Methane-induced dolomite “chimneys” on the Kuroshima Knoll, Ryukyu islands, Japan

The Kuroshima Knoll is about 26 km south of Ishigaki Island in the southern part of the Ryukyu Arc. The area is considered to be the source area of “The 1771 Yaeyama Earthquake Tsunami”, which was due to the submarine landslide caused by an earthquake. It has been cleared from some investigations using “Dolphin 3K” and “Shinkai 2000” that there are large-scale dead Calyptogena colonies, many gravels of fallen dolomite chimneys and carbonates on the top of the Knoll [Matsumoto, T., Uechi, C., Kimura, M., 1997; Machiyama, H., Matsumoto, T., Matsumoto, R., Hattori, M., Okano, M., Iwase, R., Tomaru, H., 2001b.]. Carbonates of Kuroshima Knoll have various shapes and macroscopic textures. These have been classified into 4 types; shell crust (pavement), chimney, burrow, and nodule. It is clear that all chimney and burrow carbonates are composed of dolomite, while shell curst and nodule are composed of calcite, sometimes both calcite and dolomite. These carbonates are considered to have been formed by cold seep, because they are characterized by the light carbon isotopic ratio (semi-biogenic) and the heavy oxygen isotopic ratio. This suggests that methane hydrate layers develop under this survey area and the water that has the heavy oxygen and the light carbon isotopic ratio is derived from the dissociation of methane hydrate.     

陕西省十流域面雨量预报系统

黑海到里海的强暖平流致使西伯利亚高压脊经向发展，并建立横槽，横槽北侧的东北气流引导超极地冷空气和西欧东移的冷空气在蒙古国聚积加强，形成了强冷高压、强冷平流；横槽2次转竖引导强冷空气迅猛向南爆发，形成大范围寒潮天气过程；与此次寒潮相伴的北方沙尘暴是蒙古气旋与地面冷高压之间的气压梯度剧增造成的，高空西风急流通过动量下传引起地面大风，是此次强沙尘暴产生的动力条件，在沙尘暴爆发区有南北风的强风切变，促进了沙尘暴的发展。     

Genetic structure of the tall sea pen Funiculina quadrangularis in NW Scottish sea lochs

The tall sea pen Funiculina quadrangularis has a patchy distribution around the UK, being found in sheltered waters below 20 m depth on the northwest coast of Scotland and Ireland. The limited distribution and sensitivity to bottom fishing activities make F. quadrangularis vulnerable to reduction in population numbers that may lead to genetic isolation and reduced diversity. Because of this vulnerability and low resilience to physical disturbance, the tall sea pen is recognised as a Species of Principle Importance under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act, 2006, UK. ( http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/16/contents ) and is also on the Biodiversity Action Plan list of Priority Species for the UK. In the Mediterranean it is recognised as a sensitive and essential fish habitat because it forms habitat for several commercially important crustaceans. The aim of this study was to understand the current state of the genetic structure and gene flow of F. quadrangularis in areas of NW Scotland. We developed 10 microsatellite markers and used them to genotype 176 samples from four populations. Overall, our results suggest that there is high genetic diversity and high gene flow between colonies of F. quadrangularis in and among locations in Loch Linnhe and Loch Duich. As a result of the high rates of gene flow, genetic differentiation between sites was low. This may provide resilience to human impacts if distant populations have a high connectivity. However, care must be taken, as small but significant isolation by distance was found between the most geographically distant sites and only a small part of the species range was examined in this study. The genetic tools developed here will provide a foundation for wider studies of this vulnerable species.     

银河系卫星星系研究进展

对银河系内卫星星系进行全面的"人口普查"具有重要的意义。目前已经发现了二十几个卫星星系,其光度范围分布很广,最暗的矮星系比球状星体还暗。叙述了卫星星系的光度分布、空间分布和动力学性质。总结了观测和理论研究进展,并讨论了星流和伽玛射线在研究银河系结构和暗物质性质方面的贡献。表明了卫星星系的统计分布能用来很好地限制冷暗物质理论和星系形成的相关物理过程,同时指出当前研究的局限性和可能的发展方向。     

The influence of thermohaline fronts on chlorophyll a concentrations during spring and summer in the southeastern Yellow Sea

A spatial and temporal variation in physiochemical parameters in the southeastern Yellow Sea(YS) is investigated in the spring and summer of 2009 to 2011.Nutrient show a strong negative relationship with chlorophyll a(Chl a) concentration in spring,and the subsurface chlorophyll a maxima(SCM) layer was associated with the nitracline in summer.In summer,the SCM was usually found within or above the pycnocline and at the depths of shoals from the open sea to the coastal sea due to tidal and/or topographical fronts in the southernmost study area.High Chl a concentrations were found in the central southern YS,where the YS cold water layer expanded under the pycnocline and encountered water masses during spring and summer.After a typhoon in the summer of 2011,Chl a concentration increased,especially in the central southern YS,where cold waters occurred below the pycnocline.The results suggest that the development of thermohaline fronts may play an important role in the growth and accumulation of phytoplankton biomass in the upper layer of the southeastern YS during spring and summer.     

