicinity of the frontal triangle zone (i.e. the inner part of the former Late Cretaceous foredeep), this Paleogene uplift/unroofing episode is tentatively interpreted here as an evidence for a continuum of compressional deformation lasting from the Late Cretaceous to the Middle Miocene although one may alternatively speculate that it was related to the detachment of the subducted slab. Although carbonate facies are usually not suitable for apatite fission track (AFT) studies, we were able to extract detrital apatites from quartz-bearing Triassic dolomites in the Musandam area. However, the yield and the quality were both poor and too few fission track lengths could be measured, making it difficult to interpret the meaning of the FT ages. The FT dates obtained in this study are therefore compared with those existing in the literature. Fortunately enough, for each sample, at least ten apatite crystals could be used for fission track dating, except for site 6 with only five datable apatite grains. The obtained apatite fission track dates between 28 and 13 Ma, much younger than the Triassic age of the series, are taken to represent reset fission track ages, implying erosion of an up-to-3-km-thick pile of Jurassic–Cretaceous carbonates and Hawasina allochthon during the Neogene. Apatite fission track dates from the ~95 M-old plagiogranites of the Semail complex (Searle and Cox, Geol Mag 139(3):241–255, 2002) obtained in this study and compared with those recently published provide evidences for more than one cooling event. An early unroofing of the ophiolite during the Late Cretaceous is revealed in fission track dates of 72–76 Ma at the top of the ophiolite in the east, which are coeval and also consistent with the occurrence of paleo-soils, rudists and paleo-reefs on top of serpentinized ultramafics in the west. High-pressure rocks at As Sifah in the southeast near Muscat revealed apatite fission track data ranging from ~46 to 63 Ma (Gray et al. 2006). The leucocratic part of the ophiolite (sample UAE 180) yielded comparable young apatite (40.6?±?3.9 Ma) and zircon (46.6?±?4.3 Ma) FT dates. A Cenozoic (~20–21 Ma) exhumation has been determined for the Bani Hamid metamorphic sole in northern Oman, applying low temperature geochronology and combining apatite FT and apatite (U–Th)/He analyses (Gray et al. 2006). In this study, young apatite fission track dates of 20 Ma have also been found but at the base of the ophiolite near Masafi, in the core of the nappe anticline, thus indicating a Neogene age for the refolding of the allochthon and stacking of underlying parautochthonous platform carbonate units. During the subsequent 2D forward Thrustpack kinematic modelling of the regional transect, these AFT data-set has been used, together with available subsurface information, to reconstruct the past architecture of the structural sections through time, accounting for incremental deformation along the various decollement levels, synorogenic sedimentation and erosion, as well as for successive bending and unbending episodes of the Arabian lithosphere.     

Cold seep communities in the deep eastern Mediterranean Sea: composition, symbiosis and spatial distribution on mud volcanoes

Two mud volcano fields were explored during the French–Dutch MEDINAUT cruise (1998) with the submersible NAUTILE, one south of Crete along the Mediteranean Ridge at about 2000 m depth (Olimpi mud field) and the other south of Turkey between 1700 and 2000 m depth (Anaximander mud field) where high methane concentrations were measured. Chemosynthetic communities were observed and sampled on six mud volcanoes and along a fault scarp. The communities were dominated by bivalves of particularly small size, belonging to families commonly found at seeps (Mytilidae, Vesicomyidae, Thyasiridae) and to Lucinidae mostly encountered in littoral sulfide-rich sediments and at the shallowest seeps. Siboglinid polychaetes including a large vestimentiferan Lamellibrachia sp. were also associated. At least four bivalve species and one siboglinid are associated with symbiotic chemoautotrophic bacteria, as evidenced by Transmission Electronic Microscopy and isotopic ratio measurements. Among the bivalves, a mytilid harbors both methanotrophic and sulfide-oxidizing bacteria. Video spatial analysis of the community distribution on three volcanoes shows that dense bivalve shell accumulations (mainly lucinids) spread over large areas, from 10% to 38% of the explored areas (2500–15000 m²) on the different volcanoes. Lamellibrachia sp. had different spatial distribution and variable density in the two mud volcano fields, apparently related with higher methane fluxes in the Anaximander volcanoes and maybe with the instability due to brines in the Olimpi area. The abundance and richness of the observed chemosynthetic fauna and the size of some of the species contrast with the poverty of the deep eastern Mediterranean. The presence of a specialized fauna, with some mollusk genera and species shared with other reduced environments of the Mediterranean, but not dominated by the large bivalves usually found at seeps, is discussed.     

