Mussel reefs on soft sediments: a severely reduced but important habitat for macroinvertebrates and fishes in New Zealand

Green-lipped mussels (Perna canaliculus) formed extensive reefs on soft sediments in sheltered embayments around northern New Zealand until overfishing and/or increased sediment input caused their virtual disappearance by 1980. To determine the role of mussel reefs as habitat for other animals, we located remnant soft-sediment reefs in five locations and compared the density, biomass, productivity and composition of mobile macroinvertebrate communities, and the density of small fishes associated with mussels, with fauna in the surrounding soft sediments. The mussel reefs had a distinct assemblage of macroinvertebrates, which had 3.5 times the density, 3.4 times the biomass and 3.5 times the productivity of surrounding areas. The density of small fishes was 13.7 times higher than in surrounding areas. These results show that soft-sediment mussel reefs support an abundant and productive fauna, highlighting the probable large loss of productivity associated with the historical decline in mussel habitat and the consequent desirability of restoration efforts.     

A heat perturbation flow meter for application in soft sediments

A prototype flow meter has been developed, based upon the heat perturbation principle, to monitor groundwater specific discharge in soft sediments. The device is designed for use in spatially intensive, long-term monitoring campaigns in remote or inconvenient locations, and is cheap, robust and capable of being logged automatically. The results of the laboratory tests indicate that the heat perturbation principle is suitable for determining the magnitude of specific discharge to a degree of accuracy that would be useful in practical applications in dynamic groundwater systems with rapidly changing flows of approximately 1 md⁻¹ or more and that the groundwater flow direction can generally be determined to a high level of precision. The accuracy and reliability of the estimates of specific discharge have been shown to depend strongly upon the geometrical precision of manufacture and the quality of the temperature monitoring system. These factors become most significant in the estimation of lower flows and further investigation is required to determine the detection limit of the device. Specific discharge estimates have been shown to be insensitive to dispersivity values appropriate to the scale of the device. Unlike the majority of heat perturbation devices, calibration is unnecessary.     

A Method for Conducting Simultaneous Convergent Tracer Tests in Multilayered Aquifers

Forced gradient tracer tests between two boreholes can be used to study contaminant transport processes at the small field scale or investigate the transport properties of an aquifer. Full depth tests, in which tracer samples are collected just from the discharge of the abstraction borehole, often give rise to breakthrough curves with multiple peaks that are usually attributed to different flow paths through the aquifer that can rarely be identified from the test results alone. Tests in selected levels of the aquifer, such as those between packer‐isolated sections of the boreholes, are time consuming, expensive; and the identification of major transport pathways is not guaranteed. We present a method for simultaneously conducting multiple tracer tests covering the full depth of the boreholes, in which tracer sampling and monitoring is carried out by a novel multilevel sampling system allowing high frequency and cumulative sampling options. The method is applied to a tracer test using fluorescein conducted in the multilayered sandstone aquifer beneath the city of Birmingham, UK, producing six well‐defined tracer breakthrough curves.     

Impacts of river bed gas on the hydraulic and thermal dynamics of the hyporheic zone

Despite the presence of gas in river beds being a well known phenomenon, its potential feedbacks on the hydraulic and thermal dynamics of the hyporheic zone has not been widely studied. This paper explores hypotheses that the presence of accumulated gas impacts the hydraulic and thermal dynamics of a river bed due to changes in specific storage, hydraulic conductivity, effective porosity, and thermal diffusivity. The hypotheses are tested using data analysis and modelling for a study site on the urban River Tame, Birmingham, UK. Gas, predominantly attributed to microbial denitrification, was observed in the river bed up to around 14% by volume, and to at least 0.8 m depth below river bed. Numerical modelling indicates that, by altering the relative hydraulic conductivity distribution, the gas in the river bed leads to an increase of groundwater discharge from the river banks (relative to river bed) by a factor of approximately 2 during river low flow periods. The increased compressible storage of the gas phase in the river bed leads to an increase in the simulated volume of river water invading the river bed within the centre of the channel during storm events. The exchange volume can be more than 30% greater in comparison to that for water saturated conditions. Furthermore, the presence of gas also reduces the water-filled porosity, and so the possible depth of such invading flows may also increase markedly, by more than a factor of 2 in the observed case. Observed diurnal temperature variations within the gaseous river bed at 0.1 and 0.5 m depth are, respectively, around 1.5 and 6 times larger than those predicted for saturated sediments. Annual temperature fluctuations are seen to be enhanced by around 4 to 20% compared to literature values for saturated sediments. The presence of gas may thus alter the bulk thermal properties to such a degree that the use of heat tracer techniques becomes subject to a much greater degree of uncertainty. Although the likely magnitude of thermal and hydraulic changes due to the presence of gas for this site have been demonstrated, further research is needed into the origins of the gas and its spatial and temporal variability to enable quantification of the significance of these changes for chemical attenuation and hyporheic zone biology.     

