Oceanography and Women Early Challenges

Today, oceanography is an active field of research that challenges hundreds of men and women. However, women scientists were not permitted to sail on oceanographic vessels up to the mid-1960s. This prohibition stems from ancient taboos reflected in myths and legends, starting with Homer\u27s Odyssey. An isolated pioneer was Jeanne Baret, a botanist who managed to sail disguised as a man on the 1676-1679 French expedition of L.A. de Bougainville; she became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. No women sailed on the 1872-1876 Challenger Expedition, the first major scientific exploration of the ocean. No women were allowed on research vessels of US oceanographic institutions during the post-World War II years. An attempt by graduate student Roberta Eike in 1956 resulted in her dismissal from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The taboo against women at sea was broken at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1963, when two Russian scientists were invited to participate in a major expedition onboard R/V Argo. One turned out to be a woman-Elena Lubimova, a heat flow geophysicist. The taboo against women at sea prevailed also in Western Europe, but not in Russia. For instance, marine geologist Maria Klenova of Moscow\u27s Institute of Oceanology led major expeditions in the Arctic and Atlantic as early as the 1930s. The taboo against women at sea subsided gradually, and today women oceanographers sail freely on research vessels, contributing greatly to the progress of our discipline

An Indicator for the Measurement of Political Participation: The Case of Italy

In the modern globalized world, political participation is of paramount importance for balanced socio-economic growth and for human development. The Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, a survey by Italian public institutions (ISTAT and CNEL), provides a wide range of data to evaluate speci\ufb01c aspects of Italian life. This work uses a set of data from the Indagine to analyse political participation in Italy at a regional level, by means of a composite indicator using parametric (Pena\u2019s distance) and non-parametric (Mazziotta\u2013Pareto Index) techniques. We have obtained a ranking that shows the level of political participation in different territorial contexts. The aim is to analyse the relation between Italian regions and the political behaviour of their communities: political discussions, participation in political meetings and marches, voluntary activity or donations to political parties and so on. The ranking is not correlated to voter turnout. We can assume that the politically engaged minority are unable to convince and involve the rest. At the same time, these small groups do not alter the general mistrust in parties and, generally speaking, in politics, which is spreading across Italy and also Europe

Objective and Subjective Health: An Analysis of Inequality for the European Union

In advanced societies, the right to health has a leading position within the instruments enshrined in the human rights. All countries, including those at the top of economic prosperity and human development, record systematic, often substantial, inequalities in mortality and morbidity between people with higher socio-economic position and poorer citizens. This also applies to the welfare states of western Europe. This work proposes two indicators of \u2018\u2018objective\u2019\u2019 and \u2018\u2018subjective\u2019\u2019 health for EU countries and veri\ufb01es their relationship with income distribution. In the emerging picture, the \u2018\u2018objective\u2019\u2019 and \u2018\u2018subjective\u2019\u2019 dimensions seem to have their own explanations, affected variously by income differences. The results provide useful hints for social and health policy in European countries

The measurement of well being in the current era

In the book, by aggregating variables, we have built a multidimensional indicator that is able to balance the trade-off between the immediate availability and the completeness of information. The first chapter provides a concise definition of wellbeing and lists the issues that arise from the measurement of wellbeing through GDP. It then examines and discusses the two different approaches to measurement: the capabilities of Amartya Sen and the indicators of Dasgupta. The second chapter provides a general description of the main measurements of wellbeing. The third chapter analyses the literature on multidimensional measurements of wellbeing; our research falls into this category. The last two chapters relate to our proposal: the fourth chapter describes the development and the methodology of the indicator, whilst the fifth chapter discusses the results of the indicators and draws some conclusions

Nonchondritic 142Nd in suboceanic mantle peridotites

The discovery that several solid Earth reservoirs have a superchondritic 142Nd/144Nd ratio led to the hypothesis that either the bulk silicate Earth is not chondritic or that a subchondritic reservoir lies hidden somewhere within the Earth's interior. One important reservoir, i.e., mid-ocean ridge peridotites representing the main component of the upper oceanic mantle and the source of mid-ocean ridge basalt, has never been tested for 142Nd/144Nd. We determined the 142Nd/144Nd ratio in clinopyroxene separated from two peridotites and a pyroxenite from the SW Indian Ridge and one peridotite from the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge. All samples analyzed have superchondritic 142Nd/144Nd ratios in line with mantle-derived material measured to date, except for some ancient cratonic rocks

