Rifting to Spreading Process along the Northern Continental Margin of the South China Sea

Understanding the development from syn-rift to spreading in the South China Sea (SCS) is important in elucidating the western Pacific's tectonic evolution because the SCS is a major tectonic constituent of the many marginal seas in the region. This paper describes research examining the transition from rifting to spreading along the northern margin of the SCS, made possible by the amalgamation of newly acquired and existing geophysical data. The northernmost SCS was surveyed as part of a joint Japan-China cooperative project (JCCP) in two phases in 1993 and 1994. The purpose of the investigation was to reveal seismic and magnetic characteristics of the transitional zone between continental crust and the abyssal basin. Compilation of marine gravity and geomagnetic data of the South China Sea clarify structural characteristics of its rifted continental and convergent margins, both past and present. Total and three component magnetic data clearly indicate the magnetic lineations of the oceanic basin and the magnetic characteristics of its varied margins. The analyses of magnetic, gravity and seismic data and other geophysical and geological information from the SCS led up to the following results: (1) N-S direction seafloor spreading started from early Eocene. There were at least four separate evolutional stages. Directions and rates of the spreading are fluctuating and unstable and spreading continued from 32 to 17 Ma. (2) The apparent difference in the present tectonism of the eastern and western parts of Continent Ocean Boundary (COB) implies that in the east of the continental breakup is governed by a strike slip faulting. (3) The seismic high velocity layer in the lower crust seems to be underplated beneath the stretched continental crust. (4) Magnetic anomaly of the continental margin area seems to be rooted in the uppermost sediment and upper part of lower crust based on the tertiary volcanism. (5) Magnetic quiet zone (MQZ) anomaly in the continental margin area coincides with COB. (6) The non-magnetic or very weakly magnetized layer is probably responsible for MQZ. One of the causes of demagnetization of the layer is due to hydrothermal alteration while high temperature mantle materials being underplated. Another explanation is that horizontal sequences of basalt each with flip-flop magnetization polarity cancel out to the resultant magnetic field on the surface. We are currently developing a synthetic database system containing datasets of seismicity, potential field data, crustal and thermal structures, and other geophysical data to facilitate the study of past, contemporary and future changes in the deep sea environment around Japan; i.e. trench, trough, subduction zones, marginal basins and island arcs. Several special characteristics are an object-oriented approach to the collection and multi-faceted studies of global data from a variety of sources.     

Laboratory Studies Of Wind Stress Over Surface Waves

Simultaneous laboratory observations of wind speed, wind stress, and surfacewind-wave spectra are made under a variety of wind forcing patterns using cleanwater as well as water containing an artificial surfactant. Under typical experimentalconditions, more than half of the total stress is supported by the wave-induced stressrather than by the surface viscous stress. When the surfactant reduces the shortwind-wave spectra, the wind stress also decreases by as much as 20–30% at agiven wind speed. When the wind forcing is modulated in time, the wind stresstends to be higher under decreasing wind than under increasing wind at a givenwind speed, mainly because the response of short wind-wave spectra to varyingwind forcing is delayed in time. These examples clearly demonstrate that therelationship between the wind speed and the wind stress can be significantlymodified if the surface wave field is not in equilibrium with the wind forcing.Next, we examine whether the wind stress is estimated accurately if the wave-inducedstress by all surface wave components is explicitly evaluated by linear superpositionand is added to the surface viscous stress. It is assumed that the surface viscous stressis uniquely related to the wind speed, and that the wind input rate is determined by thelocal, reduced turbulent stress rather than the total stress. Our wind stress estimatesincluding the wave contributions agree well with observed wind stress values, evenif the surface wave field is away from its equilibrium with the wind in the presenceof surface films and/or under time-transient wind forcing. These observations stronglysuggest that the wind stress is accurately evaluated as a sum of the wave-induced stressand the surface viscous stress. At very high winds, our stress estimates tend to be lowerthan the observations. We suspect that this is because of the enhancement of wind stressover very steep (or breaking) short wind-waves.     

Centroid moment tensor inversion of low-frequency seismic spectra using Green's functions for aspherical earth models

We present a new method for centroid moment tensor (CMT) inversion, in which we employ the Green's function computed for aspherical earth models using the Direct Solution Method. We apply this method to CMT inversion of low-frequency seismic spectra for the 1994 Bolivia and 1996 Flores Sea deep earthquakes. The estimated centroid locations agree well with those obtained by multiple-shock analyses using body-wave data. This shows that it is possible to obtain reliable CMT solutions by analyses of low-frequency seismic spectra using accurate Green's functions computed for present 3-D earth models.     

Crew members in South Africa's squid industry; whether they have benefitted from transformation and governance reforms

Although crew members form bedrock of the squid industry, they have not benefitted from the transformation and governance reforms because: the harvesting technique necessitates incentivisation of individual effort; they are highly mobile; and the industry is exempted from revised labour legislation. As a result, they have been unable to organise for laying claim on benefits. As they unionise to strengthen their bargaining position, the conundrum is how to maintain incentive practices on which the catching sector is based while asserting their rights. The challenge is re-structuring the sector to improve quality of employment while maintaining individual crew member productivity incentives.     

Partition of radiotracers between suspended particles and seawater

Distinctive uptake mechanisms of different radiotracers by red clays in seawater are elucidated from the magnitude and change of distribution coefficients (K_d) for up to 17 γ-emitting radiotracers as functions of equilibration time, suspended particle concentration and compositions of solids and seawaters. The adsorption of ionic metals onto colloids and subsequent coagulation of colloids onto larger particles are the dominant removal processes of metals in the aquatic environments of low suspended particle concentration.     

Gonadal histology and serum vitellogenin levels of bigeye tuna Thunnus obesus from the Northern Pacific Ocean--absence of endocrine disruption bio-indicators

Endocrine disrupting chemicals such as organochlorines have been detected in a large number of marine fish. Histological observation of the gonads, measurement of serum vitellogenin (VTG) level and of liver polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) content were performed to evaluate the reproductive health and the contamination with endocrine disruptors in bigeye tuna Thunnus obesus, collected in the northern Pacific Ocean in 1999 and 2000. Abnormalities commonly found in species affected by endocrine disruptors such as the presence of oocytes in the testis or elevated serum VTG levels were not found in any of males examined. Both males and females had only small amounts of liver PCB content. The results suggest that currently there is little if any risk of organochlorine contamination or endocrine disruption of gonadal function in bigeye tuna from the northern Pacific Ocean. However, further studies are necessary to evaluate the health status of the open sea fishery resources.