Wetland sedimentation from hurricanes Katrina and Rita

More than 131 x 10(6) metric tons (MT) of inorganic sediments accumulated in coastal wetlands when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita crossed the Louisiana coast in 2005, plus another 281 x 10(6) MT when accumulation was prorated for open water area. The annualized combined amount of inorganic sediments per hurricane equals (i) 12% of the Mississippi River's suspended load, (ii) 5.5 times the inorganic load delivered by overbank flooding before flood protection levees were constructed, and (iii) 227 times the amount introduced by a river diversion built for wetland restoration. The accumulation from hurricanes is sufficient to account for all the inorganic sediments in healthy saltmarsh wetlands.     

Impact of humans on the flux of terrestrial sediment to the global coastal ocean

Here we provide global estimates of the seasonal flux of sediment, on a river-by-river basis, under modern and prehuman conditions. Humans have simultaneously increased the sediment transport by global rivers through soil erosion (by 2.3 +/- 0.6 billion metric tons per year), yet reduced the flux of sediment reaching the world's coasts (by 1.4 +/- 0.3 billion metric tons per year) because of retention within reservoirs. Over 100 billion metric tons of sediment and 1 to 3 billion metric tons of carbon are now sequestered in reservoirs constructed largely within the past 50 years. African and Asian rivers carry a greatly reduced sediment load; Indonesian rivers deliver much more sediment to coastal areas.     

Reconstruction of the Amazon Basin effective moisture availability over the past 14,000 years

Quantifying the moisture history of the Amazon Basin is essential for understanding the cause of rain forest diversity and its potential as a methane source. We reconstructed the Amazon River outflow history for the past 14,000 years to provide a moisture budget for the river drainage basin. The oxygen isotopic composition of planktonic foraminifera recovered from a marine sediment core in a region of Amazon River discharge shows that the Amazon Basin was extremely dry during the Younger Dryas, with the discharge reduced by at least 40% as compared with that of today. After the Younger Dryas, a meltwater-driven discharge event was followed by a steady increase in the Amazon Basin effective moisture throughout the Holocene.     

日本山地森林小流域悬移质泥沙研究

以日本山地源头森林小流域为研究对象,利用泥沙自动取样器和自计水位计,研究了悬移质泥沙的输出过程及其与洪水过程间的关系.研究结果表明,该森林流域的泥沙来源主要是林道、沟道、沟道两边裸露地;河川径流中悬移质泥沙浓度与总泥沙浓度间有很好的相关性;降雨时悬移质泥沙浓度随流量过程的变化呈现出顺时针变化的套索;悬移质泥沙的输出过程属于波浪式变化;悬移质泥沙浓度最大值与洪峰流量几乎同时出现,属同步型;悬移质输沙量主要取决于10 min最大雨量;场降雨量对悬移质输沙量的贡献较大;单场大暴雨造成的悬移质输沙量占全年输沙量的5％左右;悬移质年输沙量的30％是由为数不多的几场降雨造成的.      

Polychlorobiphenyls in North Atlantic ocean water

Concentrations of polychlorobiphenyls (PCB's) have been measured at the surface and at various depths in the water of the North Atlantic Ocean between 26 degrees N and 63 degrees N. The concentrations average about 20 parts per trillion and amount to an estimated 2 x 10(4) metric tons of PCB's in the upper 200 meters of water. The average concentrations of PCB's in the surface water of the Sargasso Sea are lower than those in the northern North Atlantic.     

Rapid acidification of the ocean during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum

The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) has been attributed to the rapid release of approximately 2000 x 10(9) metric tons of carbon in the form of methane. In theory, oxidation and ocean absorption of this carbon should have lowered deep-sea pH, thereby triggering a rapid (<10,000-year) shoaling of the calcite compensation depth (CCD), followed by gradual recovery. Here we present geochemical data from five new South Atlantic deep-sea sections that constrain the timing and extent of massive sea-floor carbonate dissolution coincident with the PETM. The sections, from between 2.7 and 4.8 kilometers water depth, are marked by a prominent clay layer, the character of which indicates that the CCD shoaled rapidly (<10,000 years) by more than 2 kilometers and recovered gradually (>100,000 years). These findings indicate that a large mass of carbon (>2000 x 10(9) metric tons of carbon) dissolved in the ocean at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary and that permanent sequestration of this carbon occurred through silicate weathering feedback.     

