Diurnal variations in,and influences on,concentrations of particulate and dissolved arsenic and metals in the mildly alkaline Wallkill River,New Jersey,USA

Diurnal variations in particulate and dissolved As and metal concentrations were observed in mildly alkaline water from a wetlands site on the Wallkill River in northwestern New Jersey. The site, underlain by glacial sediments over dolomite bedrock, is 10 km downstream from a mined area of the Franklin Marble, host to Zn ores, also As and Mn minerals. In mid-September 2005, maxima and minima in dissolved-oxygen-concentration and pH, typically caused by photosynthesis and respiration, occurred at 2000 and 0800 hours. Concentrations of dissolved As (1.52–1.95 μg/L) peaked at dusk (2000 hours), whereas dissolved Mn and Zn concentrations (76.5–96.9 and 8.55–12.8 μg/L, respectively) were lowest at dusk and peaked at 1000 hours. These opposing cycles probably reflect sorption and desorption of As (an anion), and Mn and Zn (cations) as pH varied throughout the 24-h period. Doubly-peaked cycles of B, Cl, SO₄, and nutrients also were observed; these may result from upstream discharges of septic-system effluent. Both recoverable amd particulate Al, Fe, Mn, and Zn concentrations peaked between 0200 and 0600 hours. The particulate metals cycle, with perturbations at 0400 hours, may be influenced by biological activity.     

Pb isotopic heterogeneity in basaltic phenocrysts

The Pb isotopic compositions of phenocrystic phases in young basaltic lavas have been investigated using the Getty-DePaolo method (Getty S. J. and DePaolo D. J. [1995] Quaternary geochronology by the U-Th-Pb method. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta59, 3267-3272), which allows for the resolution of small isotopic differences. Phenocryst, matrix, and whole rock analyses were made on samples from the 17 Myr-old Imnaha basalts of the Columbia River Group, a zero-age MORB from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and a ca. 260 kyr-old tholeiite from Mount Etna. Plagioclase feldspar phenocrysts have low-(U, Th)/Pb, and in each sample the plagioclase has significantly lower ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁷Pb values than whole rock, matrix, and magnetite-rich separates. The Pb isotopic contrast between plagioclase and matrix/whole rock is found in three samples with varying grain sizes (0.5-2 cm for the Imnaha basalt and MORB and <1 mm for the Etna sample) from different tectonic settings, suggesting that these results are not unique. The isotopic contrasts are only slightly smaller in magnitude than the variations exhibited by whole rock samples from the region. The Imnaha basalts also have Sr isotopic heterogeneity evident only in plagioclase phenocrysts, but the MORB and Etna lavas do not. The isotopic heterogeneities reflect magma mixing, and indicate that isotopically diverse magmas were mixed together just prior to eruption. The results reinforce indications from melt inclusion studies that magma source region isotopic heterogeneities have large amplitudes at short length scales, and that the isotopic variations imparted to the magmas are not entirely homogenized during segregation and transport processes.     

Fifty years of runoff response to conversion of old-growth forest to planted forest in the H. J. Andrews Forest,Oregon, USA

Long-term watershed experiments provide the opportunity to understand forest hydrology responses to past logging, road construction, forest regrowth, and their interactions with climate and geomorphic processes such as road-related landslides. We examined a 50-year record from paired-watershed experiments in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon, USA in which 125 to 450-year-old conifer forests were harvested in the 1960s and 1970s and converted to planted conifer forests. We evaluated how quickflow and delayed flow for 1222 events in treated and reference watersheds changed by season after clearcutting and road construction, including 50 years of growth of planted forest, major floods, and multi-decade reductions in snowpack. Quickflow runoff early in the water year (fall) increased by up to +99% in the first decade, declining to below pre-harvest levels (−1% to −15%) by the third to fifth decade after clearcutting. Fall delayed flow responded more dramatically than quickflow and fell below pre-treatment levels in all watersheds by the fifth decade, consistent with increased transpiration in the planted forests. Quickflow increased less (+12% to 70%) during the winter and spring but remained higher than pre-treatment levels throughout the fourth or fifth decade, potentially impacted by post-harvest burning, roads, and landslides. Quickflow remained high throughout the 50-year period of study, and much higher than delayed flow in the last two decades in a watershed in which road-related changes in flow routing and debris flows after the flood of record increased network connectivity. A long-term decline in regional snowpack was not clearly associated with responses of treated vs. reference watersheds. Hydrologic processes altered by harvest of old-growth conifer forest more than 50 years ago (transpiration, interception, snowmelt, and flow routing) continued to modify streamflow, with no clear evidence of hydrologic recovery. These findings underscore the importance of continued long-term watershed experiments.     

Observations of Solitary Waves in the Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Large amplitude, isolated, wave-like phenomena have been observed in the lowest 40 m of the strongly stably stratified atmospheric boundary layer overlying a coastal Antarctic ice shelf. The waves only occur when prevailing wind speeds are low. They always propagate from over the land, with phase speeds exceeding the local mean wind speed. They have wavelengths of the order of 200 m. Several examples are described and a summary of the statistical properties of these waves events is presented.     

Upper-ocean heat budget and ocean eddy transport in the south-east Pacific in a high-resolution coupled model

We present an analysis of the oceanic heat advection and its variability in the upper 500 m in the southeastern tropical Pacific (100W–75W, 25S–10S) as simulated by the global coupled model HiGEM, which has one of the highest resolutions currently used in long-term integrations. The simulated climatology represents a temperature advection field arising from transient small-scale (<450 km) features, with structures and transport that appear consistent with estimates based on available observational data for the mooring at 20S, 85W. The transient structures are very persistent (>4 months), and in specific locations they generate an important contribution to the local upper-ocean heat budget, characterised by scales of a few hundred kilometres, and periods of over a year. The contribution from such structures to the local, long-term oceanic heat budget however can be of either sign, or vanishing, depending on the location; and, although there appears some organisation in preferential areas of activity, the average over the entire region is small. While several different mechanisms may be responsible for the temperature advection by transients, we find that a significant, and possibly dominant, component is associated with vortices embedded in the large-scale, climatological salinity gradient associated with the fresh intrusion of mid-latitude intermediate water which penetrates north-westward beneath the tropical thermocline.