Deep-sea reef fish assemblage patterns on the Blake Plateau(Western North Atlantic Ocean)     

Steve W. Ross  & Andrea M. Quattrini 《Marine Ecology》2009,30(1):74-92

Deep‐water coral habitats are scattered throughout slope depths (360–800 m) off the Southeastern United States (SEUS, Cape Lookout, North Carolina, to Cape Canaveral, Florida), contributing substantial structure and diversity to bottom habitats. In some areas (e.g. off North Carolina) deep corals form nearly monotypic (Lophelia pertusa) high profile mounds, and in other areas (e.g. off Florida) many species may colonize hard substrata. Deep coral and hard substrata ecosystems off the SEUS support a unique fish assemblage. Using the Johnson‐Sea‐Link submersible (in 2000–2005, 65 dives), and a remotely operated vehicle (in 2003, five dives), fishes were surveyed in nine deep reef study areas along the SEUS slope. Forty‐two benthic reef fish species occurred in deep reef habitats in these study areas. Species richness was greatest on the two coral banks off Cape Lookout, North Carolina (n = 23 and 27 species) and lowest on the two sites off Cape Canaveral, Florida (n = 7 and 8 species). Fish assemblages exhibited significantly (ANOSIM, Global R = 0.69, P = 0.001) different patterns among sites. Stations sampled off North Carolina (three study areas) formed a distinct group that differed from all dives conducted to the south. Although several species defined the fish assemblages at the North Carolina sites, Laemonema barbatulum, Laemonema melanurum, and Helicolenus dactylopterus generally had the most influence on the definition of the North Carolina group. Fish assemblages at three sites within the central survey area on the Blake Plateau were also similar to each other, and were dominated by Nezumia sclerorhynchus and L. melanurum. Synaphobranchus spp. and Neaumia sclerorhynchus differentiated the two southern sites off Cape Canaveral, Florida, from the other station groups. Combinations of depth and habitat type had the most influence on these station groups; however, explicit mechanisms contributing to the organization of these assemblages remain unclear.  相似文献   

Efficacy of a multi-metric fish index as an analysis tool for the transitional fish component of the Water Framework Directive     

Coates S  Waugh A  Anwar A  Robson M 《Marine pollution bulletin》2007,55(1-6):225-240

The WFD has introduced an international commitment to assess the ecological status of transitional waters (TWs), within which fish communities are a key biological monitoring component. The Transitional Fish Classification Index (TFCI) outlined in this paper uses 10 ecological measures to analyse fish populations caught from various ecological niches using a variety of gear types within the Thames estuary. These reach and method-specific communities are then compared to a reference population created from a 'healthy' population from TWs of a similar type. The results indicate a progressive downstream increase the quality of fish communities, consistent with previous work; variation between methods can be accounted for by gear selectivity. Overall, the TFCI is an effective communication tool for converting ecological information into an easily understood format for managers, policy makers and the general public.  相似文献   

Benthic meiofauna community composition at polluted and non-polluted sites in New Zealand intertidal environments   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Hack LA  Tremblay LA  Wratten SD  Lister A  Keesing V 《Marine pollution bulletin》2007,54(11):1801-1812

Meiofauna composition was investigated for six field sites, including polluted and non-polluted sites, within two regions (Auckland and Bay of Plenty) during winter (July-August 2004) in the North Island of New Zealand. Physico-chemical parameters were measured during the sampling period and meiofauna distribution and abundance were compared with these measured parameters. Analysis of meiofauna abundance indicated that foraminiferans, nematodes and ostracods were the taxa that contributed to the variability between field sites within the Auckland region. However, no clear taxa dominance was seen in the Bay of Plenty region. Comparison of meiofauna abundance and physico-chemical parameters was done using multivariate analysis (PRIMER). However, no clear relationships between the parameters were observed in any field site in either region. The Shannon-Weiner index of diversity did not show any clear differentiation between polluted and non-polluted field sites. Therefore, from the present study, the taxa or physico-chemical parameters used could not effectively characterise pollution at the investigated field sites.  相似文献   

