Review of continental shelf marine geotechnics: Distribution of soils,measurement of properties,and environmental hazards

Abstract

Sands and silty sands are the predominant surficial soils of continental shelves. Cohesive fine‐grained soils are typical off the mouths of large rivers, near bays and estuaries, and in basins located on the shelf. The stratigraphy of shelf soils is very poorly known for most engineering purposes, except in the vicinity of the Mississippi Delta.

Vibratory coring is the most common method of sampling shelf sands to depths of about 13 m; greater soil depths are sampled by borings often using drilling and wireline sampling tools. Employment of self‐contained or wireline static cone penetrometers to obtain in situ measurements of sands has not been as common in the United States as in Europe. Dynamic piston corers are the most common samplers in cohesive soils, but rotary and hydraulically activated incremental corers are becoming available for marine use. Self‐contained or wireline vane shear devices and static cone penetrometers are used for the in situ testing of cohesive soils, and the latter device is also used for cohesionless soils. Dynamic cone penetrometers have been developed and have had limited experimental use at sea. In situ electrical resistivity and nuclear‐transmission and backscatter probes have been used in cohesive soils to obtain bulk‐density and water‐content measurements and for stratigraphic correlation. Acoustical properties of cohesive and cohesionless soils have been measured by in situ probes and have been estimated from results of geophysical surveys made on ships that are under way.

Environmental hazards to the foundations of offshore structures include earthquakes, wave‐induced loading and scour, and burrowing animals. Reported bottom‐current velocities on the United States continental shelf appear to have maximums of about 0.5 m/s under fair‐weather conditions and greater than about 5 m/s under hurricane conditions. Cyclical loading of the seafloor induced by storm waves appears to be a major hazard to soil stability in some areas.

A representative sample of the widely scattered engineering and scientific literature of continental shelf marine geotechnics and geotechnically related subjects has been made to aid marine geologists, geotechnologists, and other specialists.     

Invasion of Sargassum muticum in intertidal rockpools: Patterns along the Atlantic Iberian Peninsula

Spatial patterns of non-indigenous species show scale-dependent properties. Sargassum muticum is an invasive macroalga widely distributed along the Atlantic Iberian Peninsula. Despite being quite abundant from Norway to South Portugal, there is little information about its patterns of distribution, particularly at a large spatial scale (i.e. thousands of kilometres). Here, we examined the spatial variation in the invasion success of S. muticum from rockpools at multiple spatial scales using a hierarchical design. In addition, we analysed how the richness of native assemblages was related to its invasion success and how this relationship changed over different scales. Most of the variation in the invasion success was found at the smallest scales of pool and plot. Furthermore, the invasibility of native macroalgal assemblages was related to the native species richness, but causes that determined invasion success could not be separated from the effects provoked by the invader. Results suggest that small-scale (centimetres to metres) processes contribute considerably to the heterogeneity of S. muticum invasion success.     

Stream turbidity responses to storm events in a pristine rainforest watershed on the Coral Coast of southern Fiji

On the Coral Coast of Viti Levu Island in Fiji, inadequate knowledge of suspended sediment delivery patterns in small pristine coastal watersheds hinders any future assessment of accelerated erosion in disturbed areas nearby. This study adopts a rainfall–stream turbidity monitoring approach in the Votua Creek, which drains a small, steep but minimally-disturbed coastal rainforest catchment. Storm rainfall characteristics, stream depth and water turbidity were continuously monitored over one complete Fiji wet season from October 2009 to April 2010. The aim was to evaluate whether these parameters provide sufficient information to illustrate basic features of storm–sediment transport responses, in the case of limited stream gauging and very simple sediment rating curves. This is important because Pacific Island nations like Fiji do not have the resources to initiate long-term gauging and sediment sampling pro-grammes across numerous small catchments.
A significant power function demonstrates that turbidity (T) is a suitable proxy for total suspended solids (TSS) for turbidity measurements above 5 NTU, with TSS?0.930T1.111 (r?0.98, Po0.001). Over the study period, 10 individual storms 11.2–120.1 mm in size produced a‘significant turbidity response’ (STR) in the Votua Creek. Rainfall parameters (totals and intensities) showed positive linear relationships (r ? 0.72–0.94) with stream turbidity parameters (mean, maximum, duration), whilst relationships of similar strength (r ? 0.76–0.98) were also derived between stream flow depth and turbidity. This implies that for small rainforest watersheds in Fiji, rainfall parameters offer no substantial disadvantage over flow as predictors of stream sediment responses to major storms. Event-based analysis revealed that negative (anticlockwise) hysteresis is a typical flow–turbidity pattern for STR events. Negative hysteresis is produced when secondary episodes of renewed (heavy) rainfall occur after maximum intensity, in the later phase of storm events. Tropical Cyclone Mick in December 2009 generated the largest flood and the greatest turbidity response (Tmax ? 1021 NTU, Tmean ? 207 NTU). This concurs with earlier work confirming that tropical cyclones are the most important events for sediment transport in Fiji stream networks.     