Net Exchange of CO2 in a Mid-Latitude Forest

The eddy correlation method was used to measure the net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide continuously from April 1990 to December 1991 in a deciduous forest in central Massachusetts. The annual net uptake was 3.7 +/- 0.7 metric tons of carbon per hectare per year. Ecosystem respiration, calculated from the relation between nighttime exchange and soil temperature, was 7.4 metric tons of carbon per hectare per year, implying gross ecosystem production of 11.1 metric tons of carbon per hectare per year. The observed rate of accumulation of carbon reflects recovery from agricultural development in the 1800s. Carbon uptake rates were notably larger than those assumed for temperate forests in global carbon studies. Carbon storage in temperate forests can play an important role in determining future concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.     

The Discovery of America: The first Americans may have swept the Western Hemisphere and decimated its fauna within 1000 years

I propose a new scenario for the discovery of America. By analogy with other successful animal invasions, one may assume that the discovery of the New World triggered a human population explosion. The invading hunters attained their highest population density along a front that swept from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in 350 years, and on to the tip of South America in roughly 1000 years. A sharp drop in human population soon followed as major prey animals declined to extinction. Possible values for the model include an average frontal depth of 160 kilometers, an average population density of 0.4 person per square kilometer on the front and of 0.04 person per square kilometer behind the front, and an average rate of frontal advance of 16 kilometers per year. For the first two centuries the maximum rate of growth may have equaled the historic maximum of 3.4 percent annually. During the episode of faunal extinctions, the population of North America need not have exceeded 600,000 people at any one time. The model generates a population sufficiently large to overkill a biomass of Pleistocene large animals averaging 9 metric tons per square kilometer (50 animal units per section) or 2.3 x 10(8) metric tons in the hemisphere. It requires that on the front one person in four destroy one animal unit (450 kilograms) per week, or 26 percent of the biomass of an average section in 1 year in any one region. Extinction would occur within a decade. There was insufficient time for the fauna to learn defensive behaviors, or for more than a few kill sites to be buried and preserved for the archeologist. Should the model survive future findings, it will mean that the extinction chronology of the Pleistocene megafauna can be used to map the spread of Homo sapiens throughout the New World.     

Biomass of tropical forests: a new estimate based on forest volumes

Recent assessments of areas of different tropical forest types and their corresponding stand volumes were used to calculate the biomass densities and total biomass of tropical forests. Total biomass was estimated at 205 x 10(9) tons, and weighted biomass densities for undisturbed closed and open broadleaf forests were 176 and 61 tons per hectare, respectively. These values are considerably lower than those previously reported and raise questions about the role of the terrestrial biota in the global carbon budget.     

Natural marine oil seepage

The probable range of seepage into the marine environment is 0.2 x 10(6) to 6.0 x 10(6) metric tons per year. Within this range the best estimate for the present marine seepage worldwide is on the order of 0.6 x 10(6) metric tons per year. This estimate is based on the presumption that only a few other areas around the world are as seepage-prone as southern California. Measurements of seeps and seepage rates are too few to allow an accurate estimation by observation and measurement techniques alone. Seepage potential can, however, be related to geologic criteria, and these provide sound bases for marine seepage assessment. On the basis of this estimate, areas of high seepage potential contribute about 45 percent of the worldwide seepage, areas of moderate seepage about 55 percent, and areas of low seepage less than 1 percent. The situation varies somewhat from ocean to ocean. In the Pacific Ocean, areas of high seep potential are by far the major contributors. In the Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern oceans, areas of moderate seep potential are most significant because areas of high seep potential are relatively rare in these realnis. The circum-Pacific area is the area of greatest seepage; it contributes about 40 percent of the world's total.     