The Quaternary history of the Wash fluvial network, UK     

Steve Boreham  Tom S. White  Andy J. Howard 《Proceedings of the Geologists' Association. Geologists' Association》2010,121(4):393-449

This paper appraises and compares the Middle-Upper Pleistocene sedimentary sequences preserved in the fluvial systems draining into the Fenland Basin and the Wash estuary. Of the main Fenland rivers the longest records, which extend back to the initial Anglian (glacial) formation of the basin, are found in the Great Ouse and its tributaries, particularly the Cam and the Nar. These sequences preserve sediments representing all four post-Anglian interglacials. The Nene also has an extensive post-Anglian history, with evidence for a Hoxnian estuary that is presumed to have been the precursor of the Wash. North of the Nene, however, the Welland and Witham (proto-Trent) have relatively short sequences, which are thought to commence with a later (post-Anglian-pre-Devensian) glaciation that affected Lincolnshire and fed the previously-recognized Tottenhill outwash delta south of Kings Lynn. Prior to Devensian deglaciation the Witham valley was occupied by the Trent, which was the trunk river of the late Middle Pleistocene Wash system. During periods of low sea level the river would have extended north-eastwards across what is now the floor of the North Sea, possibly via the Inner Silver Pit. Several of the central Fenland sequences show evidence of infrequent terrace formation during the late Quaternary, although this might in part be due to poor vertical separation between terraces, so that differentiating them has been difficult; this has been exacerbated by mixed biostratigraphical signals due to the preservation of sediments representing more than one interglacial beneath a single terrace surface. In several of the systems there is evidence for valley rejuvenation to the lowest terrace or valley-floor level during the MIS 4-3 transition. The observed differences within what, during the predominant periods of lower sea level, would have been a single Wash river system are difficult to explain.  相似文献   

Towards a volcanic–structural balance: relative importance of volcanism, folding, and remobilisation of nickel sulphides at the Perseverance Ni–Cu–(PGE) deposit, Western Australia     

Paul Duuring  Wouter Bleeker  Steve W. Beresford  Nicholas Hayward 《Mineralium Deposita》2010,45(3):281-311

Perseverance is a world-class, komatiite-hosted nickel sulphide deposit situated in the well-endowed Leinster nickel camp of the Agnew–Wiluna greenstone belt, Western Australia. The mine stratigraphy at Perseverance trends north-northwest (NNW), dips steeply to the west, and is overturned. Stratigraphic footwall units lie along the western margin of the Perseverance Ultramafic Complex (PUC). The PUC comprises a basal nickel sulphide-bearing orthocumulate- to mesocumulate-textured komatiite that is overlain by a thicker, nickel sulphide-poor, dunite lens. Hanging wall rocks include rhyodacite that is texturally and compositionally similar to footwall volcanic rocks. These rocks separate the PUC from a second sequence of nickeliferous, E-facing, spinifex-textured komatiite units (i.e. the East Perseverance komatiite). Past workers argue for a conformable stratigraphic contact between the PUC and the East Perseverance komatiite and conclude that the PUC is extrusive. This study, however, clearly demonstrates that these komatiite sequences are discordant, implying that the PUC may have intruded rhyodacite country rock as a sill with subsequent structural juxtaposition against the East Perseverance komatiite. Early N–S shortening associated with the regional D_I deformation event (corresponding to the local D_P1 to D_P3 events at Perseverance) resulted in the heterogeneous partitioning of strain along the margins of the competent dunite. A mylonite developed in the more ductile footwall rocks along the footwall margin of the PUC, while isoclinal F₃ folds, such as the Hanging wall limb and Felsic Nose folds, formed in low-mean stress domains along the fringes of the elongated dunite lens. Strata-bound massive and disseminated nickel sulphides were passively fold thickened in hinge areas of isoclinal folds, whereas basal massive sulphides lubricated fold limbs and promoted thrust movement along shallowly dipping lithological contacts. Massive sulphides were physically remobilised up to 20 m from their primary footwall position into deposit-scale fold hinges to form the 1A and Felsic Nose orebodies. First-order controls on the geometry of the Perseverance deposit include the thermomechanical erosion of footwall rocks and the channelling of the mineralised komatiitic magma. Second- or third-order controls are several postvolcanic deformation events, which resulted in the progressive folding and shearing of the footwall contact, as well as the passive fold thickening of massive and disseminated sulphide orebodies. Massive sulphides were physically remobilised into multiple generations of fold hinges and shear zones. Important implications for near-mine exploration in the Leinster camp include identifying nickeliferous komatiite units, defining their three-dimensional geometry, and targeting fold hinge areas. Fold plunge directions and stretching lineations are indicators of potential plunge directions of massive sulphide orebodies.  相似文献   

