Geology of the Continental Margin of Enderby and Mac. Robertson Lands, East Antarctica: Insights from a Regional Data Set

In 2001 and 2002, Australia acquired an integrated geophysical data set over the deep-water continental margin of East Antarctica from west of Enderby Land to offshore from Prydz Bay. The data include approximately 7700 km of high-quality, deep-seismic data with coincident gravity, magnetic and bathymetry data, and 37 non-reversed refraction stations using expendable sonobuoys. Integration of these data with similar quality data recorded by Japan in 1999 allows a new regional interpretation of this sector of the Antarctic margin. This part of the Antarctic continental margin formed during the breakup of the eastern margin of India and East Antarctica, which culminated with the onset of seafloor spreading in the Valanginian. The geology of the Antarctic margin and the adjacent oceanic crust can be divided into distinct east and west sectors by an interpreted crustal boundary at approximately 58° E. Across this boundary, the continent–ocean boundary (COB), defined as the inboard edge of unequivocal oceanic crust, steps outboard from west to east by about 100 km. Structure in the sector west of 58° E is largely controlled by the mixed rift-transform setting. The edge of the onshore Archaean–Proterozoic Napier Complex is downfaulted oceanwards near the shelf edge by at least 6 km and these rocks are interpreted to underlie a rift basin beneath the continental slope. The thickness of rift and pre-rift rocks cannot be accurately determined with the available data, but they appear to be relatively thin. The margin is overlain by a blanket of post-rift sedimentary rocks that are up to 6 km thick beneath the lower continental slope. The COB in this sector is interpreted from the seismic reflection data and potential field modelling to coincide with the base of a basement depression at 8.0–8.5 s two-way time, approximately 170 km oceanwards of the shelf-edge bounding fault system. Oceanic crust in this sector is highly variable in character, from rugged with a relief of more than 1 km over distances of 10–20 km, to rugose with low-amplitude relief set on a long-wavelength undulating basement. The crustal velocity profile appears unusual, with velocities of 7.6–7.95 km s⁻¹ being recorded at several stations at a depth that gives a thickness of crust of only 4 km. If these velocities are from mantle, then the thin crust may be due to the presence of fracture zones. Alternatively, the velocities may be coming from a lower crust that has been heavily altered by the intrusion of mantle rocks. The sector east of 58° E has formed in a normal rifted margin setting, with complexities in the east from the underlying structure of the N–S trending Palaeozoic Lambert Graben. The Napier Complex is downfaulted to depths of 8–10 km beneath the upper continental slope, and the margin rift basin is more than 300 km wide. As in the western sector, the rift-stage rocks are probably relatively thin. This part of the margin is blanketed by post-rift sediments that are up to about 8 km thick. The interpreted COB in the eastern sector is the most prominent boundary in deep water, and typically coincides with a prominent oceanwards step-up in the basement level of up to 1 km. As in the west, the interpretation of this boundary is supported by potential field modelling. The oceanic crust adjacent to the COB in this sector has a highly distinctive character, commonly with (1) a smooth upper surface underlain by short, seaward-dipping flows; (2) a transparent upper crustal layer; (3) a lower crust dominated by dipping high-amplitude reflections that probably reflect intruded or altered shears; (4) a strong reflection Moho, confirmed by seismic refraction modelling; and (5) prominent landward-dipping upper mantle reflections on several adjacent lines. A similar style of oceanic crust is also found in contemporaneous ocean basins that developed between Greater India and Australia–Antarctica west of Bruce Rise on the Antarctic margin, and along the Cuvier margin of northwest Australia.     

Annual Anthropogenic Carbon Transport into the North Pacific Intermediate Water through the Kuroshio/Oyashio Interfrontal Zone: An Estimation from CFCs Distribution

Vertical distribution of anthropogenic carbon content of the water (exDIC) in the Oyashio area just outside of the Kuroshio/Oyashio Interfrontal Zone (K/O Zone) was estimated by the simple 1-D advection-diffusion model calibrated by the distribution of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The average concentration of exDIC for = 26.60–27.00 is multiplied by the volume transport of Oyashio water into the North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW) to estimate the annual transport of exDIC into NPIW through K/O Zone. The estimated transport of exDIC was 0.018–0.020 GtC/y, which corresponds to 15% of the whole total exDIC accumulation in the temperate North Pacific. A simple assessment using the NPIW 1-box model indicates that the current study explains at least 70% of the total annual transport of exDIC into NPIW, and that small exDIC sources for NPIW still exists in addition to K/O Zone.     

Evidence for methane and hydrogen sulfide venting imprinted on a Quaternary eolianite from southern Israel

Two different and physically separated chemosynthetic communities of bacteria are responsible for the formation of the Beeri native sulfur deposit hosted in a Late Quaternary sandstone on the southern coastal plain of Israel. The enriched concentrations are distributed over an area of about 1 km², within a zone 2–3 m thick at 1–13 m below surface. Two hundred fifty meters below the sulfur deposit, sulfur-reducing bacteria, thriving on methane generated in Neogene marls, reduced the Messinian gypsum to generate hydrogen sulfide, which subaqueously vented together with methane into the siliciclastic Quaternary sequence. Another, different chemosynthetic community ofBeggiatoa-like and unidentified bacteria oxidized the hydrogen sulfide into native sulfur and secondary gypsum, alunite, and iron sulfates. The coupled chemical and bacterial processes attributed to the formation of the sulfur deposit at Beeri are strikingly similar to the processes occurring today in the context of submarine hydrocarbon vents associated with the salt diapirs in the Gulf of Mexico.     

