The seasonal cycle of diabatic heat storage in the Pacific Ocean

This study quantifies uncertainties in closing the seasonal cycle of diabatic heat storage (DHS) over the Pacific Ocean from 20°S to 60°N through the synthesis of World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) reanalysis products from 1993 to 1999. These products are DHS from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO); near-surface geostrophic and Ekman currents from Earth and Space Research (ESR); and air-sea heat fluxes from Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (COADS), National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and European Center for Mid-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). With these products, we compute residual heat budget components by differencing long-term monthly means from the long-term annual mean. This allows the seasonal cycle of the DHS tendency to be modeled. Everywhere latent heat flux residuals dominate sensible heat flux residuals, shortwave heat flux residuals dominate longwave heat flux residuals, and residual Ekman heat advection dominates residual geostrophic heat advection, with residual dissipation significant only in the Kuroshio-Oyashio current extension. The root-mean-square (RMS) of the differences between observed and model residual DHS tendencies (averaged over 10° latitude-by-20° longitude boxes) is <20 W m⁻² in the interior ocean and <100 W m⁻² in the Kuroshio-Oyashio current extension. This reveals that the residual DHS tendency is driven everywhere by some mix of residual latent heat flux, shortwave heat flux, and Ekman heat advection. Suppressing bias errors in residual air-sea turbulent heat fluxes and Ekman heat advection through minimization of the RMS differences reduces the latter to <10 W m⁻² over the interior ocean and <25 W m⁻² in the Kuroshio-Oyashio current extension. This reveals air-sea temperature and specific humidity differences from in situ surface marine weather observations to be a principal source of bias error, overestimated over most of ocean but underestimated near the Intertropical Convergence Zone.     

Influence of Coupled Rossby Waves on Primary Productivity and Tuna Abundance in the Indian Ocean

Interannual coupled Rossby waves in the extratropical Indian Ocean propagate westward in covarying pycnocline depth, sea surface temperature, and meridional surface wind anomalies from the west coast of Australia between 15°S and 35°S, taking 3–4 years to transit the interior ocean to Madagascar. In the interior subtropical gyre, where the tuna longline catch (TLC) mainly concerns two species (albacore and bigeye), these waves have been observed to affect year-to-year changes in catch, with wave crests (troughs) in the main pycnocline associated with high (low) TLC anomalies. This suggested that tuna longline catch is associated with the entrainment of nutrient-rich pycnocline water into the photic zone and a subsequent increase in primary productivity there. Here, this hypothesis is examined within the context of SeaWiFS chlorophyll concentration (CC). We find the situation the opposite of that expected, with wave crests (troughs) in the main pycnocline associated with low (high) CC anomalies averaged over the photic zone. These results are shown to be consistent with a model relating the anomalous CC tendency to upper-layer divergence in the wave, not unlike that relating surface slicks to upper-layer divergence in internal gravity waves. Thus, the connection between interannual coupled Rossby waves and TLC in the interior subtropical gyre does not appear to derive from wave-induced modulation of the pelagic food web. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Nd,Sr, and O isotopic variations in metaluminous ash-flow tuffs and related volcanic rocks at the Timber Mountain/Oasis Valley Caldera,Complex, SW Nevada: implications for the origin and evolution of large-volume silicic magma bodies

Nd, Sr and O isotopic data were obtained from silicic ash-flow tuffs and lavas at the Tertiary age (16–9 Ma) Timber (Mountain/Oasis Valley volcanic center (TMOV) in southern Nevada, to assess models for the origin and evolution of the large-volume silicic magma bodies generated in this region. The large-volume (>900 km³), chemically-zoned, Topopah Spring (TS) and Tiva Canyon (TC) members of the Paintbrush Tuff, and the Rainier Mesa (RM) and Ammonia Tanks (AT) members of the younger Timber Mountain Tuff all have internal Nd and Sr isotopic zonations. In each tuff, high-silica rhyolites have lower initial _Nd values (1 _Nd unit), higher⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, and lower Nd and Sr contents, than cocrupted trachytes. The TS, TC, and RM members have similar _Nd values for high-silica rhyolites (-11.7 to -11.2) and trachytes (-10.5 to -10.7), but the younger AT member has a higher _Nd for both compositional types (-10.3 and -9.4). Oxygen isotope data confirm that the TC and AT members were derived from low _Nd magmas. The internal Sr and Nd isotopic variations in each tuff are interpreted to be the result of the incorporation of 20–40% (by mass) wall-rock into magmas that were injected into the upper crust. The low _Nd magmas most likely formed via the incorporation of low ¹⁸O, hydrothermally-altered, wall-rock. Small-volume rhyolite lavas and ash-flow tuffs have similar isotopic characteristics to the large-volume ash-flow tuffs, but lavas erupted from extracaldera vents may have interacted with higher ¹⁸O crustal rocks peripheral to the main magma chamber(s). Andesitic lavas from the 13–14 Ma Wahmonie/Salyer volcanic center southeast of the TMOV have low _Nd (-13.2 to -13.8) and are considered on the basis of textural evidence to be mixtures of basaltic composition magmas and large proportions (70–80%) of anatectic crustal melts. A similar process may have occurred early in the magmatic history of the TMOV. The large-volume rhyolites may represent a mature stage of magmatism after repeated injection of basaltic magmas, crustal melting, and volcanism cleared sufficient space in the upper crust for large magma bodies to accumulate and differentiate. The TMOV rhyolites and 0–10 Ma old basalts that erupted in southern Nevada all have similar Nd and Sr isotopic compositions, which suggests that silicic and mafic magmatism at the TMOV were genetically related. The distinctive isotopic compositions of the AT member may reflect temporal changes in the isotopic compositions of basaltic magmas entering the upper crust, possibly as a result of increasing basification of a lower crustal magma source by repeated injection of mantle-derived mafic magmas.     

