68 research outputs found
Factors influencing carbon stocks and accumulation rates in eelgrass meadows across New England, USA
Increasing the protection of coastal vegetated ecosystems has been suggested as one strategy to compensate for increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere as the capacity of these habitats to sequester and store carbon exceeds that of terrestrial habitats. Seagrasses are a group of foundation species that grow in shallow coastal and estuarine systems and have an exceptional ability to sequester and store large quantities of carbon in biomass and, particularly, in sediments. However, carbon stocks (Corg stocks) and carbon accumulation rates (Corg accumulation) in seagrass meadows are highly variable both spatially and temporally, making it difficult to extrapolate this strategy to areas where information is lacking. In this study, Corg stocks and Corg accumulation were determined at 11 eelgrass meadows across New England, representing a range of eutrophication and exposure conditions. In addition, the environmental factors and structural characteristics of meadows related to variation in Corg stocks were identified. The objectives were accomplished by assessing stable isotopes of δ13C and δ15N as well as %C and %N in plant tissues and sediments, measuring grain size and 210Pb of sediment cores, and through assessing site exposure. Variability in Corg stocks in seagrass meadows is well predicted using commonly measured environmental variables such as grain size distribution. This study allows incorporation of data and insights for the northwest Atlantic, where few studies on carbon sequestration by seagrasses have been conducted
Automorphisms of Real 4 Dimensional Lie Algebras and the Invariant Characterization of Homogeneous 4-Spaces
The automorphisms of all 4-dimensional, real Lie Algebras are presented in a
comprehensive way. Their action on the space of , real, symmetric
and positive definite, matrices, defines equivalence classes which are used for
the invariant characterization of the 4-dimensional homogeneous spaces which
possess an invariant basis.Comment: LaTeX2e, 23 pages, 2 Tables. To appear in Journal of Physics A:
Mathematical & Genera
Trace Metals and Their Isotopes in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean - Cruise No. M81/1, February 04 – March 08, 2010, Las Palmas (Canary Islands, Spain) – Port of Spain (Trinidad & Tobago)
Summary
Meteor Cruise M81/1 was dedicated to the investigation of the distribution of dissolved and
particulate trace metals and their isotopic compositions (TEIs) in the full water column of the
tropical Atlantic Ocean and their driving factors including main external inputs and internal
cycling and ocean circulation. The research program is embedded in the international
GEOTRACES program (e.g. Henderson et al., 2007), which this cruise was an official part of
and thus corresponds to GEOTRACES cruise GA11. This cruise was completely dedicated to the
trace metal clean and contamination-free sampling of waters and particulates for subsequent
analyses of the TEIs in the home laboratories of the national and international participants.
Besides a standard rosette for the less contaminant prone metals, trace metal clean sampling was
realized by using a dedicated and coated trace metal clean rosette equipped with Teflon-coated
GO-FLO bottles operated via a polyester coated cable from a mobile winch that was thankfully
made available by the U.S. partners of the GEOTRACES program for this cruise. The particulate
samples were also collected under trace metal clean conditions using established in-situ pump
systems. The cruise track led the cruise southward from the Canary Islands to 11°S and then
continued northwestward along the northern margin of South America until it reached Port of
Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. The track crossed areas of major external inputs including exchange
with the volcanic Canary Islands, the Saharan dust plume, as well as the plume of the Amazon
outflow. In terms of internal cycling the equatorial high biological productivity band, as well as
increased productivity associated with the Amazon Plume were covered. All major water masses
contributing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, as well as the distinct narrow
equatorial surface and subsurface east-west current bands were sampled. A total of 17 deep
stations were sampled for the different dissolved TEIs, which were in most cases accompanied
by particulate sampling. In addition, surface waters were continuously sampled under trace metal
clean conditions using a towed fish
Author Correction: The future of Blue Carbon science.
