Digital Commons Network^™

Fate Of Fish Production In A Seasonally Flooded Saltmarsh, Philip W. Stevens, Clay L. Montague, Kenneth J. Sulak

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Although saltmarshes are thought to enhance the productivity of open estuarine water, the mechanism by which energy transfer occurs has been debated for decades. One possible mechanism is the transfer of saltmarsh production to estuarine waters by vagile fishes and invertebrates. Monthly estimates of fish standing stock, net fish ingress, and predation were used to develop a bio-mass budget to estimates annual production of fishes and the relative yield to predatory fish, birds, and direct migration to the estuary. Annual production of saltmarsh fishes was estimated to 31.0 gm^-2 saltmarsh, which falls within the range of previously reported values …

Linking Bioturbation And Sensory Biology: Chemoreception Mechanisms In Deposit-Feeding Polychaetes, Sara M. Lindsay, Paul Rawson

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Soft-sediment benthic habitats are ubiquitous in the marine environment and typically feature macrofaunal assemblages that include large numbers of deposit-feeding invertebrates such as polychaetes, bivalves, gastropods, crustaceans, holothurians, and hemichordates. Via their feeding, modulated in part by chemoreception, these organisms have profound effects on the ecology, biology, geology, and chemistry of their habitats. Very little is known, however, concerning the physiology and molecular biology of chemoreception in deposit feeders.

This research is a comprehensive investigation of the sensory mechanisms coordinating chemoreception in deposit feeding spionid polychaetes. It directly addresses this lack of information and will therefore have a significant impact …

Law Of The Sea Cruise To Map The Western Insular Margin And 2500-M Isobath Of Guam And The Northern Mariana Islands. Cruise Report, James V. Gardner

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

U.S. Law of the Sea cruise to map the western insular margin and 2500-m isobath of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands

CRUISE BD06-1

October 13, to November 12, 2006

Naha, Okinawa, Japan to Apra Harbor, Guam

Acoustic Scattering From Mud Volcanoes And Carbonate Mounts, Charles W. Holland, Thomas C. Weber, Giuseppe Etiope

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

Submarine mud volcanoes occur in many parts of the world’s oceans and form an aperture for gas and fluidized mud emission from within the earth’s crust. Their characteristics are of considerable interest to the geology, geophysics, geochemistry, and underwater acoustics communities. For the latter, mud volcanoes are of interest in part because they pose a potential source of clutter for active sonar. Close-range (single-interaction) scattering measurements from a mud volcano in the Straits of Sicily show scattering10–15dB above the background. Three hypotheses were examined concerning the scattering mechanism: (1) gas entrained in sediment at/near mud volcano, (2) gas bubbles and/or …

Inside Unlv, Diane Russell, Cate Weeks, Shane Bevell, Mamie Peers, Lori Bachand

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Satellite Remote Sensing Of Glaciers And Ice Caps In Svalbard, Eurasian High Arctic, Gordon S. Hamilton

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

Recent compilations of climate-related observations show that important changes are now underway in the High Arctic, probably as a response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions over the last approximately 250 years. These changes include warming of the troposphere, reductions in sea ice cover, decreases in snow cover area, warming of tundra permafrost, and negative mass balances of glaciers and ice caps. In many instances, observations of change are relatively short in duration or sparse in spatial extent. The Principal Investigators will study glacier and ice cap variations over the approximately last 80 years and at a large scale on Svalbard. …

U.S.-Japan-Hong Kong Planning Visit: Long Term Collaborative Research Studying Fe Effects On Ecosystem Structure In The Subarctic Pacific, Mark L. Wells

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a short-term U.S-Japan-Hong Kong Planning Visit in preparation for a long-term collaborative research project studying Fe effects on ecosystem structure in the Sub arctic Pacific. The collaborators are Professor Mark Wells at the University of Maine and Professor Shigenobu Takeda at the University of Tokyo in Japan and Professor Paul Harrison at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Virtually the entire Sub arctic Pacific to the Aleutian Islands is a High Nitrate Low Chlorophyll (HNLC) region, characterized by persistently elevated concentrations of macronutrients throughout the year. Independent studies have demonstrated that a shortage of the …

Detecting Compaction Disequilibrium With Anisotropy Of Magnetic Susceptibility, Kurt Schwehr, Lisa Tauxe, Neal Driscoll, Homa Lee

