The Barents and Chukchi Seas: Comparison of two Arctic shelf ecosystems

This paper compares and contrasts the ecosystems of the Barents and Chukchi Seas. Despite their similarity in a number of features, the Barents Sea supports a vast biomass of commercially important fish, but the Chukchi does not. Here we examine a number of aspects of these two seas to ascertain how they are similar and how they differ. We then indentify processes and mechanisms that may be responsible for their similarities and differences.Both the Barents and Chukchi Seas are high latitude, seasonally ice covered, Arctic shelf-seas. Both have strongly advective regimes, and receive water from the south. Water entering the Barents comes from the deep, ice-free and "warm" Norwegian Sea, and contains not only heat, but also a rich supply of zooplankton that supports larval fish in spring. In contrast, Bering Sea water entering the Chukchi in spring and early summer is cold. In spring, this Bering Sea water is depleted of large, lipid-rich zooplankton, thus likely resulting in a relatively low availability of zooplankton for fish. Although primary production on average is similar in the two seas, fish biomass density is an order of magnitude greater in the Barents than in the Chukchi Sea. The Barents Sea supports immense fisheries, whereas the Chukchi Sea does not. The density of cetaceans in the Barents Sea is about double that in the Chukchi Sea, as is the density of nesting seabirds, whereas, the density of pinnipeds in the Chukchi is about double that in the Barents Sea. In the Chukchi Sea, export of carbon to the benthos and benthic biomass may be greater. We hypothesize that the difference in fish abundance in the two seas is driven by differences in the heat and plankton advected into them, and the amount of primary production consumed in the upper water column. However, we suggest that the critical difference between the Chukchi and Barents Seas is the pre-cooled water entering the Chukchi Sea from the south. This cold water, and the winter mixing of the Chukchi Sea as it becomes ice covered, result in water temperatures below the physiological limits of the commercially valuable fish that thrive in the southeastern Bering Sea. If climate change warms the Barents Sea, thereby increasing the open water area via reducing ice cover, productivity at most trophic levels is likely to increase. In the Chukchi, warming should also reduce sea ice cover, permitting a longer production season. However, the shallow northern Bering and Chukchi Seas are expected to continue to be ice-covered in winter, so water there will continue to be cold in winter and spring, and is likely to continue to be a barrier to the movement of temperate fish into the Chukchi Sea. Thus, it is unlikely that large populations of boreal fish species will become established in this Arctic marginal sea. © 2012 Elsevier B.V

The past in perspective : an introduction to human prehistory

This book focuses on the aim echoes of the human past, presenting an accessible chronicle of human physical and cultural evolution.xxiii, 602 p.: ill.; 23 cm

THE SPATIAL DYNAMICS OF ACTIVITY AT ANANGULA, ALEUTIANS

Archaeologists are faced with the problem of comprehending the archaeological distributions they analyze within a behavioral context. Archaeological sites are no fossilized villages but are, instead, discrete, static phenomena. These phenomena are, of course, the accumulated results of human activity and one of the goals of archaeology is to relate the static archaeological record to the dynamic behaviors which produced it. Thus we are faced, at any individual site, with a deposit of material accumulated over the duration of occupation of the site. To reconstruct the activities which resulted in the recovered deposit we must assess the possible ways in which material objects utilized in specific behaviors could have been incorporated into the archaeological record.^ The ninth millenium B.P. village of Anangula in the Aleutian Islands provides an excellent opportunity to approach this problem of reconstruction. The large set of provenienced data from this well published site is the focus of this work.^ In an attempt to explicate the behaviors associated with stone tool manufacture and utilization at the site, the Multiple Pathway Model is introduced. Here, various strategies of tool manufacture and use are discussed, including their predicted material/spatial consequences. Each of these possibilities represents a pathway by which items could have been translated from their cultural contexts into their archaeological contexts. Each pathway reflects different possible practices and strategies of tool manufacture and use including social and functional parameters of these behaviors. The expected archaeological result for each of the behavioral pathways is presented, and the statistical/spatial concomitants in the form of probable factor analytic results are provided. Factor analysis of the spatial distribution of tool categories at Anangula is performed and these results are compared with the predicted results of the multiple possible pathways. The behavioral scenario of the pathway whose predicted factor analytic result conforms best to the actual factor analysis of the Anangula data, first for tool manufacture and then for tool use, is selected as the most likely description of the actual behavior which resulted in the archaeological record at Anangula.

The past in perspective : an introduction to human prehistory

This book focuses on the aim echoes of the human past, presenting an accessible chronicle of human physical and cultural evolution.xxiii, 602 p.: ill.; 23 cm

The past in perspective : an introduction to human prehistory

This book focuses on the aim echoes of the human past, presenting an accessible chronicle of human physical and cultural evolution.xxiii, 602 p.: ill.; 23 cm

THE SPATIAL DYNAMICS OF ACTIVITY AT ANANGULA, ALEUTIANS

Archaeologists are faced with the problem of comprehending the archaeological distributions they analyze within a behavioral context. Archaeological sites are no fossilized villages but are, instead, discrete, static phenomena. These phenomena are, of course, the accumulated results of human activity and one of the goals of archaeology is to relate the static archaeological record to the dynamic behaviors which produced it. Thus we are faced, at any individual site, with a deposit of material accumulated over the duration of occupation of the site. To reconstruct the activities which resulted in the recovered deposit we must assess the possible ways in which material objects utilized in specific behaviors could have been incorporated into the archaeological record.^ The ninth millenium B.P. village of Anangula in the Aleutian Islands provides an excellent opportunity to approach this problem of reconstruction. The large set of provenienced data from this well published site is the focus of this work.^ In an attempt to explicate the behaviors associated with stone tool manufacture and utilization at the site, the Multiple Pathway Model is introduced. Here, various strategies of tool manufacture and use are discussed, including their predicted material/spatial consequences. Each of these possibilities represents a pathway by which items could have been translated from their cultural contexts into their archaeological contexts. Each pathway reflects different possible practices and strategies of tool manufacture and use including social and functional parameters of these behaviors. The expected archaeological result for each of the behavioral pathways is presented, and the statistical/spatial concomitants in the form of probable factor analytic results are provided. Factor analysis of the spatial distribution of tool categories at Anangula is performed and these results are compared with the predicted results of the multiple possible pathways. The behavioral scenario of the pathway whose predicted factor analytic result conforms best to the actual factor analysis of the Anangula data, first for tool manufacture and then for tool use, is selected as the most likely description of the actual behavior which resulted in the archaeological record at Anangula.

Frauds, myths, and mysteries: science and pseudoscience in archeology

In this book, the author uses interesting archaeological hoaxes, myths, and mysteries to show how we can trully know things about the past throught science. he presents examples of fantastic finding and carefully, logically, and entertainingly describes the flaws in the purported evidence for each fantastic claim. He demonstrates what is-and is not- the scientific method