内蒙古鸡冠山斑岩钼矿床成矿时代和成矿流体研究

内蒙古鸡冠山钼矿床是西拉沐伦钼成矿带上的典型斑岩矿床。矿床产于火山侵入杂岩中,矿化类型以细脉浸染状矿化为主。对矿床5件辉钼矿样品进行了铼-锇同位素分析,获得了151.1±1.3Ma的等时线年龄,表明成矿作用发生在晚侏罗世。成矿作用可划分为三个阶段:早阶段为石英-黄铁矿阶段,发育乳白色石英和粗粒浸染状黄铁矿;中阶段包括早期石英-多金属硫化物亚阶段和晚期石英-萤石-金属硫化物亚阶段;晚阶段为石英-碳酸盐细脉,穿切早、中阶段脉体和矿物组合。鸡冠山钼矿床流体包裹体岩相学研究表明,与成矿有关的包裹体主要有六种类型:富液相、富气相、含子晶多相、含CO2三相、纯CO2及纯液相包裹体。其中,早阶段以富气和富CO2包裹体为主,中阶段多种包裹体共存,晚阶段则主要为富液包裹体。冷热台显微测温和激光拉曼显微探针(LRM)成分分析结果表明,早阶段石英中原生包裹体的均一温度480℃,盐度最高66.75%NaCleqv,包裹体气相成分富含水和CO2,液相成分则以水为主,子晶矿物有石盐、黄铜矿以及指示氧化条件的赤铁矿等,同时也说明成矿流体是富含成矿金属元素的。中阶段早期石英中的流体包裹体均一温度为320～480℃,晚期石英和萤石中的流体包裹体的均一温度为180～320℃。中阶段流体盐度介于4.65%～56.76%NaCleqv。中阶段包裹体含石盐、方解石、黄铜矿、赤铁矿等子矿物,富气相、富液相与含子晶多相包裹体共存,且具有相近的均一温度,而盐度相差悬殊,指示流体发生了沸腾。晚阶段流体的温度降低至100～180℃,盐度则低于10.86%NaCleqv,流体包裹体成分主要为水。鸡冠山钼矿成矿流体演化从早至晚为:从早阶段高温、高盐度、高氧逸度、富CO2、富成矿物质以岩浆热液为主成矿流体,演化至晚期低温、低盐度、无子晶、贫CO2、以大气降水为主的流体。沸腾作用是鸡冠山钼矿形成的重要机制。     

Detection of temperature variability and trends in the lower troposphere over Delhi: A study of joint influence of ENSO and Land use/ Land cover during 1980–2015

A study of radiosonde observations for temperature at 850 hPa over Delhi for a period of 35 years was conducted. The influence of atmospheric oscillations and geophysical events like El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on tropospheric temperature variability showed indicative trends for changing urban climate in Delhi. The inter‐annual variation in surface temperature and its relationship with land use changes and land cover changes (LULCC) was also examined. LULCC and urban expansion into peripheral areas of Delhi (towards the West, North, North‐West and South) at the cost of agricultural and wasteland was found to be extensive. The upper range of the surface temperature has shifted by ~6°C. The post‐monsoon and winter months from November to February have experienced a considerable increase in the average temperature in the period examined. The monsoon months from June to September have undergone cooling of ~0.5°C–1°C at 850 hPa. An inverse relationship exists between the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and the monthly averaged temperature. The temperature of the atmosphere over Delhi at 850 hPa has increased only marginally (~ 0.3°C) for the time period 1980–2015. Bi‐modal peaks were the most peculiar features observed in mean monthly temperature variation during 2000–2009.     

Survival estimates for the greater crested tern Thalasseus bergii in southern Africa

The nominate race of the greater crested tern Thalasseus bergii breeds only along the coast of the Benguela region (west coast) of southern Africa, where its population is increasing, in contrast to other species of breeding seabirds in the region which similarly depend on forage fish. Although this population’s trends are well known, its demographic parameters remain obscure. We used multi-event capture–recapture–recovery modelling to provide the first estimates of survival. The survival rate of birds older than two years was 0.93 (0.91–0.95); second-year survival was 0.93 (0.90–0.95) and first-year survival was 0.80 (0.73–0.85). A resighting of a 34-year-old bird is a new longevity record for the species. Population growth rates projected with a Leslie matrix model that included our survival estimates were very similar to estimates from annual counts of the breeding population (7–8% y^?1), suggesting that these survival estimates adequately describe the species’ demography. High survival rates have likely contributed to the species’ recent population increase in the region.