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

In clay-rich sediment, microstructures and macrostructures influence how sediments deform when under stress. When lithology is fairly constant, anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) can be a simple technique for measuring the relative consolidation state of sediment, which reflects the sediment burial history. AMS can reveal areas of high water content and apparent overconsolidation associated with unconformities where sediment overburden has been removed. Many other methods for testing consolidation and water content are destructive and invasive, whereas AMS provides a nondestructive means to focus on areas for additional geotechnical study. In zones where the magnetic minerals are undergoing diagenesis, AMS should …

Lake Samish Monitoring Project 2006 Final Report, Robin A. Matthews, Joan Vandersypen, Kara Hitchko

Lake Samish

Lake Samish is a valuable aquatic resource, providing public access for boating, fishing, swimming, picnicking, and other water and lakeshore activities. Residents around the lake enjoy outstanding views of both the lake and its surrounding watershed, and the lake serves as a water supply for many of the lakeshore residents.

Lake Samish is located in the Washington State Department of Ecology’s water resource inventory area #3 (WRIA 3), and discharges into Friday Creek, a salmon spawning tributary of the Samish River. The Lake Samish monitoring project was initiated in June 2005 to collect monthly water quality data from the lake …

Inside Unlv, Cate Weeks, Brenda Griego, David Ashley, Mamie Peers, Shane Bevell, Gian Galassi

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Stratospheric Variability And Trends In Models Used For The Ipcc Ar4, P. M. De F. Forster, Eugene Cordero

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

Atmosphere and ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) experiments for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) are analyzed to better understand model variability and assess the importance of various forcing mechanisms on stratospheric trends during the 20th century. While models represent the climatology of the stratosphere reasonably well in comparison with NCEP reanalysis, there are biases and large variability among models. In general, AOGCMs are cooler than NCEP throughout the stratosphere, with the largest differences in the tropics. Around half the AOGCMs have a top level beneath ~2 hPa and show a significant cold bias in their …

Assessment Of Temperature, Trace Species, And Ozone In Chemistry-Climate Model Simulations Of The Recent Past, V. Eyring, N. Butchart, D. W. Waugh, H. Akiyoshi, J. Austin, S. Bekki, G. E. Bodeker, B. A. Boville, C. Brühl, M. P. Chipperfield, E. Cordero, M. Dameris, M. Deushi, V. E. Fioletov, S. M. Frith, R. R. Garcia, A. Gettelman, M. A. Giorgetta, V. Grewe, L. Jourdain, D. E. Kinnison, E. Mancini, E. Manzini, M. Marchand, D. R. Marsh, T. Nagashima, P. A. Newman, J. E. Nielsen, S. Pawson, G. Pitari, D. A. Plummer, E. Rozanov, M. Schraner, T. G. Shepherd, K. Shibata, R. S. Stolarski, H. Struthers, W. Tian, M. Yoshiki

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

[1] Simulations of the stratosphere from thirteen coupled chemistry-climate models (CCMs) are evaluated to provide guidance for the interpretation of ozone predictions made by the same CCMs. The focus of the evaluation is on how well the fields and processes that are important for determining the ozone distribution are represented in the simulations of the recent past. The core period of the evaluation is from 1980 to 1999 but long-term trends are compared for an extended period (1960–2004). Comparisons of polar high-latitude temperatures show that most CCMs have only small biases in the Northern Hemisphere in winter and spring, but …

Validity, Identification, And Distribution Of The Roundscale Spearfish, Tetrapturus Georgii (Teleostei: Istiophoridae): Morphological And Molecular Evidence, Mahmood S. Shivji, Jennifer E. Magnussen, Lawrence R. Beerkircher, George Hinteregger, Dennis W. Lee, Joseph E. Serafy, Eric D. Prince

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The roundscale spearfish, Tetrapturus georgii Lowe, 1840, is known only from four specimens from the Mediterranean and eastern North Atlantic. Additional specimens have not been identified since 1961, making the validity and distribution of this species unclear. Analysis of 16 billfish specimens from the western North Atlantic on the basis of scale morphology, anus position, and mitochondrial DNA confirms the validity of this species and extends its distribution. Mid-lateral scales are soft, notably rounded anteriorly, and bear 2–3 points distinct from those of the sympatric longbill spearfish (Tetrapturus pfluegeri Robins and de Sylva, 1963) and white marlin (Tetrapturus …

