Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

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.

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. …

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‰. …

Lsuhsc Facilities Biweekly Update: September 2006, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates: 2006

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates from September 4, 20 and 29, 2006.

These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

Lsuhsc Facilities Daily Update: September 2006, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Daily Updates: 2006

LSUHSC Dailly Facilities Updates from September 2006.

These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

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 …

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 …

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 …

Agriculture Land Suitability Analysis Of Indiana: Integrating Soil, Climate, Topography, And Urban Expansion, Yiran Huang

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was initiated to classify the land suitability of Indiana for agricultural use. It integrates environmental, economic, and social factors to analyze the agricultural land suitability of Indiana. Soil, topography, flood, climate, and urban factors were considered. Soil Rating for Plant Growth (SRPG) was used as a soil index in this model; it is calculated based on the STA TSGO database along with landscape attributes and climate. Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) was used as a climate index. Urban areas were defined from Tiger data and a buffer zone was used to estimate future sprawl. GIS overlay was used to …

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 …

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 …

Summer 2006, Nsu Oceanographic Center

Currents

No abstract provided.

Cold Climate In The Eastern Australian Mid- To Late Permian May Reflect Cold Upwelling Waters, Andrew T. Jones, Tracy D. Frank, Christopher R. Fielding

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

A suite of ice-rafted dropstones and glendonites throughout the Permian succession of eastern Australia indicates the cold climate associated with the late Paleozoic ice age persisted longest in this part of Gondwana. Paradoxically, these cold climate indicators are preserved in transgressive and highstand facies and formed at mid to high latitudes at a time when paleofloral and sedimentological data suggest equable onshore environments during the intervening lowstands and temperate conditions at the pole. These apparent inconsistencies suggest that eastern Australia was anomalously cold in the context of post-Sakmarian Gondwanan climates, and the distribution of sedimentary indicators could indicate localized cooling …

Evidence Of An Active Enso And Pdq During The Mid-Holocene From A Costa Rican Speleothem, April D. Azouz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Although the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important source of inter-annual climate variability in the tropics, its Holocene history is poorly understood, particularly in Central America. A high resolution (-3.8 years/sample) paleoclimate record of Central American rainfall variability has been reconstructed from a U /Th-dated stalagmite (7890 to 6490 yrs B.P.) from Costa Rica to constrain the onset and variability of ENSO throughout the Holocene, and to determine its role in generating regional climate anomalies. I suggest drier conditions, forced by El Nino, are represented by higher 5180 values, and are correlative with higher 513C values, indicating that …

Lsuhsc Facilities Biweekly Update: August 2006, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates: 2006

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates from August 7 and 18, 2006.

These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

Lsuhsc Facilities Daily Update: August 2006, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Daily Updates: 2006

LSUHSC Dailly Facilities Updates from August 2006. These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

Patterns Of Scleractinian Health In Broward County, Florida, Melody J. White

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

This study was survey of disease distribution and abundance relating to coral diseases present in Broward County. Data of the 1330 scleractinian coral individuals found, 88 showed signs of disease. 19 coral species, 3 diseases and bleaching were represented. Diseases affected 9 of the species. Bleaching was the most common disease noted in this survey, followed by dark spot, red band, and yellow band.

Disease distribution appears to be scattered on the reef system. No apparent patterns were found when grouped by reef or corridor locations. MDS cluster analysis revealed a clumping of disease, but this was not correlated with …

The Impact Of Hurricane Katrina On Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans, Lsu Health Sciences Center - New Orleans

LSUHSC Hurricane Katrina Archive: Reports & Presentations

"The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans" is a 6 page document presented by Dr. Larry H. Hollier (Dean of the School of Medicine 2004-2007, Chancellor 2006-2021) to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on July 13, 2006.

This report details the status of faculty, departments, and organizations affiliated with LSU Health just before Hurricane Katrina, the challenges the school administrators faced in evacuating the campuses and associated medical centers as well as relocating all services, and the success of the university in continuing education and research programs while …

Anguilliform Larvae Collected Off North Carolina, Steve W. Ross, Tara L. Casazza, Andrea M. Quattrini, Kenneth J. Sulak

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The distinctive larval stage of eels (leptocephalus) facilitates dispersal through prolonged life in the open ocean. Leptocephali are abundant and diverse off North Carolina, yet data on distributions and biology are lacking. The water column (from surface to 1,293 m) was sampled in or near the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, and Cape Fear, North Carolina during summer through fall of 1999–2005, and leptocephali were collected by neuston net, plankton net, Tucker trawl, and dip net. Additional samples were collected nearly monthly from a transect across southern Onslow Bay, North Carolina (from surface to 91 m) from April …

Bathypelagic Fish Association With The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Tracey Sutton, F. Uiblein, I. Byrkjedal, A. Dolgov, M. Heino, J. Horne, N. King, Tone Falkenhaug, O. R. Godo, Odd Aksel Bergstad