Evaporites through time: Tectonic,climatic and eustatic controls in marine and nonmarine deposits

Throughout geological time, evaporite sediments form by solar-driven concentration of a surface or nearsurface brine. Large, thick and extensive deposits dominated by rock-salt (mega-halite) or anhydrite (mega-sulfate) deposits tend to be marine evaporites and can be associated with extensive deposits of potash salts (mega-potash). Ancient marine evaporite deposition required particular climatic, eustatic or tectonic juxtapositions that have occurred a number of times in the past and will so again in the future. Ancient marine evaporites typically have poorly developed Quaternary counterparts in scale, thickness, tectonics and hydrology. When mega-evaporite settings were active within appropriate arid climatic and hydrological settings then huge volumes of seawater were drawn into the subsealevel evaporitic depressions. These systems were typical of regions where the evaporation rates of ocean waters were at their maximum, and so were centred on the past latitudinal equivalents of today's horse latitudes. But, like today's nonmarine evaporites, the location of marine Phanerozoic evaporites in zones of appropriate adiabatic aridity and continentality extended well into the equatorial belts.Exploited deposits of borate, sodium carbonate (soda-ash) and sodium sulfate (salt-cake) salts, along with evaporitic sediments hosting lithium-rich brines require continental–meteoric not marine-fed hydrologies. Plots of the world's Phanerozoic and Neoproterozoic evaporite deposits, using a GIS base, shows that Quaternary evaporite deposits are poor counterparts to the greater part of the world's Phanerozoic evaporite deposits. They are only directly relevant to same-scale continental hydrologies of the past and, as such, are used in this paper to better understand what is needed to create beds rich in salt-cake, soda-ash, borate and lithium salts. These deposits tend be Neogene and mostly occur in suprasealevel hydrographically-isolated (endorheic) continental intermontane and desert margin settings that are subject to the pluvial–interpluvial oscillations of Neogene ice-house climates. When compared to ancient marine evaporites, today's marine-fed subsealevel deposits tend to be small sea-edge deposits, their distribution and extent is limited by the current ice-house driven eustasy and a lack of appropriate hydrographically isolated subsealevel tectonic depressions.For the past forty years, Quaternary continental lacustrine deposit models have been applied to the interpretation of ancient marine evaporite basins without recognition of the time-limited nature of this type of comparison. Ancient mega-evaporite deposits (platform and/or basinwide deposits) require conditions of epeiric seaways (greenhouse climate) and/or continent–continent proximity. Basinwide evaporite deposition is facilitated by continent–continent proximity at the plate tectonic scale (Late stage E through stage B in the Wilson cycle). This creates an isostatic response where, in the appropriate arid climate belt, large portions of the collision suture belt or the incipient opening rift can be subsealevel, hydrographically isolated (a marine evaporite drawdown basin) and yet fed seawater by a combination of ongoing seepage and occasional marine overflow. Basinwide evaporite deposits can be classified by their tectonic setting into: convergent (collision basin), divergent (rift basin; prerift, synrift and postrift) and intracratonic settings.Ancient platform evaporites can be a subset of basinwide deposits, especially in intracratonic sag basins, or part of a widespread epeiric marine platform fill. In the latter case they tend to form mega-sulfate deposits and are associated with hydrographically isolated marine fed saltern and evaporitic mudflat systems in a greenhouse climatic setting. The lower amplitude 4 and 5th order marine eustatic cycles and the greater magnitude of marine freeboard during greenhouse climatic periods encourages deposition of marine platform mega-sulfates. Platform mega-evaporites in intracratonic settings are typically combinations of halite and sulfate beds.