Rare earth elements in cold seep carbonates from the southwestern Dongsha area,northern South China Sea     

《Marine and Petroleum Geology》2014

The circulation of methane-rich fluids at cold seeps often leads to the precipitation of seep carbonates close to the seafloor along continental margins, which can be used as records of past fluid seepage. Rare earth element (REE) concentrations in seep carbonates have been used to trace fluid sources and provide information on associated biogeochemical processes at cold seeps. The REE concentrations of a series of carbonates collected from cold seeps in the southwestern Dongsha area of the northern South China Sea are analyzed in this study. The total REE contents (ΣREE) of the seep carbonates analyzed show a wide variation from 17 ppm to 523 ppm with an average ΣREE value of 54 ppm, which are higher than the typical marine carbonate values of ∼28 ppm commonly reported and also higher than those of the carbonates from other cold seep areas. A positive correlation between Fe–Mn content and ΣREE was observed. These results suggest that the seep carbonates of this study were primarily controlled by the methane-derived fluid from which they precipitated. The Fe-rich dolomite and siderite, which are the main components of the carbonates, are responsible for the enrichment of the REE. A slight positive Ce anomaly observed in the shale-normalized REE patterns of the studied seep carbonates suggests that they formed in anoxic conditions, and the correlations between Ce/Ce* and La_N/Sm_N, Ce/Ce* and Dy_N/Sm_N, Ce/Ce* and ΣREE further reveal that the REE characteristics of most seep carbonate samples preserve the original redox conditions in which they precipitated and late diagenesis has had little effect on the REE. However, the REE characteristics of sub-samples DS2-2B, DS1-6A and DS1-7A are very different from those of the other sub-samples, indicating a greater impact of late diagenesis and post-oxidation favored REE enrichment.  相似文献   

Standards for the effective management of fisheries bycatch     

《Marine Policy》2014

Mitigating the environmental impact of commercial fishing, by avoiding, minimizing and compensating for adverse effects, is core business for fisheries management authorities globally. The complex interplay of ecological, economic, and social considerations has often resulted in bycatch management being reactive, confrontational and costly. In many cases it has been difficult to demonstrate success and to establish whether bycatch management has been efficient or effective. This article proposes standards for bycatch management following reviews of literature, international agreements and Australian domestic fishery management policies, and consideration by many technical experts and several stakeholder representatives. The standards have been developed using Australian Commonwealth fisheries – and the international fisheries agreements to which Australia is party – as a baseline, but should be applicable to both domestic and regional/international governance systems. The proposed standards involve quantifying fisheries bycatch, agreeing on operational objectives, assessing the effects of fishing on bycatch populations, establishing the cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures, and evaluating performance. The standards encourage domestic management measures that are consistent with the guidance and requirements of international agreements and regional fisheries management organisations. The importance of engaging stakeholders throughout the process is recognised. The standards provide a framework for measuring performance and a checklist of actions for managing bycatch at a fishery level. They have the potential to facilitate the development of more strategic and effective approaches to bycatch management, with defined goals, monitoring systems, and adaptive decision-making. This review of past bycatch management, including the application of the proposed standards to the mitigation of shark bycatch in an Australian longline fishery, demonstrates that the proposed standards are operationally feasible but that they have not always been applied. Specifically, monitoring the performance of bycatch management measures has not always followed their implementation.  相似文献   

Observations of turbulence on the shelf and slope of northern South China Sea     

《Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers》2014

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Reproduction in rare bathyal octopods Pteroctopus tetracirrhus and Scaeurgus unicirrhus (Cephalopoda: Octopoda) in the east Mediterranean as an apparent response to extremely oligotrophic deep seas     

《Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers》2014

Reproductive patterns of two benthic bathyal octopods, Pteroctopus tetracirrhus and Scaeurgus unicirrhus have been studied in extremely nutrient-poor environment of the deep-sea Eastern Mediterranean. Both species were found to exhibit a reproductive tactics of producing eggs much larger than in the western part of the sea which likely results in larger hatchlings with higher viability. P. tetracirrhus exhibited a typical “deep-sea” spawning strategy of simultaneous maturation of a single batch of large eggs with atresia of excessive oocytes, whereas reproductive strategy of S. unicirrhus is particular for shelf octopodids: asynchronous maturation of numerous batches of small eggs with no obvious regulatory atresia. Existence of these two types of ovary development and utilisation of fecundity are closely related to two types of evolutionary stable reproductive strategies based on existence of either very large or very small eggs with a few species occupying the “intermediate” position.  相似文献   

