Monoplacophora in the South atlantic ocean

Occurrence of Neopilina off the southeastern tip of South America may indicate rather widespread distribution of this abyssal group, under favorable conditions, throughout the seas of the world.     

Viscosity of the atlantic ocean bottom

Two profiles across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge were analyzed to determine viscosity values. Viscous creeping of bottom features due to gravitational stress was assumed, as was sea floor spreading at a rate of 2 centimeters per year. Values obtained agreed well with previous results obtained on the Fennoscandian Uplift, despite great differences in the horizontal dimensions of the bottom relief.     

Magnetic boundaries in the north atlantic ocean

Magnetic boundaries parallel the continental slope and separate undisturbed from disturbed magnetic regions on both sides of the North Atlantic. The boundaries lie 2000 to 2500 kilometers from the axis of the mid-Atlantic ridge and roughly equidistant from it. The undisturbed zone, lying on the continental side of the boundaries, may reflect the long period of no reversals in magnetic polarity that occurred during the late Paleozoic.     

Deep crustal drilling in the north atlantic ocean

Oceanic crustal drilling by R. V. Glomar Challenger at 15 sites in the North Atlantic has led to a complex picture of the upper half kilometer of the crust. Elements of the picture include the absence of the source for linear magnetic anomalies, marked episodicity of volcanic activity, ubiquitous low temperature alteration and evidence for large scale tectonic disturbance. Comparison sections in the Pacific and much deeper crustal drilling are needed to attack problems arising from the North Atlantic results.     

Eight centuries of north atlantic ocean atmosphere variability

Climate in the tropical North Atlantic is controlled largely by variations in the strength of the trade winds, the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and sea surface temperatures. A high-resolution study of Caribbean sediments provides a subdecadally resolved record of tropical upwelling and trade wind variability spanning the past 825 years. These results confirm the importance of a decadal (12- to 13-year) mode of Atlantic variability believed to be driven by coupled tropical ocean-atmosphere dynamics. Although a well-defined interdecadal mode of variability does not appear to be characteristic of the tropical Atlantic, there is evidence that century-scale variability is substantial. The tropical Atlantic may also have been involved in a major shift in Northern Hemisphere climate variability that took place about 700 years ago.     

Postglacial change in sea level in the Western north atlantic ocean

Radioactive carbon determinations of the age of peat indicate that at Bermuda, southern Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana the relative sea level has risen at approximately the same rate, 2.5 x 10(-3) foot per year (0.76 x 10(-3) meter per year), during the past 4000 years. It is proposed tentatively that this is the rate of eustatic change in sea level. The rise in sea level along the northeastern coast of the United States has been at a rate much greater than this, indicating local subsidence of the land. Between Cape Cod and northern Virginia, coastal subsidence of 13 feet appears to have occurred between 4000 and 2000 years ago and has continued at a rate of about 1 x 10(-3) foot per year since then. On the northeastern coast of Massachusetts, subsidence of 6 feet occurred between 4000 and 3000 years ago; since then sea level has risen at about the eustatic rate. Between 12,000 and 4000 years ago, sea level rose at an average of about 11 x 10(-3) foot per year. The part played by local subsidence or temporary departures from the average rate during this period is uncertain.     

Export of north american ozone pollution to the north atlantic ocean

Measurement of the levels of ozone and carbon monoxide (a tracer of anthropogenic pollution) at three surface sites on the Atlantic coast of Canada allow the estimation of the amount of ozone photochemically produced from anthropogenic precursors over North America and transported to the lower troposphere over the temperate North Atlantic Ocean. This amount is greater than that injected from the stratosphere, the primary natural source of ozone. This conclusion supports the contention that ozone derived from anthropogenic pollution has a hemisphere-wide effect at northern temperate latitudes.     

North atlantic ocean: preliminary description of normal modes

The three lowest gravitational modes of free oscillation of the North Atlantic Ocean are estimated by numerical integration of Laplace's tidal equations. These modes have periods of approximately 21, 14, and 11 hours, and structures, respectively, of one, two, and three positive amphidromic systems. The phase distribution of the first mode resembles cotidal charts of the diurnal tide, and the period of the second mode is consistent with that inferred by Wunsch from tidal data in Bermuda and the Azores.     

Major role of the cyanobacterium trichodesmium in nutrient cycling in the north atlantic ocean

The diazotrophic cyanobacterium Trichodesmium is a large (about 0.5 by 3 millimeters) phytoplankter that is common in tropical open-ocean waters. Measurements of abundance, plus a review of earlier observations, indicate that it, rather than the picophytoplankton, is the most important primary producer (about 165 milligrams of carbon per square meter per day) in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, nitrogen fixation by Trichodesmium introduces the largest fraction of new nitrogen to the euphotic zone, approximately 30 milligrams of nitrogen per square meter per day, a value exceeding the estimated flux of nitrate across the thermocline. Inclusion of this organism, plus the abundant diazotrophic endosymbiont Richelia intracellularis that is present in some large diatoms, in biogeochemical studies of carbon and nitrogen may help explain the disparity between various methods of measuring productivity in the oligotrophic ocean. Carbon and nitrogen fixation by these large phytoplankters also introduces a new paradigm in the biogeochemistry of these elements in the sea.     