Metazoan meiofaunal communities at cold seeps along the Norwegian margin: Influence of habitat heterogeneity and evidence for connection with shallow-water habitats

Cold-seep environments and their associated symbiont-bearing megafaunal communities create islands of primary production for macro- and meiofauna in the otherwise monotonous and nutrient-poor deep-sea environment. To examine the spatial variation and distribution patterns of metazoan meiobenthos in different seepage-related habitats, samples were collected in two regions off Norway: several pockmarks associated with the Storegga Slide including the Nyegga pockmark area (730 m; 64°N), and the active, methane-venting Håkon Mosby Mud Volcano (HMMV) west of the Barents Sea (1280 m; 72°N). Based on sediment geochemistry and associated epifauna, three different habitat types were distinguished across the two regions: (1) reduced sediment with suboxic conditions, sometimes covered by bacterial mats, (2) sediment colonised by chemosynthetic, siboglinid tubeworms, and (3) sediment outside the influence of seepage and without a large chemosynthetic fauna. Meiofaunal communities varied strongly in terms of generic diversity and dominance among the different habitat types. Control sites and Siboglinidae polychaete fields both supported high nematode genus richness similar to normal deep-sea sediments, whereas the reduced sediments yielded a genus-poor nematode community dominated by one or two successful species. Meiofaunal densities in the different habitats were negatively correlated with macrobenthic densities. An extremely dense (>11,000 ind. 10 cm^–2), mono-specific nematode population appeared to be restricted to the bacterial mats at HMMV. It consisted of a new cryptic species of the Halomonhystera disjuncta complex, which has been described from intertidal habitats in the North Sea. The reduced seep sediments at Nyegga did not yield H. disjuncta but were dominated by Terschellingia longicaudata, another cosmopolitan nematode species known to be abundant in organic-rich, oxygen-poor, shallow-water environments. These observations point to a past or recent connection between margins and shallow-water habitats.     

Post‐stack stratigraphic inversion workflow applied to carbon dioxide storage: application to the saline aquifer of Sleipner field‡

In the Norwegian North Sea, the Sleipner field produces gas with a high CO₂ content. For environmental reasons, since 1996, more than 11 Mt of this carbon dioxide (CO₂) have been injected in the Utsira Sand saline aquifer located above the hydrocarbon reservoir. A series of seven 3D seismic surveys were recorded to monitor the CO₂ plume evolution. With this case study, time‐lapse seismics have been shown to be successful in mapping the spread of CO₂ over the past decade and to ensure the integrity of the overburden. Stratigraphic inversion of seismic data is currently used in the petroleum industry for quantitative reservoir characterization and enhanced oil recovery. Now it may also be used to evaluate the expansion of a CO₂ plume in an underground reservoir. The aim of this study is to estimate the P‐wave impedances via a Bayesian model‐based stratigraphic inversion. We have focused our study on the 1994 vintage before CO₂ injection and the 2006 vintage carried out after a CO₂ injection of 8.4 Mt. In spite of some difficulties due to the lack of time‐lapse well log data on the interest area, the full application of our inversion workflow allowed us to obtain, for the first time to our knowledge, 3D impedance cubes including the Utsira Sand. These results can be used to better characterize the spreading of CO₂ in a reservoir. With the post‐stack inversion workflow applied to CO₂ storage, we point out the importance of the a priori model and the issue to obtain coherent results between sequential inversions of different seismic vintages. The stacking velocity workflow that yields the migration model and the a priori model, specific to each vintage, can induce a slight inconsistency in the results.     