Shoreline foraminiferal thanatacoenoses around five eastern Caribbean islands and their environmental and biogeographic implications     

Brent Wilson  Jacqueline I. Wilson 《Continental Shelf Research》2011,31(7-8):857-866

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Possible solar forcing of interannual and decadal stratospheric planetary wave variability in the northern hemisphere: An observational study     

Alfred M. Powell 《Journal of Atmospheric and Solar》2011,73(7-8):825-838

The variability of stratospheric planetary waves and their possible connection with the 11-year solar cycle forcing have been investigated using annual-mean temperatures for the period of 1958–2001 derived from two reanalysis data sets. The significant planetary waves (wavenumbers 1–3) can be identified in the northern mid-high latitudes (55–75°N) in the stratosphere using this data. Comparisons with satellite-retrieved products from the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) confirm the significant planetary wave variability seen in the reanalyses. A planetary wave amplitude index (PWAI) is defined to indicate the strength of the stratospheric planetary waves. The PWAI is derived from Fourier analysis of the temperature field for wavenumbers 1–3 and averaged over 55–75°N latitude and the 70–20 hPa layers. The results include two meaningful inter-annual oscillations (2- and 8-year) and one decadal trend (16-year) that was derived from wavelet analysis. The stratospheric temperature structure of the wave amplitudes appear associated with the Arctic Oscillation (AO) which explicitly changed with the PWAI. The temperature gradients between the polar and mid-high latitudes show opposite tendencies between the top-10 strong and weak wave regimes.The variation of the planetary wave amplitude appears closely related to the solar forcing during the recent four solar cycles (20–23). The peak of the 2-year oscillation occurs synchronously with solar minimum, and is consistent with the negative correlation between the PWAI and the observed solar UV irradiance. The UV changes between the maxima and minima of the 11-year solar cycle impact the temperature structure in the middle-lower stratosphere in the mid-high latitudes and hence influence the planetary waves. During solar maximum, the dominant influence appears to be exerted through changes in static stability, leading to a reduction in planetary wave amplitude. During solar minimum, the dominant influence appears to be exerted through changes in the meridional temperature gradient and vertical wind shear, leading to an enhancement of planetary wave amplitude.  相似文献   

Burial of organic carbon in Holocene sediments of the Zhujiang (Pearl River) and Changjiang (Yangtze River) estuaries   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Shouye Yang  Min Tang  Wyss W.-S. Yim  Yongqiang Zong  Guangqing Huang  Adam D. Switzer  Yoshiki Saito 《Marine Chemistry》2011,123(1-4):1-10

The East Asian marginal seas are important sinks of terrigenous materials transported by large rivers. In this study two cores from the Changjiang (Yangtze River) and Zhujiang (Pearl River) estuaries and one core from the inner shelf off of Hong Kong were investigated to examine the burial of organic matter during the postglacial period and its possible links with paleoenvironmental changes. Based on a simple two end-member mixing model, the terrestrial organic matter supplied primarily from the Zhujiang and Changjiang dominates the estuarine areas while marine organic matter contributes more to the inner-mid shelf. The competing contributions of terrestrial and marine organic matter are responsible for the downcore variations of organic elemental compositions. The overall decreasing shifts of total organic carbon concentrations and total organic carbon to total nitrogen ratios in the Zhujiang estuarine sediments since 6.5 kaBP seems to support the notion that depth profiles of organic matter compositions deposited in the Zhujiang Estuary can aid in the reconstruction of monsoon history in the Holocene. Nevertheless, organic matter compositions in the Changjiang Estuary and inner shelf off of southeastern Hong Kong respond in a different and more complex way to freshwater discharges or precipitation changes (monsoon variability) in the catchments, owing to complex controls of deposition and preservation of organic matter in these estuarine and shelf environments. Caution is therefore needed in using organic elemental and isotopic compositions to decipher paleoenvironmental changes in East Asian continental shelves where intense river–sea interactions occur and sedimentary environments change drastically.  相似文献   

Sulfur isotopic composition of individual organic compounds from Cariaco Basin sediments     