Closed-form analytical solutions incorporating pumping and tidal effects in various coastal aquifer systems

Pumping wells are common in coastal aquifers affected by tides. Here we present analytical solutions of groundwater table or head variations during a constant rate pumping from a single, fully-penetrating well in coastal aquifer systems comprising an unconfined aquifer, a confined aquifer and semi-permeable layer between them. The unconfined aquifer terminates at the coastline (or river bank) and the other two layers extend under tidal water (sea or tidal river) for a certain distance L. Analytical solutions are derived for 11 reasonable combinations of different situations of the L-value (zero, finite, and infinite), of the middle layer’s permeability (semi-permeable and impermeable), of the boundary condition at the aquifer’s submarine terminal (Dirichlet describing direct connection with seawater and no-flow describing the existence of an impermeable capping), and of the tidal water body (sea and tidal river). Solutions are discussed with application examples in fitting field observations and parameter estimations.     

Assessment of reservoir sedimentation effect on coastal erosion in the case of Nestos River,Greece

Coastal erosion that is generated by the reduction of the annual sediment yield at river outlets, due to the construction of reservoirs, constitutes one of the main environmental problems in many parts of the world. Nestos is one of the most important boundary rivers, flowing through Bulgaria and Greece, characterized by its great biodiversity. In the Greek part of the river, two reservoirs, the Thisavros Reservoir and the Platanovrysi Reservoir, have already been constructed and started operating in 1997 and 1999, respectively. The present paper constitutes the first attempt where the assessment of reservoir sedimentation effect on the coastal erosion for the case of the Nestos River delta and the adjacent shorelines is addressed in detail, through mathematical modeling, modem remote sensing techniques and field surveying. It is found that the construction and operation of the considered reservoirs have caused a dramatic decrease （about 83%） in the sediments supplied directly to the basin outlet and indirectly to the neighbouring coast and that this fact has almost inversed the erosion/accretion balance in the deltaic as well as the adjacent shorelines. Before the construction of the reservoirs, accretion predominated erosion by 25.36%, while just within five years after the construction of the reservoirs, erosion predominates accretion by 21.26%.     

Meteorological conditions for the persistent severe fog and haze event over eastern China in January 2013

In January 2013,a severe fog and haze event(FHE)of strong intensity,long duration,and extensive coverage occurred in eastern China.The present study investigates meteorological conditions for this FHE by diagnosing both its atmospheric background fields and daily evolution in January 2013.The results show that a weak East Asian winter monsoon existed in January2013.Over eastern China,the anomalous southerly winds in the middle and lower troposphere are favorable for more water vapor transported to eastern China.An anomalous high at 500 hPa suppresses convection.The weakened surface winds are favorable for the fog and haze concentrating in eastern China.The reduction of the vertical shear of horizontal winds weakens the synoptic disturbances and vertical mixing of atmosphere.The anomalous inversion in near-surface increases the stability of surface air.All these meteorological background fields in January 2013 were conducive to the maintenance and development of fog and haze over eastern China.The diagnosis of the daily evolution of the FHE shows that the surface wind velocity and the vertical shear of horizontal winds in the middle and lower troposphere can exert dynamic effects on fog and haze.The larger(smaller)they are,the weaker(stronger)the fog and haze are.The thermodynamic effects include stratification instability in middle and lower troposphere and the inversion and dew-point deficit in near-surface.The larger(smaller)the stratification instability and the inversion are,the stronger(weaker)the fog and haze are.Meanwhile,the smaller(larger)the dewpoint deficit is,the stronger(weaker)the fog and haze are.Based on the meteorological factors,a multi-variate linear regression model is set up.The model results show that the dynamic and thermodynamic effects on the variance of the fog and haze evolution are almost the same.The contribution of the meteorological factors to the variance of the daily fog and haze evolution reaches 0.68,which explains more than 2/3 of the variance.     