Distribution and temporal variation of mega‐fauna at the Regab pockmark (Northern Congo Fan), based on a comparison of videomosaics and geographic information systems analyses

The Regab pockmark is a large cold seep area located 10 km north of the Congo deep sea channel at about 3160 m water depth. The associated ecosystem hosts abundant fauna, dominated by chemosynthetic species such as the mussel Bathymodiolus aff. boomerang, vestimentiferan tubeworm Escarpia southwardae, and vesicomyid clams Laubiericoncha chuni and Christineconcha regab. The pockmark was visited during the West African Cold Seeps (WACS) cruise with RV Pourquoi Pas? in February 2011, and a 14,000‐m² high‐resolution videomosaic was constructed to map the most populated area and to describe the distribution of the dominant megafauna (mussels, tubeworms and clams). The results are compared with previous published works, which also included a videomosaic in the same area of the pockmark, based on images of the BIOZAIRE cruise in 2001. The 10‐year variation of the faunal distribution is described and reveals that the visible abundance and distribution of the dominant megafaunal populations at Regab have not changed significantly, suggesting that the overall methane and sulfide fluxes that reach the faunal communities have been stable. Nevertheless, small and localized distribution changes in the clam community indicate that it is exposed to more transient fluxes than the other communities. Observations suggest that the main megafaunal aggregations at Regab are distributed around focused zones of high flux of methane‐enriched fluids likely related to distinct smaller pockmark structures that compose the larger Regab pockmark. Although most results are consistent with the existing successional models for seep communities, some observations in the distribution of the Regab mussel population do not entirely fit into these models. This is likely due to the high heterogeneity of this site formed by the coalescence of several pockmarks. We hypothesize that the mussel distribution at Regab could also be controlled by the occurrence of zones of both intense methane fluxes and reduced efficiency of the anaerobic oxidation of methane possibly limiting tubeworm colonization.     

一个两时间层分裂显格式海洋环流模式(MASNUM)及其检验

A two-time-level, three-dimensional numerical ocean circulation model（named MASNUM） was established with a two-level, single-step Eulerian forward-backward time-differencing scheme. A mathematical model of large-scale oceanic motions was based on the terrain-following coordinated, Boussinesq, Reynolds-averaged primitive equations of ocean dynamics. A simple but very practical Eulerian forward-backward method was adopted to replace the most preferred leapfrog scheme as the time-differencing method for both barotropic and baroclinic modes. The forward-backward method is of second-order of accuracy, computationally efficient by requiring only one function evaluation per time step, and free of the computational mode inherent in the three-level schemes. This method is superior to the leapfrog scheme in that the maximum time step of stability is twice as large as that of the leapfrog scheme in staggered meshes thus the computational efficiency could be doubled. A spatial smoothing method was introduced to control the nonlinear instability in the numerical integration. An ideal numerical experiment simulating the propagation of the equatorial Rossby soliton was performed to test the amplitude and phase error of this new model. The performance of this circulation model was further verified with a regional（northwest Pacific） and a quasi-global（global ocean simulation with the Arctic Ocean excluded） simulation experiments. These two numerical experiments show fairly good agreement with the observations. The maximum time step of stability in these two experiments were also investigated and compared between this model and that model which adopts the leapfrog scheme.     

黄海冷水团海域微型异养鞭毛虫与细菌的弱耦合关系

A study was carried out to investigate the grazing pressure of heterotrophic nanoflagellates(HNF) on bacteria assemblages in the Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass(YSCWM) area in October, 2006. The results show that the HNF abundance ranges from 303 to 1 388 mL-1, with a mean of 884 mL-1. The HNF biomass is equivalent to 10.6%–115.6% of that of the bacteria. The maximum abundance of the HNF generally occurred in the upper 30 m water layer, with a vertical distribution pattern of surface layer abundance greater than middle layer abundance, then bottom layer abundance. The hydrological data show that the YSCWM is located in the northeastern part of the study area, typically 40 m beneath the surface. A weak correlation is found between the abundances of HNF and bacteria in both the YSCWM and its above water layer. One-way ANOVA analysis reveals that the abundance of HNF and bacteria differs between inside the YSCWM and in the above water mass. The ingestion rates of the HNF on bacteria was 8.02±3.43 h-1 in average. The grazing rate only represented 22.75%±6.91% of bacterial biomass or 6.55%+4.24% of bacterial production, implying that the HNF grazing was not the major factor contributing to the bacterial loss in the YSCWM areas.     