Analysis and characterization of the synergistic AIRS and MODIS cloud-cleared radiances     

Hong Zhang  Hung-Lung Huang  Agnes Lim  Robert Holz  Steve Dutcher  Fred Nagle  Liam Gumley  Jinnian Wang  Runhe Shi  Wei Gao 《Frontiers of Earth Science》2010,4(3):363-373

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and MODerate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua spacecraft measure the upwelling infrared radiance used for numerous remote-sensing- and climate-related applications. AIRS provides high spectral resolution infrared radiances, while MODIS provides collocated high spatial resolution radiances at 16 broad infrared bands. An optimal algorithm for cloud-clearing has been developed for AIRS cloudy soundings at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where the spatially and spectrally collocated AIRS and MODIS data has been used to analyze the characteristic of this algorithm. An analysis and characterization of the global AIRS cloud-cleared radiances using the bias and the standard deviation between the cloud-cleared and the nearby clear measurements are studied. Scene inhomogeneity for both land- and water-surface types has been estimated to account for the assessed error. Both monthly and seasonal changes of global AIRS/MODIS cloud-clearing performance also have been analyzed.  相似文献   

Effect of the processing methodology on satellite altimetry-based global mean sea level rise over the Jason-1 operating period     

Olivier Henry  Michael Ablain  Benoit Meyssignac  Anny Cazenave  Dallas Masters  Steve Nerem  Gilles Garric 《Journal of Geodesy》2014,88(4):351-361

Determining how the global mean sea level (GMSL) evolves with time is of primary importance to understand one of the main consequences of global warming and its potential impact on populations living near coasts or in low-lying islands. Five groups are routinely providing satellite altimetry-based estimates of the GMSL over the altimetry era (since late 1992). Because each group developed its own approach to compute the GMSL time series, this leads to some differences in the GMSL interannual variability and linear trend. While over the whole high-precision altimetry time span (1993–2012), good agreement is noticed for the computed GMSL linear trend (of $3.1\pm 0.4$  mm/year), on shorter time spans (e.g., ${<}10~\hbox {years}$ ), trend differences are significantly larger than the 0.4 mm/year uncertainty. Here we investigate the sources of the trend differences, focusing on the averaging methods used to generate the GMSL. For that purpose, we consider outputs from two different groups: the Colorado University (CU) and Archiving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic Data (AVISO) because associated processing of each group is largely representative of all other groups. For this investigation, we use the high-resolution MERCATOR ocean circulation model with data assimilation (version Glorys2-v1) and compute synthetic sea surface height (SSH) data by interpolating the model grids at the time and location of “true” along-track satellite altimetry measurements, focusing on the Jason-1 operating period (i.e., 2002–2009). These synthetic SSH data are then treated as “real” altimetry measurements, allowing us to test the different averaging methods used by the two processing groups for computing the GMSL: (1) averaging along-track altimetry data (as done by CU) or (2) gridding the along-track data into $2^{\circ }\times 2^{\circ }$ meshes and then geographical averaging of the gridded data (as done by AVISO). We also investigate the effect of considering or not SSH data at shallow depths $({<}120~\hbox {m})$ as well as the editing procedure. We find that the main difference comes from the averaging method with significant differences depending on latitude. In the tropics, the $2^{\circ }\times 2^{\circ }$ gridding method used by AVISO overestimates by 11 % the GMSL trend. At high latitudes (above $60^{\circ }\hbox {N}/\hbox {S}$ ), both methods underestimate the GMSL trend. Our calculation shows that the CU method (along-track averaging) and AVISO gridding process underestimate the trend in high latitudes of the northern hemisphere by 0.9 and 1.2 mm/year, respectively. While we were able to attribute the AVISO trend overestimation in the tropics to grid cells with too few data, the cause of underestimation at high latitudes remains unclear and needs further investigation.  相似文献   