Stable isotope enrichment in paleowaters of the southeast atlantic coastal plain, United States

Paleowaters from the Floridan aquifer system in the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain have higher D/H and (18)O/(16)O ratios than local Holocene ground water. Maximum delta(18)O enrichments in ground water having adjusted radiocarbon ages of 20,000 to 26,000 years are 0.7 to 2.3 per mil. The trend in isotopic enrichment in paleowaters is the reverse of that normally observed in continental glacial age ground water. Dissolved nitrogen and argon concentrations indicate, however, that the average recharge temperature was 5.3 degrees C cooler than that today. The data indicate cool conditions in the southeast Atlantic coastal plain during the last glacial maximum, with recharge limited primarily to late summer tropical cyclones and hurricanes.     

Warmth of the subpolar north atlantic ocean during northern hemisphere ice-sheet growth

Two 10,000-year periods of Northern Hemisphere continental ice-sheet growth stand out prominently within the last full interglacial-to-glacial cycle. During the first half of each rapid ice-growth phase, the subpolar North Atlantic from 40 degrees N to 60 degrees N maintained warm sea-surface temperatures comparable to those of today's ocean. The juxtaposition at latitudes 50 degrees N to 60 degrees N of an "interglacial" ocean along-side a "glacial" land mass, particularly along eastern North America, is regarded as an optimal configuration for delivering moisture to the growing ice sheets.     

Global climate change and intensification of coastal ocean upwelling

A mechanism exists whereby global greenhouse warning could, by intensifying the alongshore wind stress on the ocean surface, lead to acceleration of coastal upwelling. Evidence from several different regions suggests that the major coastal upwelling systems of the world have been growing in upwelling intensity as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the earth's atmosphere. Thus the cool foggy summer conditions that typify the coastlands of northern California and other similar upwelling regions might, under global warming, become even more pronounced. Effects of enhanced upwelling on the marine ecosystem are uncertain but potentially dramatic.     

Deep-sea erosion and manganese nodule development in the southeast Indian ocean

Features exhibited by a large number of sea floor photographs together with the dating of 187 sediment cores from the southeast Indian Ocean have revealed extensive manganese nodule development and sediment erosion in deep basinal areas. The most extensive nodule field, with an area of 10(6) square kilometers, occurs in the northwestern sector of the South Australian Basin and is named the Southeast Indian Ocean Manganese Pavement. The crests and flanks of the adjacent mid-ocean ridge are, in contrast, free of nodules and marked by much less dynamic bottom water conditions.     

Interannual variability of temperature at a depth of 125 meters in the north atlantic ocean

Analyses of historical ocean temperature data at a depth of 125 meters in the North Atlantic Ocean indicate that from 1950 to 1990 the subtropical and subarctic gyres exhibited linear trends that were opposite in phase. In addition, multivariate analyses of yearly mean temperature anomaly fields between 20 degrees N and 70 degrees N in the North Atlantic show a characteristic space-time temperature oscillation from 1947 to 1990. A quasidecadal oscillation, first identified at Ocean Weather Station C, is part of a basin-wide feature. Gyre and basin-scale variations such as these provide the observational basis for climate diagnostic and modeling studies.     

Micropaleontological evidence for increased meridional heat transport in the north atlantic ocean during the pliocene

The Middle Pliocene ( approximately 3 million years ago) has been identified as the last time the Earth was significantly warmer than it was during the Last Interglacial and Holocene. A quantitative micropaleontological paleotemperature transect from equator to high latitudes in the North Atlantic indicates that Middle Pliocene warmth involved increased meridional oceanic heat transport.     

Layered basic complex in oceanic crust, romanche fracture, equatorial atlantic ocean

A layered, basic igneous intrusion, analogous in mineralogy and texture to certain large, continental layered complexes, is exposed in the Romanche Fracture, equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Crustal intrusion of large masses of basic magmas with their subsequent gravity differentiation is probably one of a number of major processes involved in the formation of new oceanic crust during sea-floor spreading.     

Crustal plates in the central atlantic

Various people have proposed that North and South America are a part of a gigantic crustal plate within which little differential movement is taking place. Considerations of the size of this postulated plate and the pattern of seismicity around the Caribbean indicate that it is in fact two plates, separated in the region between the Lesser Antilles and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Many of the offsets of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge opposite the Caribbean are the result of differential spreading rates and the westward continuations of the fracture zones extending from these offsets are active left-lateral faults.