夏季黄海冷水团海域的丙烯酸分布与海洋环境因子和叶绿素a变化之间的关系

海水中主要含硫化合物β-二甲基巯基丙酸内盐(DMSP)降解可产生丙烯酸(AA)和活性气体二甲基硫(DMS)。2011年8月对黄海冷水团海域的AA及相关参量的分布特征进行了研究。结果表明,该海域表层海水中AA的浓度为0~0.208μmol/L,平均值为(0.081±0.075)μmol/L。AA的高值区出现在海域的东南部,可能是受到长江冲淡水的影响。AA的浓度总体上呈现出由南到北递增的趋势,与Chl-a较为一致,表明该海域的AA主要是由DMSP裂解产生的。表层海水中AA与温度表现出明显的负相关性。AA的垂直分布表现为:中层底层表层,这可能是产生AA的浮游植物与消耗AA的细菌共同作用的结果。海域中AA浓度与DMSP或DMS无明显的相关性。AA浓度远高于DMS,AA/DMS平均为106∶1,初步估算出DMSP降解产生的AA约为66.5%。AA/Chl-a平均为126.6 mmol/g,比DMSP/Chl-a高1个数量级,比DMS/Chl-a高2个数量级。     

Towards a climate event stratigraphy for New Zealand over the past 30 000 years (NZ‐INTIMATE project)

It is widely recognised that the acquisition of high‐resolution palaeoclimate records from southern mid‐latitude sites is essential for establishing a coherent picture of inter‐hemispheric climate change and for better understanding of the role of Antarctic climate dynamics in the global climate system. New Zealand is considered to be a sensitive monitor of climate change because it is one of a few sizeable landmasses in the Southern Hemisphere westerly circulation zone, a critical transition zone between subtropical and Antarctic influences. New Zealand has mountainous axial ranges that amplify the climate signals and, consequently, the environmental gradients are highly sensitive to subtle changes in atmospheric and oceanic conditions. Since 1995, INTIMATE has, through a series of international workshops, sought ways to improve procedures for establishing the precise ages of climate events, and to correlate them with high precision, for the last 30 000 calendar years. The NZ‐INTIMATE project commenced in late 2003, and has involved virtually the entire New Zealand palaeoclimate community. Its aim is to develop an event stratigraphy for the New Zealand region over the past 30 000 years, and to reconcile these events against the established climatostratigraphy of the last glacial cycle which has largely been developed from Northern Hemisphere records (e.g. Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), Termination I, Younger Dryas). An initial outcome of NZ‐INTIMATE has been the identification of a series of well‐dated, high‐resolution onshore and offshore proxy records from a variety of latitudes and elevations on a common calendar timescale from 30 000 cal. yr BP to the present day. High‐resolution records for the last glacial coldest period (LGCP) (including the LGM sensu stricto) and last glacial–interglacial transition (LGIT) from Auckland maars, Kaipo and Otamangakau wetlands on eastern and central North Island, marine core MD97‐2121 east of southern North Island, speleothems on northwest South Island, Okarito wetland on southwestern South Island, are presented. Discontinuous (fragmentary) records comprising compilations of glacial sequences, fluvial sequences, loess accumulation, and aeolian quartz accumulation in an andesitic terrain are described. Comparisons with ice‐core records from Antarctica (EPICA Dome C) and Greenland (GISP2) are discussed. A major advantage immediately evident from these records apart from the speleothem record, is that they are linked precisely by one or more tephra layers. Based on these New Zealand terrestrial and marine records, a reasonably coherent, regionally applicable, sequence of climatically linked stratigraphic events over the past 30 000 cal. yr is emerging. Three major climate events are recognised: (1) LGCP beginning at ca. 28 000 cal. yr BP, ending at Termination I, ca. 18 000 cal. yr BP, and including a warmer and more variable phase between ca. 27 000 and 21 000 cal. yr BP, (2) LGIT between ca. 18 000 and 11 600 cal. yr BP, including a Lateglacial warm period from ca. 14 800 to 13 500 cal. yr BP and a Lateglacial climate reversal between ca. 13 500 and 11 600 cal. yr BP, and (3) Holocene interglacial conditions, with two phases of greatest warmth between ca. 11 600 and 10 800 cal. yr BP and from ca. 6 800 to 6 500 cal. yr BP. Some key boundaries coincide with volcanic tephras. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.