Petrogenetic evolution of basaltic lavas from Balhaf–Bir Ali Plio-Quaternary volcanic field, Arabian Sea, Republic of Yemen

The Plio-Quaternary Balhaf–Bir Ali volcanic field (BBAVF) constitutes one of the largest volcanic fields in SE Yemen, covering some 500 km². It comprises cinder cones complexes associated with vesicular lava flows and scoria–spatter cones. In many places, ultramafic xenoliths are encountered within these volcanics. The explosive volcanism is mainly of alkaline character including alkali olivine basalt, hawaiite and mugearite together with subordinate tuffaceous trachytes. Major, trace and REEs data from the basaltic rocks of the BBAVF are interpreted in terms of a mantle-lithospheric origin in which crustal contribution during the initial stage of rift magmatism has occurred. Magma genesis may have resulted from plume-derived melt introducing into the base of the lithosphere. A mantle plume source is proposed for the Balhaf–Bir Ali basaltic lavas that are here interpreted as having been generated by partial melting of garnet lherzolite in the uppermost part of asthenosphere. The magmatic evolution of Balhaf–Bir Ali volcanic field may be accounted for by the recent models developed for plume structure.     

Encystment and excystment of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gyrodinium instriatum</Emphasis> Freudenthal et Lee

In the present study, we have investigated the conditions influencing encystment and excystment in the dinoflagellate Gyrodinium instriatum under laboratory conditions. We incubated G. instriatum in modified whole SWM-3 culture medium and in versions of modified SWM-3 from which NO₃ ⁻, PO₄ ³⁻, NO₃ ⁻ + PO₄ ³⁻, or Si had been omitted and observed encystment. Percentage encystment was high in the media without N and without P, while the percentage encystment in the medium lacking both N and P was highest. Moreover, to investigate N or P concentration which induced the encystment, Gyrodinium instriatum was also incubated in media with different concentrations of inorganic N and P; the concentrations of NO₂ ⁻ + NO₃ ⁻ and PO₄ ³⁻ were measured over time. The precursors of cysts appeared within 2 or 3 days of a decrease in NO₂ ⁻ + NO₃ ⁻ or PO₄ ³⁻ concentration to values lower than 1 μM or 0.2 μM, respectively. When cysts produced in the laboratory were incubated, we observed excystment after 8–37 days, without a mandatory period of darkness or low temperature. We incubated cysts collected from nature at different temperatures or in the dark or light and observed excystments. Natural cysts excysted at temperatures from 10 to 30°C, in both light and dark, but excystment was delayed at low temperatures. These studies indicate that G. instriatum encysts in low N or P concentration and excysts over a wide temperature range, regardless of light conditions, after short dormancy periods.     

Roles of Physical Processes in the Carbon Cycle Using a Simplified Physical Model

A simplified physical model is proposed in this article to describe differences among basins in substance distributions which were not well described by previous simplified models. In the proposed model, the global ocean is divided into the Pacific/Indian Ocean (PI), the Atlantic Ocean (AT), the Southern Ocean and the Greenland/Iceland/Norwegian Sea. The model is consisted of five physical parameters, namely the air-sea gas exchange, the thermohaline circulation, the horizontal and vertical diffusions, and the deep convection in the high-latitude regions. Individual values of these parameters are chosen by optimizing model distribution of natural ¹⁴C as a physical tracer. The optimal value for a coefficient of vertical diffusion in the low-latitude region is 7.5 × 10^–5 [m²s^–1]. Vertical transports by the Antarctic Bottom Water and the North Atlantic Deep Water are estimated at 1.0 Sv and 9.0 Sv. Global-mean air-sea gas exchange time is calculated at 9.0 years. Using these optimal values, vertical profiles of dissolved inorganic carbon without biological production in PI and AT are estimated. Oceanic responses to anthropogenic fluctuations in substance concentrations in the atmosphere induced by the industrialization and nuclear bomb are also discribed, i.e., the effects appear significantly in AT while a signal is extremely weak in PI. A time-delay term is effective to make the PI water older near the bottom boundary.     