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

The bathypelagic zone, Earth’s largest living space, is essentially boundless in three dimensions for most of its extent, structured only by fluid features (e.g., salinity, temperature) of the seawater itself. However, near certain topographic features this zone intersects the seafloor. The mid-ocean ridge system is by far the largest of these features. Unlike the ecosystems of the continental margins, the mid-ocean ridge systems do not receive terrigenous nutrient inputs. Thus, the deep-water fauna associated with mid-ocean ridges ultimately depend on the generally limited local surface production. Despite this limited surface production, there is evidence that near-ridge demersal fish biomass is …

Circulation, Vol. 13, No. 2, Center For Coastal Physical Oceanography, Old Dominion University, Michael Ott

CCPO Circulation

Summer 2006 issue of CCPO Circulation featuring article "Chesapeake Bay Mouth Monitoring Program" by Dr. Michael Ott

Survival Of White Marlin (Tetrapturus Albidus) Released From Commercial Pelagic Longline Gear In The Western North Atlantic, David W. Kerstetter, John E. Graves

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

To estimate postrelease survival of white marlin (Tetrapturus albidus) caught incidentally in regular commercial pelagic longline fishing operations targeting swordfish and tunas, short-duration popup satellite archival tags (PSATs) were deployed on captured animals for periods of 5-43 days. Twenty (71.4%) of 28 tags transmitted data at the preprogrammed time, including one tag that separated from the fish shortly after release and was omitted from subsequent analyses. Transmitted data from 17 of 19 tags were consistent with survival of those animals for the duration of the tag deployment. Postrelease survival estimates ranged from 63.0% (assuming all nontransmitting tags were …

Continuously Stratified Flow Dynamics Over A Hollow, David Salas-Monreal

OES Theses and Dissertations

Acoustic Doppler current profiles (ADCP) and density profiles were measured over three lower Chesapeake Bay bathymetric depressions (hollows) in order to determine the effects of a hollow on a continuously stratified flow. Measurements showed an acceleration of the near-bottom flow as it moved toward the deepest part of the hollows, in contrast to the deceleration expected from two-dimensional Bernoulli-type dynamics. The acceleration was attributed to lateral water intrusions that were most apparent during floods. The presence of lateral water intrusions was corroborated by observations in a transverse section that crossed the deepest part of the hollows. The observed deceleration of …

Tidally Induced Variability At The Chesapeake Bay Entrance, María Andrea Piñones

OES Theses and Dissertations

Time series of current velocity from 6 stations at the Chesapeake Bay entrance were used to study the variability of tidal currents. Particular emphasis was placed on the semidiurnal tidal currents, which explains ~ 70% of the variability of tidal currents. Four different deployments that spanned more than one year showed that the vertical structure of the semidiurnal tidal currents vary seasonally in response to changes in water column stratification. Under destratified conditions favored by wind forcing, the semidiurnal tidal currents rotated cyclonically throughout the water column, thus emulating a Kelvin wave. In contrast, during stratified conditions the tidal currents …

Marine And Freshwater Cyanophages In A Laurentian Great Lake: Evidence From Infectivity Assays And Molecular Analyses Of G20 Genes, Steven W. Wilhelm, Matthew J. Carberry, Melanie L. Eldridge, Leo Poorvin, Matthew A. Saxton, Martina A. Doblin

OES Faculty Publications

While it is well established that viruses play an important role in the structure of marine microbial food webs, few studies have directly addressed their role in large lake systems. As part of an ongoing study of the microbial ecology of Lake Erie, we have examined the distribution and diversity of viruses in this system. One surprising result has been the pervasive distribution of cyanophages that infect the marine cyanobacterial isolate Synechococcus sp. strain WH7803. Viruses that lytically infect this cyanobacterium were identified throughout the western basin of Lake Erie, as well as in locations within the central and eastern …

Time And The Tsunami, Stefan Helmreich

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

In this article, Stefan Helmreich delivers an ethnographic report on an international academic conference of physical and biological oceanographers held in Goa, India, shortly after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004. Juxtaposing scientific discussions of the tsunami with novelist and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh's early 2005 visit to the hard-hit Andaman Islands, Helmreich examines various styles of narrating time in circulation in the wake of the disaster. Centering his attention on marine scientists, Helmreich discusses a tension between geological time and what he calls oscillating ocean time, a genre of time that takes in such long durée processes …

Relationships Between Pacific And Atlantic Ocean Sea Surface Temperatures And U.S. Streamflow Variability, Glenn A. Tootle, Thomas C. Piechota

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

An evaluation of Pacific and Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and continental U.S. streamflow was performed to identify coupled regions of SST and continental U.S. streamflow variability. Both SSTs and streamflow displayed temporal variability when applying the singular value decomposition (SVD) statistical method. Initially, an extended temporal evaluation was performed using the entire period of record (i.e., all years from 1951 to 2002). This was followed by an interdecadal-temporal evaluation for the Pacific (Atlantic) Ocean based on the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)). Finally, an extended temporal evaluation was performed using detrended SST …

Lsuhsc Facilities Biweekly Update: July 2006, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates: 2006

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates from July 10 and 25, 2006These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.