Optimisation of a catalytic procedure for the determination of total iodine in seawater

A precise method for the determination of total iodine in seawater, which uses a Technicon Auto-Analyser II system and is based on Truesdale and Spencer's (1974) and Truesdale and Smith's (1975) earlier works with a catalytic procedure, is described. The procedure operates over a range of 30–80 μg1^?1 of iodine. As requested by Mark (1973), the way in which the procedure can be varied to suit other applications, and therefore ranges, is explained in detail. The standard deviation at the 50 μg1^?1 level was found to be 0.12 μ1^?1 showing that the method's precision exceeds most, if not all, previously published procedures for this variable. This high degree of resolution makes the procedure suitable for oceanic investigations. The effects of varying the reaction time, the temperature at which the reaction proceeds and the salinity of samples and standards are described. The advantages of using a Technicon Auto-Analyser II system rather than an Auto-Analyser I system are discussed. With slight modification the procedure can also be used in the measurement of river flow where sodium iodide is used as tracer in the dilution method.     

Long-term recovery of a Louisiana brackish marsh plant community from oil-spill impact: vegetation response and mitigating effects of marsh surface elevation

Oil spills can have significant, short-term, negative impacts on coastal marshes, but the long-term effects and eventual recovery are not well documented, particularly in brackish marshes. The goals of this investigation were to: (1) document the long-term recovery of a Louisiana brackish marsh plant community impacted by a 1985 oil spill; (2) separate the effect of the oil spill on marsh deterioration from ambient rates of marsh deterioration; and (3) assess the relative importance of residual oil in the sediment and decreased marsh surface elevation in the failure of certain areas to recover. A total of 68 permanent plots previously established in 1985 were re-surveyed for plant and soil recovery in the fall of 1989. Although substantial (and near total) vegetative recovery was evident by significant increases in live and total vegetative cover, many of the plots that were initially heavily impacted by oil still displayed elevated levels of total saturated hydrocarbons in the soil. August 1990 measurements of plant photosynthetic response and edaphic variables revealed no significant differences between control plots and plots heavily impacted by oil that displayed vegetative regrowth. Rates of wetland land loss in the oiled marsh during an 8-year period that bracketed the time of the spill were within the historical range measured for this site and similar to the land loss rates of adjacent reference marshes. Results from a manipulative field transplant experiment indicated that the long-term failure of certain small areas to revegetate was primarily due to a decrease of marsh surface elevation (increased flooding stress), not a residual oil effect.     

Effects of beta-naphthoflavone on hepatic biotransformation and glutathione biosynthesis in largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides)

We are investigating the effects of in vivo exposure of prototypical enzyme inducing agents on hepatic biotransformation enzyme expression in largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides), a predatory game fish found throughout the United States and Canada. The current study targeted those genes involved in biotransformation and oxidative stress that may be regulated by Ah-receptor-dependent pathways. Exposure of bass to beta-naphthoflavone (beta-NF, 66 mg/kg, i.p.) elicited a 7-9-fold increase in hepatic microsomal cytochrome P4501A-dependent ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) activities, but did not affect cytosolic GST catalytic activities toward 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene (CDNB) or 5-androstene-3,17-dione (ADI). Glutathione S-transferase A (GST-A) mRNA expression exhibited a transient, but non-significant increase following exposure to beta-NF, and generally tracked the minimal changes observed in GST-CDNB activities. Expression of the mRNA encoding glutamate-cysteine ligase catalytic subunit (GCLC), the rate-limiting enzyme in glutathione (GSH) biosynthesis, was increased 1.7-fold by beta-NF. Changes in GCLC mRNA expression were paralleled by increases in intracellular GSH. In summary, largemouth bass hepatic CYP1A-dependent and GSH biosynthetic pathways, and to a lesser extent GST, are responsive to exposure to beta-NF.     

The buckling of plastic oblate hemi-ellipsoidal dome shells under external hydrostatic pressure

The paper presents a theoretical and an experimental investigation into the buckling of seven oblate hemi-ellipsoidal dome shells under external hydrostatic pressure. Four of the shells were made in glass reinforced plastic and three were made from a thermosetting plastic called solid urethane plastic. All the vessels were tested to destruction. The theoretical study was made with the aid of a non-linear finite element solution, where both geometrical and material non-linearity were allowed for. Good agreement was found between experiment and theory for all the vessels. The very oblate domes failed axisymmetrically. Theoretical convergence was good for the more oblate domes but it was not as good as for the less oblate domes. This may have been because the less oblate domes did not fail in a classical axisymmetric manner as was expected. This work is of much importance in ocean engineering.     

Thermodynamic characterization of the partitioning of iron between soluble and colloidal species in the Atlantic Ocean

Recent electrochemical measurements have shown that iron (Fe) speciation in seawater is dominated by complexation with strong organic ligands throughout the water column and have provided important thermodynamic information about these compounds. Independent work has shown that iron exists in both soluble and colloidal fractions in the Atlantic Ocean. Here we have combined these approaches in samples collected from a variety of regimes within the Atlantic Ocean. We measured the partitioning of Fe between soluble (< 0.02 μm) and colloidal (0.02 to 0.4 μm) size classes and characterized the concentrations and conditional stability constants of Fe ligands within these size classes. Results suggest that equilibrium partitioning of Fe between soluble and colloidal ligands is partially responsible for the distribution of Fe between soluble and colloidal size classes. However, a significant fraction of the colloidal Fe was inert to ligand exchange as soluble Fe concentrations were generally lower than values predicted by a simple equilibrium partitioning model.In surface waters, strong ligands with conditional stability constants of 10¹³ relative to total inorganic Fe appeared to dominate speciation in both the soluble and colloidal fractions. In deep waters these ligands were absent, and instead we found ligands with stability constants 12–15 fold smaller that were predominantly in the soluble pool. Nevertheless, significant levels of colloidal Fe were found in these samples, which we inferred must be inert to coordination exchange.