Selective logging in the Brazilian Amazon

Amazon deforestation has been measured by remote sensing for three decades. In comparison, selective logging has been mostly invisible to satellites. We developed a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote-sensing analysis of selective logging in the top five timber-producing states of the Brazilian Amazon. Logged areas ranged from 12,075 to 19,823 square kilometers per year (+/-14%) between 1999 and 2002, equivalent to 60 to 123% of previously reported deforestation area. Up to 1200 square kilometers per year of logging were observed on conservation lands. Each year, 27 million to 50 million cubic meters of wood were extracted, and a gross flux of approximately 0.1 billion metric tons of carbon was destined for release to the atmosphere by logging.     

The Tunguska Explosion of 1908: Discovery of Meteoritic Debris near the Explosion Site and at the South Pole

Submillimeter-sized metallic spheres extracted from soil in the Tunguska region of central Siberia contain noble metals in cosmic proportions. The trace element composition and geographical distribution of these spheres suggest that they are from the 30 June 1908 Tunguska explosion and not meteoritic ablation products falling continuously on the earth. Debris from this explosion was also discovered in a South Pole ice core; this discovery indicates that the Tunguska object exploded in the atmosphere with subsequent stratospheric injection and transport of the debris. The celestial body that exploded over Tunguska weighed more than 7 million tons, was more than 0.16 kilometer in diameter, and may well have been a stony meteorite. This discovery offers a new precision time marker in polar ice strata for the year 1909. The steady-state influx of cosmic matter at the South Pole is estimated to be 1.8 x 10(-8) grams per square centimeter per year, which corresponds to a global influx of 4 x l0(5) tons per year.     

Dispersal pathways for particle-associated pollutants

Particle-associated pollutants (totaling 10(7) metric tons per year) are introduced into the New York Bight by ocean dumping, estuarine discharge, sewage outfalls, eolian transport, and shipping waste and spillage. Oceanic and estuarine circulation processes dilute and transport the particles by a natural dispersal system that also tends to be highly distributive; particle-associated pollutants apparently seek the same sinks in the Hudson River shelf valley and intracoastal weltlands, regardless of their point of introduction.     

长江口悬浮泥沙的MODIS影像遥感监测研究

通过对遥感监测泥沙原理和MODIS传感器特征的分析,应用不同时间的MODIS影像进行长江口及其附近海域的悬浮泥沙监测。结果表明:(1)长江口及其附近海域悬浮泥沙含量较高,其中杭州湾悬浮泥沙浓度高于长江口;(2)长江口及其附近海域水体中的泥沙由再悬浮形成,且冬季泥沙浓度和范围均大于春季;(3)入海径流与海洋动力是影响河口沿岸及近海水域水体悬浮泥沙含量的主要因素,其中海洋动力的潮流和波浪是主导控制因素。     

福建主要港湾悬浮有机碳和悬浮有机氮的动态变化

依据2001年福建主要港湾水体中悬浮物质的调查资料,讨论了悬浮有机碳(POC)、悬浮有机氮(PON)的含量和动态变化特征.结果表明,POC的季度平均含量为0.43～0.54 mg·dm~(-3),PON的季度平均值在0.22～0.26 mg·dm~(-3),属中等水平.潮流和底质对悬浮物质含量的分布起决定性的作用,沉积物再悬浮对悬浮物分布影响很大,冬季尤为显著.现场调查的结果表明POC与PON存在显著相关,反映出受人类活动影响较大的海洋生态系统区水体中POC与PON之间的自然本底关系.各调查海区C/N比值平均为1.65～2.32,根据判断悬浮有机物(POM)来源的标准,小于8为海源有机物,并且POM中主要是浮游植物的碎屑.     

Cross-shelf sediment transport by an anticyclonic eddy off northern california

A combination of satellite imagery, shipboard profiles, drifter tracks, and moored current observations reveals that an anticyclonic eddy off the coast of northern California transported plumes of suspended sediments from the continental shelf into the deep ocean. The horizontal scale of the eddy was about 90 kilometers, and the eddy remained over the continental shelf and slope for about 2 months during the summer of 1988. The total mass of sediments transported by the eddy was of order 105 metric tons. Mesoscale eddies are recurrent features in this region and occur frequently in eastern boundary currents. These results provide direct evidence that eddies export sediments from continental shelves.     