Water-rich basalts at mid-ocean-ridge cold spots

Although water is only present in trace amounts in the suboceanic upper mantle, it is thought to play a significant role in affecting mantle viscosity, melting and the generation of crust at mid-ocean ridges. The concentration of water in oceanic basalts has been observed to stay below 0.2wt%, except for water-rich basalts sampled near hotspots and generated by 'wet' mantle plumes. Here, however, we report unusually high water content in basaltic glasses from a cold region of the mid-ocean-ridge system in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. These basalts are sodium-rich, having been generated by low degrees of melting of the mantle, and contain unusually high ratios of light versus heavy rare-earth elements, implying the presence of garnet in the melting region. We infer that water-rich basalts from such regions of thermal minima derive from low degrees of 'wet' melting greater than 60 km deep in the mantle, with minor dilution by melts produced by shallower 'dry' melting—a view supported by numerical modelling. We therefore conclude that oceanic basalts are water-rich not only near hotspots, but also at 'cold spots'

Post-Mesozoic Rapid Increase of Seawater Mg/Ca due to Enhanced Mantle-Seawater Interaction

The seawater Mg/Ca ratio increased significantly from , 80 Ma to present, as suggested by studies of carbonate veins in oceanic basalts and of fluid inclusions in halite. We show here that reactions of mantle-derived peridotites with seawater along slow spreading mid-ocean ridges contributed to the post-Cretaceous Mg/Ca increase. These reactions can release to modern seawater up to 20% of the yearly Mg river input. However, no significant peridotite-seawater interaction and Mg-release to the ocean occur in fast spreading, East Pacific Rise-type ridges. The Mesozoic Pangean superocean implies a hot fast spreading ridge system. This prevented peridotite-seawater interaction and Mg release to the Mesozoic ocean, but favored hydrothermal Mg capture and Ca release by the basaltic crust, resulting in a low seawater Mg/Ca ratio. Continent dispersal and development of slow spreading ridges allowed Mg release to the ocean by peridotite-seawater reactions, contributing to the increase of the Mg/Ca ratio of post-Mesozoic seawater

Water in Mid Ocean Ridge Basalts: Some Like it Hot, Some Like it Cold.

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Intrusion of Oceanic-type Basaltic Melts Precedes Continental Break up in the Red Sea Rift

The role of magmatism in continental rifting and break up and in the birth of a new ocean are not well understood. Continental break up can take place with intense and voluminous volcanism, as in the Southern Red Sea/Afar Rift, or in a relatively amagmatic mode, as in the Mesozoic Iberian Atlantic rift. Studies of gabbros from the Brothers and Zabargad islands suggest that continental break up in the northern Red Sea, a relatively non-volcanic rift, is preceded by intrusion of oceanic-type basaltic melts that crystallize at progressively shallower crustal depths as rifting progresses towards continental break-up. A seismic reflection profile running across the central part of the southern Thetis basin, shows a ∼5 km wide reflector ∼1.25 s below the axial neovolcanic zone. We interpret it as marking the roof of a magma chamber or melt lens, similar to those identified below several mid-ocean ridges. Assuming a 4.5 km/s acoustic velocity for the upper oceanic crust at Thetis, this reflector is ∼3.5 km below the seafloor. The presence of a few kilometers deep subrift magma chamber soon after the initiation of oceanic spreading implies the crystallization of lower oceanic crust intrusives as a last step in a sequence of basaltic melt intrusion from pre-oceanic continental rifting to oceanic spreading. Thus, oceanic crust accretion in the Red Sea rift starts at depth before continental break up, emplacement of oceanic basalt at the sea floor, and development of Vine- Matthews magnetic anomalies, pointing to a rift model, where the lower continental lithosphere has been replaced by upwelling asthenosphere before continental rupturing. This model would imply depth-dependent extension due to decoupling between the upper and lower lithosphere with mantle-lithosphere-necking breakup before crustalnecking breakup. This mode of initial oceanic crust accretion may have been common in Mesozoic Atlantic-type rifts, in addition to wider, amagmatic, Iberian-type continent-ocean zones of transition

Mediterranean megaturbidite triggered by the AD 365 Crete earthquake and tsunami

Historian Ammianus Marcellinus documented the devastating effects of a tsunami hitting Alexandria, Egypt, on July 21, AD 365. "The solidity of the earth was made to shake … and the sea was driven away. The waters returning when least expected killed many thousands by drowning. Huge ships… perched on the roofs of houses… hurled miles from the shore….”. Other settlements around the Mediterranean were hit at roughly the same time. This scenario is similar to that of the recent Sumatra and Tohoku tsunamis. Based on geophysical surveys and sediment cores from the Ionian Sea we show that the 20–25 m thick megaturbidite known in the literature as Homogenite/Augias was triggered not by the Santorini caldera collapse but by the 365 AD Cretan earthquake/tsunami. An older similar megaturbidite was deposited after 14.590 ± 80 yr BP, implying a large recurrence time of such extreme sedimentary events in the Mediterranean Sea