Oregon Ballast Water Task Force Report On Ballast Water Management In Oregon, Christina Simkanin, Mark Sytsma

Center for Lakes and Reservoirs Publications and Presentations

This report provides information and analysis on the current ballast water regulations at international, federal, regional and state levels; ballast water discharge trends in Oregon; the shipping industry’s compliance with Oregon law; and current and emerging issues affecting Oregon’s ballast water legislation. The report also provides recommendations for strengthening Oregon’s management of shipping-related pathways of invasive species introduction.

A Process For Producing Ice Coverage Marine Information Objects (Mios) In Iho S-57 Format, George Dias, David F. Coleman, Ahmed El-Rabbany, Benson Agi, Lee Alexander

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

While global warming may be opening up more Arctic waters in the summer, ice still infests key shipping lanes in the northern hemisphere during the winter months. To safely navigate these areas, mariners rely on daily ice coverage charts produced by national governmental agencies. Ice charts are primarily issued in paper format or as a fax. However, there is increased interest to ice coverage information on vessel navigation systems such as an Electronic Chart and Display Information Systems (ECDIS). However, to do so, the ice information must be provided as a separate layer of information to the Electronic Navigational Chart …

Collaborative Research: Millennial-Scale Fluctuations Of Dry Valleys Lakes: Implications For Regional Climate Variability And The Interhemispheric (A)Synchrony Of Climate Change, Brenda Hall, Glenn Berger

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project to add to the understanding of what drives glacial cycles. Most researchers agree that Milankovitch seasonal forcing paces the ice ages but how these insolation changes are leveraged into abrupt global climate change remains unknown. A current popular view is that the climate of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean leads that of the rest of the world by a couple thousand years at Termination I and by even greater margins during previous terminations. This project will integrate the geomorphological record of glacial history with a series of cores taken from the lake bottoms in the …

Optical Image Blending For Underwater Mosaics, Fan Gu, Yuri Rzhanov

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

Typical problems for creation of consistent underwater mosaic are misalignment and inhomogeneous illumination of the image frames, which causes visible seams and consequently complicates post-processing of the mosaics such as object recognition and shape extraction. Two recently developed image blending methods were explored in the literature: "gradient domain stitching" and "graph-cut" method, and they allow for improvement of illumination inconsistency and "ghosting" effects, respectively. However, due to the specifics of underwater imagery, these two methods cannot be used within a straightforward manner. In this paper, a new improved blending algorithm is proposed based on these two methods. By comparing with …

Recent Global Warming: A New Approach To Interpreting Some Of The Data, Stanley Schleifer, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Samuel Borenstein, Che-Tsao Huang, Thakur Chaturgan, Feng Chan Liang, Mario Jo-Ramirez, Dorean J. Flores, Poonraj Persaud, Selwyn N. Lebourne

Publications and Research

The authors have done an analysis of meteorological data which may add to the growing body of information addressing the cause or causes of recent global warming. If an augmented greenhouse effect, due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, has been a significant factor producing global warming, then this should be indicated by an increase in the interval of time between the time of maximum insolation, and the time of maximum surface temperature, as well as a decrease in the interval of time between the time of minimum insolation and the time of minimum surface temperature, in the mid latitudes. …

Experiments For Multibeam Backscatter Adjustments On The Noaa Ship Fairweather, Luciano E. Fonseca, Brian R. Calder

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

A series of experiments were conducted to adjust and normalize the acoustic backscatter acquired by Reson 8111 and 8160 systems. The dependency of the backscatter on the receiver gain, transmit power, pulse width and acquisition mode was analyzed. Empirical beam patterns are calculated as the difference between the backscatter measured by the sonars and the expected backscatter. Expected acoustic backscatter is estimated based on a mathematical model.