Transport capacity models for unsteady and non-equilibrium sediment transport in alluvial channels

This study investigates transport capacity models based on different dominant variables-shear stress, stream power, unit stream power, flow discharge, flow velocity, and energy slope – in a model of unsteady and non-equilibrium sediment transport in alluvial channels. The model simulates fully coupled system of water flow, suspended sediment, and bed load sediment transport processes in two-layer system of water flow phase and movable bed. The model employs conservation of mass equation for the water in both the layers; suspended sediment in the water flow phase; sediment in the movable bed layer; and the momentum equation for the water flow in the flow phase. The system is closed by relating the sediment flux in the movable bed layer to the sediment concentration in the same layer by employing the kinematic wave theory. Using the sediment transport capacity expression with different dominant variables, a series of numerical experiments are carried out for unsteady and non-equilibrium sediment transport. The results seem theoretically reasonable for hypothetical cases. The model is calibrated and validated using different experimental data sets. The calibrated value for the transport capacity model’s exponent (k_i) is found to be 1.50, 1.65, 0.24, 0.56, 4.80, and 0.22 for shear stress, stream power, unit stream power, discharge, velocity, and slope approaches, respectively. The numerical investigation results show that transport capacity model based on any dominant variable can be employed for modelling unsteady and non-equilibrium sediment transport.     

大镜山水库底泥的蓄积量及营养盐空间分布特征

通过对抽水水库——大镜山水库底泥区面积及底泥厚度的调查,估算了该水库建库30年来底泥的蓄积量,并探讨了水库底泥中营养盐的空间分布特征。结果表明,该水库中蓄积的底泥体积约为48 840 m3,湿重约为54 027 t,干重约为36 137 t。底泥中淤积的无机磷、总氮和易释放磷的含量分别约为21 8866、7 015和5 867 kg。总氮、无机磷及易释放磷的水平分布,从大坝的入水口至库尾呈明显的递减趋势;水库底泥中总氮、无机磷及易释放磷含量的垂直分布,从底层向表层呈明显的递增趋势。营养盐的水平分布反映了抽水水库水动力学特点,垂直变化则反映了20世纪80年代中期到2000年初珠海及周边地区工业与城市发展对河流和水库水环境的影响。     

Swept away: resuspension of bacterial mats regulates benthic-pelagic exchange of sulfur

Filaments and extracellular material from colorless sulfur bacteria (Beggiatoa spp.) form extensive white sulfur mats on surface sediments of coastal, oceanic, and even deep-sea environments. These chemoautotrophic bacteria oxidize soluble reduced sulfur compounds and deposit elemental sulfur, enriching the sulfur content of surface sediment fivefold over that of deeper sediments. Laboratory flume experiments with Beggiatoa mats from an intertidal sandflat (Nova Scotia) demonstrated that even slight erosion of sediment causes a flux of 160 millimoles of sulfur per square meter per hour, two orders of magnitude greater than the flux produced by sulfur transformations involving either sulfate reduction or sulfide oxidation by benthic bacteria. These experiments indicate that resuspension of sulfur bacterial mats by waves and currents is a rapid mechanism by which sediment sulfur is recycled to the water column. Benthic communities thus lose an important storage intermediate for reduced sulfur as well as a high-quality bacterial food source for benthic grazers.     

Amazon river discharge and climate variability: 1903 to 1985

Reconstruction of an 83-year record (1903 to 1985) of the discharge of the Amazon River shows that there has been no statistically significant change in discharge over the period of record and that the predominant interannual variability occurs on the 2- to 3-year time scale. Oscillations of river discharge predate significant human influences in the Amazon basin and reflect both extrabasinal and local factors. Cross-spectrum analyses of Amazon flow anomalies with indicators of the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation phenomenon suggest that the oscillations in the hydrograph are coupled to the tropical Pacific climate cycle.