A novel method for distinguishing fog and haze based on PM2.5, visibility,and relative humidity

Haze and fog are both low visibility events, but with different physical properties. Haze is caused by the increase of aerosol loading or the hygroscopic growth of aerosol at high relative humidity, whereas visibility degradation in fog is due to the light scattering of fog droplets, which are transited from aerosols via activation. Based on the difference of physical properties between haze and fog, this study presents a novel method to distinguish haze and fog using real time measurements of PM2.5, visibility, and relative humidity. In this method, a criterion can be developed based on the local historical data of particle number size distributions and aerosol hygroscopicity. Low visibility events can be classified into haze and fog according to this criterion.     

吉林省雾的气候特征及变化成因分析

利用1961-2010年吉林省雾日统计资料,对吉林省雾日的时空分布特征、变化趋势进行了详细分析,并分析了雾日变化的原因。结果表明：近50 a来,吉林省年和四季雾日的空间分布均呈东南部地区多、西部地区少的分布特征;雾日季节变化特征表现为8-9月多,10月至次年5月少,西部和中部地区雾日数月季变化呈现双峰型,东南部和东部地区呈现单峰型;雾大多数开始于夜间21时至次日早晨09时,结束于夜间22时至次日午后13时,持续时间多在6 h以下。近50 a来,除了春季雾日没有明显变化外,全省平均及各区域年和四季雾日均呈减少趋势;在2000年前后雾日数发生了一次明显的突变。雾日空间分布与海拔高度有密切关系;雾日趋于减少有人类活动导致的“热岛效应”、“干岛效应”、气溶胶密度加大等原因,也有气候趋于暖干化的自然原因。     

Courage under fire: Seagrass persistence adjacent to a highly urbanised city–state

Due to increasing development Southeast Asia’s coastlines are undergoing massive changes, but the associated impacts on marine habitats are poorly known. Singapore, a densely populated island city–state, is a quintessential example of coastal modification that has resulted in the (hitherto undocumented) loss of seagrass. We reconstructed the historic extent and diversity of local seagrass meadows through herbarium records and backwards extrapolation from contemporary seagrass locations. We also determined the current status of seagrass meadows using long-term monitoring data and identified the main threats to their presence in Singapore. Results show that, even though ∼45% of seagrass has been lost during the last five decades, species diversity remains stable. The main cause of seagrass loss was, and continues to be, land reclamation. We conclude that strict controls on terrestrial runoff and pollution have made it possible for seagrass to persist adjacent to this highly urbanised city–state.     

Plastic debris retention and exportation by a mangrove forest patch

An experiment observed the behavior of selected tagged plastic items deliberately released in different habitats of a tropical mangrove forest in NE Brazil in late rainy (September) and late dry (March) seasons. Significant differences were not reported among seasons. However, marine debris retention varied among habitats, according to characteristics such as hydrodynamic (i.e., flow rates and volume transported) and relative vegetation (Rhizophora mangle) height and density. The highest grounds retained significantly more items when compared to the borders of the river and the tidal creek. Among the used tagged items, PET bottles were more observed and margarine tubs were less observed, being easily transported to adjacent habitats. Plastic bags were the items most retained near the releasing site. The balance between items retained and items lost was positive, demonstrating that mangrove forests tend to retain plastic marine debris for long periods (months-years).