Self-Positioning Smart Buoys, The 'Un-Buoy' Solution: Logistic Considerations Using Autonomous Surface Craft Technology And Improved Communications Infrastructure, Joseph A. Curcio, Philip A. Mcgillivary, Kevin Fall, Andrew Maffei, Kurt Schwehr, Bob Twiggs, Chris Kitts, Phil Ballou

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

Moored buoys have long served national interests, but incur high development, construction, installation, and maintenance costs. Buoys which drift off-location can pose hazards to mariners, and in coastal waters may cause environmental damage. Moreover, retrieval, repair and replacement of drifting buoys may be delayed when data would be most useful. Such gaps in coastal buoy data can pose a threat to national security by reducing maritime domain awareness. The concept of self-positioning buoys has been advanced to reduce installation cost by eliminating mooring hardware. We here describe technology for operation of reduced cost self-positioning buoys which can be used in …

Deep-Water Antipatharians: Proxies Of Environmental Change, B. Williams, M.J. Risk, S.W. Ross, K.J. Sulak

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Deep-water (307–697 m) antipatharian (black coral) specimens were collected from the southeastern continental slope of the United States and the north-central Gulf of Mexico. The sclerochronology of the specimens indicates that skeletal growth takes place by formation of concentric coeval layers. We used 210Pb to estimate radial growth rate of two specimens, and to establish that they were several centuries old. Bands were delaminated in KOH and analyzed for carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. Carbon values ranged from _16.4‰ to _15.7‰; the oldest specimen displayed the largest range in values. Nitrogen values ranged from 7.7‰ to 8.6‰. …

Documenting Decadal Spatial Changes In Seagrass And Acropora Palmata Cover By Aerial Photography Analysis In Vieques, Puerto Rico: 1937-2000, Luz Raquel Hernandez-Cruz, Samuel J. Purkis, Bernhard Riegl

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Aerial photographs from 1937–2000 of Bahía Salina del Sur on vieques, Puerto Rico were analyzed to detect and describe spatial changes in the areal cover of sea-grass beds in Bahía Salina del Sur. The images were pre-processed to minimize noise and unsupervised classification was used to detect areas colonized by seagrass. The number of individual seagrass patches, direction, and characteristic of growth were quantified and described. Seagrass coverage increased by 85.8% over the 64-yr period and this increase was best described by a 2nd order polynomial function (r² = 0.91). Between 1937 and 2000, the spatial expression of the …

Morphological And Phylogenetic Description Of An Unusual Amphidinium (Dinophyceae) Species, Tyler Cyronak, Isaac R. Santos

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches, Lectures

Amphidinium carterae, an important harmful algal species that produces powerful antifungal and hemolytic compounds (amphidinols) and cytotoxic macrolides (amphidinolides) is ubiquitous in coastal waters. Samples from coral rubble contained an unusual and previously unreported Amphidinium (D2) with a circular outline. Genetic analysis of clone D2 of this species, involving the sequencing of large subunit (LSU) rDNA, revealed a relationship between Amphidinium sp. D2 and both A. carterae and A. massartii. However, morphological and genetic differences suggest that Amphidinium sp. D2 is not conspecific with A. carterae or A. massartii. Further studies to describe this species are presently …

Marine Investigations Of Greece's Santorini Volcanic Field, Haraldur Sigurdsson, Steven Carey, Matina Alexandri, Georges Vougioukalakis, Katherine Croff, Chris Roman, Dimitris Sakellariou, Christos Anagnostou, Grigoris Rousakis, Chrysanti Ioakim, Aleka Goguo, Dionysis Ballas, Thanassis Misaridis, Paraskevi Nomikou

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The most recent major explosive eruption of the Santorini volcano in Greece—around 3600 years before present (B.P.), often referred to as the Minoan eruption—is one of the largest volcanic events known in historical time and has been the subject of intense volcanological and archeological studies [Druitt et al., 1999]. The submarine volcano Kolumbo, located seven kilometers northeast of Santorini and associated with Santorini's tectonic system, erupted explosively in 1650 A.D., resulting in fatalities on the island of Thera [Fouqué, 1879]. A large fraction of the erupted products from the Minoan eruption has been deposited in the …

Perchlorate And Nitrate Remediation Efficiency And Microbial Diversity In A Containerized Wetland Bioreactor, Paula Krauter, Bill Daily Jr., Valerie Dibley, Holly Pinkart, Tina Legler