Weathering regime associated with subsurface circulation on volcanic islands

Volcanic islands, being characterized by highly porous basaltic/andesitic lava flows and pyroclastic deposits, are subject to important chemical weathering by subsurface waters. Moreover, such subsurface weathering is impacted by hydrothermal springs in both active and non-active volcanic areas, thus increasing dissolved load concentrations. Here, we focus on the subsurface water chemistry in the volcanic islands of the Lesser Antilles and Réunion and on the origin of these subsurface flows. We are able, through the use of various isotopic tools (C, Sr, U–Th), to identify hydrothermal influences in river water. For example, Li concentrations show a positive correlation with temperature of hot and cold springs and also a relationship with δ¹³C; from this, we can show that several sources of hydrothermal activity influence the rivers of the Lesser Antilles and that some rivers also reveal an important organic influence. As much as 20% of the subsurface hydrothermal springs go to feed the rivers. The increasing temperatures result in more dissolved elements being mobilized and an increase in chemical weathering rates. In addition, using the (²³⁰Th/²³⁸U) isochron for the well and river dissolved loads in Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion, we can evaluate residence times in the river water, i.e. the average residence time in the water along the circulation path to the sampling point. Alteration takes longer when the water circulates through thick soil, for example, 400–5,000 years when circulating under an ash profile and 1,200–15,000 years when circulating through a collapse zone. It would appear that waters circulation is globally three times longer for subsurface water than for surficial water. The weathering regime in tropical volcanic environments seems to be controlled mainly by such subsurface circulation with high chemical concentration from hydrothermal inputs. The origin of these compositions is varied and not controlled by a single hydrothermal spring. Consequently, it is subsurface circulation that determines the weathering regime in tropical volcanic islands with the main controlling parameters being temperature and residence time.     

An ocean observation system for monitoring the affects of climate change on the ecology and sustainability of pelagic fisheries in the Pacific Ocean

Climate change presents an emerging challenge to the sustainable management of tuna fisheries, and robust information is essential to ensure future sustainability. Climate and harvest affect tuna stocks, populations of non-target, dependent species and the ecosystem. To provide relevant advice we need an improved understanding of oceanic ecosystems and better data to parameterise the models that forecast the impacts of climate change. Currently ocean-wide data collection in the Pacific Ocean is primarily restricted to oceanographic data. However, the fisheries observer programs that operate in the region offer an opportunity to collect the additional information on the mid and upper trophic levels of the ecosystem that is necessary to complement this physical data, including time-series of distribution, abundance, size, composition and biological information on target and non-target species and mid trophic level organisms. These observer programs are in their infancy, with limited temporal and spatial distribution but recent international and national policy decisions have been made to expand their coverage. We identify a number of actions to initiate this monitoring including: consolidating collaborations to ensure the use of best quality data; developing consistency between sub-regional observer programmes to ensure that they meet the objectives of ecosystem monitoring; interrogating of existing time series to determine the most appropriate spatial template for monitoring; and exploring existing ecosystem models to identify suitable indicators of ecosystem status and change. The information obtained should improve capacity to develop fisheries management policies that are resilient and can be adapted to climate change.     

Quasi-thermal Noise Spectra Measured by a Dipole Antenna in the Upper Hybrid frequency band

Quasi-thermal noise (QTN) spectroscopy is one of the most effective tools for in situ diagnostics in space plasmas (Meyer-Vernet et al., 1998; Meyer-Vernet and Perche, 1989; Chugunov and Trakhtengerts, 1978). This method produces routine measurements of the bulk electron density and temperature; recently it has been extended to measure the ion bulk speed. Among the advantages of the method its immunity to spacecraft potential and photoelectron perturbations should be noted. Quasi-thermal noise spectroscopy is used particularly on Ulysses and Wind. However for the interpretation of QTN data the calculation of the noise voltage induced on antennas under different conditions is necessary. This question is especially complicated and so far insufficiently studied in magnetized plasmas. In the present paper we calculate the spectrum of the noise voltage induced on a dipole antenna in the upper hybrid frequency range. The computations are adapted to the interpretation of data acquired on the Ulysses and Wind spacecraft. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

U–Pb–Hf isotopes and trace elements of metasomatic zircon delimit the evolution of neoproterozoic Capané ophiolite in the southern Brasiliano Orogen

The Capané ophiolite is a fragment of oceanic lithosphere obducted into the Ediacaran Porongos fold and thrust belt, southern Brasiliano Orogen. A studied rodingite blackwall contained in serpentinite has metasomatic zircon that displays multiple U–Pb ages from Tonian to Cryogenian (793 ± 0.9, 757 ± 2.1, 715 ± 2.2 Ma). The ages are interpreted as corresponding to multiple alteration events in the mantle. Multiple U–Pb–Hf isotopes and trace element analyses on the same crystals by laser ablation were controlled by backscatered electron images. Hf isotopes indicate zircon origin from a depleted mantle (εHf = +15 to +10.7), and trace elements point to an oceanic origin. The Capané ophiolite thus marks the evolution of the Adamastor ocean during the Tonian and Cryogenian, a significant result for the reconstruction of Rodinia and Gondwana supercontinents.