The study of metabolic activities of marine zooplankton,with particular emphasis on the relationship to body size

This paper reviews the author's research on metabolic activities of marine zooplankton for which the Okada Prize of the Oceanographical Society of Japan was awarded in 1978. The term metabolic activities used here refers to various physiological rate processes of zooplankton, such as respiration, excretion, feeding and growth.On the basis of experimental data obtained by the author and other workers, it is emphasized that all these rates are power functions of the body weight of zooplankton. In other words, the weight specific rates (rates per unit body weight) increase with a decrease in body weight. The habitat temperature of zooplankton can also affect the level of these rates.The relationship between these rates and body weight established experimentally can be applied to the estimation of the total rates of a zooplankton community in the field, by knowing the size distribution of individual zooplankters. The feasibility of this method was tested with the zooplankton community in the Kuroshio region.Finally, the potential importance of microzooplankton in total zooplankton respiration was suggested, based on respiration rate data recently obtained in the author's laboratory.     

Approximate Variational Method for Ocean Data Assimilation

An approximate variational method is proposed to assimilate an oceanographic data set with a numerical ocean model. In the approximate method, the adjoint equation to a governing equation is derived and then converted to a finite difference form, in contrast to the ordinary, exact variational method which is composed of a finite difference equation adjoint to the finite difference governing equation. A cumbersome derivation of the adjoint equation is avoided, and finite difference schemes used for the original governing equation are easily utilized for the adjoint equation. This method has been verified with twin experiments. The flow field in the twin experiments is composed of dipole eddies in a two-layer quasi-geostrophic model. Initial and boundary conditions are control variables. The descent converges towards the exact field within 50 iterations, showing that the fundamental problem of the method (an unstable descent with a large number of iterations) does not appear. The approximate method is promising and should be tried with real data. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Surface currents around Hokkaido in the late fall of 1981 obtained from analysis of satellite images

This paper describes the characteristics of currents around Hokkaido using a current vector map compiled by chasing the displacement of sea marks on a pair of successive thermal infrared images taken from a satellite, NOAA-6. The points of some sea surface patterns showing distinctive features which can be commonly identified in both images are called Sea Marks≓. This sea mark chase method≓ has a great advantage over velocity measurements by boats or buoys, in that it gives a synoptic view of the velocity distribution over a broad sea area extending for some hundreds of miles on a short time scale of half a day.In order to investigate the current in the late fall of 1981, we used the data taken at 19:05 JST on 30 October and at 7:20 JST on 31 October. With these data taken with a 12 hr difference, the measurement accuracy of the speed of sea marks reached ±0.1 knot through geometrical correction. The velocity vectors of sea marks agreed with results of GEK measurements performed on those days, and also with the mean current pattern obtained in the past based on sea surface data.The most distinct features recognized were some cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies of the order of 100 km in diameter which dominated in the Kuril Basin of the Okhotsk Sea. They appeared clearly in the original NOAA images and their physical parameters were determined quantitatively from the vector map. These eddies were located in the region of decay of the Soya Warm Current and were rotating at a speed nearly as large as that of the current. The problems of what feeds energy to these eddies and how long they live remain to be solved in future studies.     

Metabolic activity of pelagic copepods from 5,000 to 7,000 m depth of the western subarctic Pacific,as inferred from electron transfer system (ETS) activity

This study demonstrates reduced electron transfer system (ETS) activity of mixed copepods collected from 5,000 to 7,000 m depths [3.21 ± 1.25 μl O₂ (mg protein)⁻¹ h⁻¹ at 10°C] as compared with mixed copepods from 0 to 200 m depths [5.93 ± 1.66 μl O₂ (mg protein)⁻¹ h⁻¹ at 10°C] of the western subarctic Pacific. At the in situ temperature of 1.5°C, the 5,000–7,000 m ETS data, in terms of wet mass (WM)-specific respiration rates (R), is equivalent to [0.052 ± 0.021 μl O₂ (mg WM)⁻¹ h⁻¹] which is similar to or greater than those reported for selected copepods or mixed mesozooplankton from <5,000 m depth by previous workers.     

Stability of genetic diversity in an intertidal goby population after exposure to tsunami disturbance

Massive tsunami disturbances have potentially detrimental effects on genetic diversity and effective population size of coastal marine species, and evaluating these effects can be useful for devising conservation strategies for coastal marine environments. Local populations of the intertidal goby Chaenogobius annularis, which are distributed on scattered rocky beaches of the Japanese Archipelago, show demographic independence without overlapping generations, making this an ideal species with which to study the effects of tsunami disturbance on genetic diversity. Some of these populations were affected by the tsunami of the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake. Here, we investigated the change in genetic diversity of a local population of this species, which was located close to the epicenter of the earthquake, across the cohorts before and after the tsunami and evaluated the impact of the tsunami disturbance. Genetic diversity was maintained after the tsunami, and no change in the effective population size was observed. Our results suggest that the tsunami disturbance has had no marked impact on the genetic diversity of C. annularis.