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper
Particle fluxes associated with mesoscale eddies in the Sargasso Sea
Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V., 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 55 (2008): 1426-1444, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2008.02.007.We examined the impact of a cyclonic eddy and mode-water eddy on particle flux in the
Sargasso Sea. The primary method used to quantify flux was based upon measurements of the
natural radionuclide, 234Th, and these flux estimates were compared to results from sediment
traps in both eddies, and a 210Po/210Pb flux method in the mode-water eddy. Particulate organic
carbon (POC) fluxes at 150m ranged from 1 to 4 mmol C m-2 d-1 and were comparable between
methods, especially considering differences in integration times scales of each approach. Our
main conclusion is that relative to summer mean conditions at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series
Study (BATS) site, eddy-driven changes in biogeochemistry did not enhance local POC fluxes
during this later, more mature stage of the eddy life cycle (>6 months old). The absence of an
enhancement in POC flux puts a constraint on the timing of higher POC flux events, which are
thought to have caused the local O2 minima below each eddy, and must have taken place >2
months prior to our arrival. The mode-water eddy did enhance preferentially diatom biomass in
its center where we estimated a factor of 3 times higher biogenic Si flux than the BATS summer
average. An unexpected finding in the highly depth resolved 234Th data sets are narrow layers of
particle export and remineralization within the eddy. In particular, a strong excess 234Th signal is
seen below the deep chlorophyll maxima which we attribute to remineralization of 234Th bearing
particles. At this depth below the euphotic zone, de novo particle production in the euphotic
zone has stopped, yet particle remineralization continues via consumption of labile sinking
material by bacteria and/or zooplankton. These data suggest that further study of processes in
ocean layers is warranted not only within, but below the euphotic zone.The EDDIES project was funded by the National Science Foundation Chemical, Biological, and
Physical Oceanography Programs. Additional support for HPLC pigment analysis (Dr. Charles
Trees, CHORS) was provided by NASA
Hydrothermal activity, functional diversity and chemoautotrophy are major drivers of seafloor carbon cycling
Hydrothermal vents are highly dynamic ecosystems and are unusually energy rich in the deep-sea. In situ hydrothermal-based productivity combined with sinking photosynthetic organic matter in a soft-sediment setting creates geochemically diverse environments, which remain poorly studied. Here, we use comprehensive set of new and existing field observations to develop a quantitative ecosystem model of a deep-sea chemosynthetic ecosystem from the most southerly hydrothermal vent system known. We find evidence of chemosynthetic production supplementing the metazoan food web both at vent sites and elsewhere in the Bransfield Strait. Endosymbiont-bearing fauna were very important in supporting the transfer of chemosynthetic carbon into the food web, particularly to higher trophic levels. Chemosynthetic production occurred at all sites to varying degrees but was generally only a small component of the total organic matter inputs to the food web, even in the most hydrothermally active areas, owing in part to a low and patchy density of vent-endemic fauna. Differences between relative abundance of faunal functional groups, resulting from environmental variability, were clear drivers of differences in biogeochemical cycling and resulted in substantially different carbon processing patterns between habitats
Preparation and use of maize tassels’ activated carbon for the adsorption of phenolic compounds in environmental waste water samples
The determination and remediation of three phenolic compounds bisphenol A (BPA), ortho-nitrophenol (o-NTP), parachlorophenol (PCP) in wastewater is reported. The analysis of these molecules in wastewater was done using gas chromatography (GC) × GC time-of-flight mass spectrometry while activated carbon derived from maize tassel was used as an adsorbent. During the experimental procedures, the effect of various parameters such as initial concentration, pH of sample solution, eluent volume, and sample volume on the removal efficiency with respect to the three phenolic compounds was studied. The results showed that maize tassel produced activated carbon (MTAC) cartridge packed solid-phase extraction (SPE) system was able to remove the phenolic compounds effectively (90.84–98.49 %, 80.75–97.11 %, and 78.27–97.08 % for BPA, o-NTP, and PCP, respectively) . The MTAC cartridge packed SPE sorbent performance was compared to commercially produced C18 SPE cartridges and found to be comparable. All the parameters investigated were found to have a notable influence on the adsorption efficiency of the phenolic compounds from wastewaters at different magnitudes
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