《Organic Geochemistry》2015

Reactions between reduced inorganic sulfur and organic compounds are thought to be important for the preservation of organic matter (OM) in sediments, but the sulfurization process is poorly understood. Sulfur isotopes are potentially useful tracers of sulfurization reactions, which often occur in the presence of a strong porewater isotopic gradient driven by microbial sulfate reduction. Prior studies of bulk sedimentary OM indicate that sulfurized products are ³⁴S-enriched relative to coexisting sulfide, and experiments have produced ³⁴S-enriched organosulfur compounds. However, analytical limitations have prevented the relationship from being tested at the molecular level in natural environments. Here we apply a new method, coupled gas chromatography – inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, to measure the compound-specific sulfur isotopic compositions of volatile organosulfur compounds over a 6 m core of anoxic Cariaco Basin sediments. In contrast to current conceptual models, nearly all extractable organosulfur compounds were substantially depleted in ³⁴S relative to coexisting kerogen and porewater sulfide. We hypothesize that this ³⁴S depletion is due to a normal kinetic isotope effect during the initial formation of a carbon–sulfur bond and that the source of sulfur in this relatively irreversible reaction is most likely the bisulfide anion in sedimentary porewater. The ³⁴S-depleted products of irreversible bisulfide addition alone cannot explain the isotopic composition of total extractable or residual OM. Therefore, at least two different sulfurization pathways must operate in the Cariaco Basin, generating isotopically distinct products. Compound-specific sulfur isotope analysis thus provides new insights into the timescales and mechanisms of OM sulfurization.  相似文献   

Distributions and assemblages of microbial communities along a sediment core retrieved from a potential hydrate-bearing region offshore southwestern Taiwan     

《Journal of Asian Earth Sciences》2014

Assessing the impacts of methane released from hydrate-bearing environments on global carbon cycling would require detailed insights into the distributions and capacities of microbial communities at different horizons of sediment column. In this study, we conducted geochemical, gene abundance and diversity analyses for a sediment core retrieved from a potential hydrate-bearing region off southwestern Taiwan. Geochemical profiles were characterized by a sulfate-to-methane transition with decreasing total organic carbon and nitrogen in sediments, and increasing dissolved inorganic carbon, ammonium and total sulfur in sediments. Bacterial and archaeal 16S rRNA and amoA gene abundances decreased with depth. In contrast, ANME-1 and -2 16S rRNA gene abundances increased significantly across the sulfate-to-methane transition and peaked at different horizons below this interface. A total of 124,379 bacterial and 130,351 archaeal reads were recovered through tag-pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes and categorized into 9014 bacterial and 6394 archaeal operational taxonomic units on the basis of 97% sequence similarity, respectively. Major bacterial phyla/divisions and archaeal groups (>5% of the total reads) detected included Chloroflexi, Planctomycetes, OP9, Deltaproteobacteria, BHI80-139, MBG-B, Halobacteria, MCG, Thermoplasmata, ANME-1 and MG-I. The abundance variations of most major OTUs (>0.5% of the total reads) were statistically correlated with those of geochemical parameters. These lines of evidence suggest that the populations represented by the major OTUs or detected by group-specific primers were compartmentalized into different horizons and involved directly or indirectly in the cycling of methane, sulfate, organic carbon and nitrogen. Overall, this study demonstrates that the deep sequencing coverage combined with the quantification of gene abundance and geochemical characterization would enable to uncover the detailed distributions and potential metabolic capabilities of specific groups from complexly structured microbial communities in methane-rich marine sediments.  相似文献   

Testing and modeling of the state-dependent behaviors of rockfill material     

《Computers and Geotechnics》2014

Dense Tacheng rockfill material (TRM) exhibits strain softening and dilation during drained triaxial tests, and therefore, an adapted Rowe’s stress–dilatancy equation was proposed for TRM. This equation incorporates an internal state index related to the density and pressure, as well as the coefficient of particle breakage and rotation. The adapted Rowe’s stress–dilatancy equation indicates that the relationship between stress and dilatancy is not constant, but varies with density and pressure. This result is in agreement with TRM test data. A state-dependent model was established for TRM using generalized plasticity theory combined with the adapted Rowe’s stress–dilatancy equation. The model includes twelve constants calibrated using TRM test data from Group A, and this model was used to predict the strain softening and dilatancy behaviors of dense TRM. Furthermore, the model predictions were validated using test data from Group B. In summary, the model accurately represented the stress–strain and dilatancy behaviors of TRM over a wide range of densities and pressures.  相似文献