Estimating present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the coastline of Australia: tropical cyclone-induced storm surges   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Ivan D. Haigh  Leigh R. MacPherson  Matthew S. Mason  E. M. S. Wijeratne  Charitha B. Pattiaratchi  Ryan P. Crompton  Steve George 《Climate Dynamics》2014,42(1-2):139-157

The incidence of major storm surges in the last decade have dramatically emphasized the immense destructive capabilities of extreme water level events, particularly when driven by severe tropical cyclones. Given this risk, it is vitally important that the exceedance probabilities of extreme water levels are accurately evaluated to inform risk-based flood and erosion management, engineering and for future land-use planning and to ensure the risk of catastrophic structural failures due to under-design or expensive wastes due to over-design are minimised. Australia has a long history of coastal flooding from tropical cyclones. Using a novel integration of two modeling techniques, this paper provides the first estimates of present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia, and the first estimates that combine the influence of astronomical tides, storm surges generated by both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones, and seasonal and inter-annual variations in mean sea level. Initially, an analysis of tide gauge records has been used to assess the characteristics of tropical cyclone-induced surges around Australia. However, given the dearth (temporal and spatial) of information around much of the coastline, and therefore the inability of these gauge records to adequately describe the regional climatology, an observationally based stochastic tropical cyclone model has been developed to synthetically extend the tropical cyclone record to 10,000 years. Wind and pressure fields derived for these synthetically generated events have then been used to drive a hydrodynamic model of the Australian continental shelf region with annual maximum water levels extracted to estimate exceedance probabilities around the coastline. To validate this methodology, selected historic storm surge events have been simulated and resultant storm surges compared with gauge records. Tropical cyclone induced exceedance probabilities have been combined with estimates derived from a 61-year water level hindcast described in a companion paper to give a single estimate of present day extreme water level probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia. Results of this work are freely available to coastal engineers, managers and researchers via a web-based tool (www.sealevelrise.info). The described methodology could be applied to other regions of the world, like the US east coast, that are subject to both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones.  相似文献   

The 2dF galaxy redshift survey: clustering properties of radio galaxies     

Manuela Magliocchetti  Steve J. Maddox  Ed Hawkins  John A. Peacock  Joss Bland-Hawthorn  Terry Bridges  Russell Cannon  Shaun Cole  Matthew Colless  Chris Collins  Warrick Couch  Gavin Dalton  Roberto de Propris  Simon P. Driver  George Efstathiou  Richard S. Ellis  Carlos S. Frenk  Karl Glazebrook  Carole A. Jackson  Bryn Jones  Ofer Lahav  Ian Lewis  Stuart Lumsden  Peder Norberg  Bruce A. Peterson  Will Sutherland  Keith Taylor 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,350(4):1485-1494

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Dynamics of the Mackenzie River plume on the inner Beaufort shelf during an open water period in summer     

Ryan P. Mulligan  Will Perrie  Steve Solomon 《Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science》2010

The oceanographic conditions of the Mackenzie River plume in the Arctic Ocean were examined during a 12-day period in August 2007. Field observations in the river channel and the delta region (2–6 m depth), ship-based observations on the shelf and satellite observations of sea surface temperatures indicate that movements of plume density fronts cause changes in water temperatures of over 10  C over a few days. We used a 1D model to compare the strength of stratification versus surface wind stress, and a 3D numerical model to simulate the plume motions under forcing from the river flows, local wind and water level variations from tides and wind-driven surge. The results indicate that the coastal region is stratified with a ∼2 m thick surface plume even in water depths of 3–4 m, resulting in strong vertical variation of horizontal currents. Moderate easterly winds of 5–10 m/s are sufficient to induce offshore transport of the surface plume and onshore transport of the deeper shelf water, leading to large fluctuations in temperature and salinity in the coastal region. This study examined a period of offshore transport and mean water level set-down, and indicates the rapid response of the plume to wind over the shallow delta.  相似文献