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

We have developed a method to remove perchlorate (14–27 μg/L) and nitrate (48 mg/L) from contaminated groundwater using a wetland bioreactor. The bioreactor has operated continuously in a remote field location for more than 2 yr with a stable ecosystem of indigenous organisms. This study assesses the bioreactor for long-term perchlorate and nitrate remediation by evaluating influent and effluent groundwater for oxidation-reduction conditions and nitrate and perchlorate concentrations. Total community DNA was extracted and purified from 10-g sediment samples retrieved from vertical coring of the bioreactor during winter. Analysis by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of short, 16S rDNA, polymerase-chain-reaction products …

Maximum A Posteriori Resampling Of Noisy, Spatially Correlated Data, John A. Goff, Chris Jenkins, Brian R. Calder

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

In any geologic application, noisy data are sources of consternation for researchers, inhibiting interpretability and marring images with unsightly and unrealistic artifacts. Filtering is the typical solution to dealing with noisy data. However, filtering commonly suffers from ad hoc (i.e., uncalibrated, ungoverned) application. We present here an alternative to filtering: a newly developed method for correcting noise in data by finding the “best” value given available information. The motivating rationale is that data points that are close to each other in space cannot differ by “too much,” where “too much” is governed by the field covariance. Data with large uncertainties …

Some Preservation Techniques For (Deep Water) Coral Samples For Subsequent Molecular Studies: A Special Supplement From Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, Jose V. Lopez

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Reports

Around the time that the thirteen original Atlantic colonies were fighting for independence from Britain, there existed little agreement among naturalists as to the nature of corals. Were they inanimate (stones), plants, animals, or intermediate between the latter two (zoophytes)? This diversity of definition and opinions undoubtedly produced considerable confusion and disagreement among naturalists interested in such things. The symbiotic nature of algal cells in the tissues of some corals was also not well understood. It was not until the Darwinian period in the nineteenth century that little doubt remained, and therefore it was generally agreed, that corals were actually …

Augusta Me: The New Bridge Begets A New Planned Neighborhood, Molly Pulsifer, Richard Barringer

Planning

Construction of a new Third Bridge over the Kennebec River in Augusta offered the prospect of a new and handsome gateway to the city. Further, the resulting change in traffic patterns offered the City the chance to plan for a pattern of development quite different from what the city had experienced for the past half-century. The case study describes the planning and construction of the new bridge and corridors that re-routed traffic out of Augusta’s downtown and older neighborhoods, and created the opportunity for planned development adjacent to the corridor created by the new bridge. It goes on to describe …

Seaside, Oregon, Tsunami Pilot Study : Modernization Of Fema Flood Hazard Maps, Frank I. González, Eric L. Geist, Costas Synolakis, Diego Rodriguez Arcas, Douglas Bellomo, David Carlton, Thomas Horning, Bruce Jaffe, Jeff Johnson, Utku Kânoğlu, Harold O. Mofjeld, Jean Newman, Thomas Parsons, Robert Peters, Curt D. Peterson, George Priest, Vasily V. Titov, Angie J. Venturato, Joseph Weber, Florence L. Wong, Ahmet Yalçıner

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) guidelines do not currently exist for conducting and incorporating tsunami hazard assessments that reflect the substantial advances in tsunami research achieved in the last two decades; this conclusion is the result of two FEMA-sponsored workshops and the associated Tsunami Focused Study (Chowdhury et al., 2005). Therefore, as part of FEMA's Map Modernization Program, a Tsunami Pilot Study was carried out in the Seaside/Gearhart, Oregon, area to develop an improved Probabilistic Tsunami Hazard Assessment (PTHA) methodology and to provide recommendations for improved tsunami hazard assessment guidelines. The Seaside area was chosen because it is typical …

Uptake Of Spartina-Derived Humic Nitrogen By Estuarine Phytoplankton In Nonaxenic And Axenic Culture, Jh See, Da Bronk, Aj Lewitus

VIMS Articles

Humic substances are a collection of colored organic acids characterized by high molecular weight and low nitrogen (N) content that are thought to be biologically recalcitrant. We examined a suite of nonaxenic estuarine phytoplankton isolates to determine their ability to take up N-15-labeled humic substances formed in the laboratory and supplied as the sole N source. All 17 estuarine and coastal strains took up the added humic N, but the one polar isolate did not. Two of the coastal isolates (Heterosigma akashiwo and Fibrocapsa japonica) could take up the humic N in nonaxenic culture but not in axenic culture, suggesting …