Sedimentary records of eutrophication in the Changjiang Estuary upwelling area over last 100 a

The upwelling area in the Changjiang Estuary was selected to collect the core, where the red tide occurred frequently and hypoxic existed. The total organic carbon （TOC）, total nitrogen （TN）, biogenic silica （BSi） and stable organic carbon isotopic ratios（δ13 Corg） were determined on the 210pb-dated sediment core. The concentrations of TOC, TN, BSi as well as their sedimentation fluxes have in- creased to some extent since the 1970s. TOC and TN fluxes increased about 45%, 36% respectively. The average δ13 Coorg value in the core was -23.67 ×10^-3 which remained nearly constant before the 20 century. The δ13 Corg values increased after the 1900s, two marked increases were observed from the 1950s and the 1970s. A simple δ13 Cors model was used to estimate the contribution of terrigenous and marine organic matter inputs for the sediment, which indicated the increase in accumulation since the 1970s has been almost exclusively marine. The increasing of marine organic matter accumulation （TOC, TN and BSi） was corresponding with the increasing of fertilizer consumption and the NO3-N budgets from the Changjiang River. The riverine runoff of fertilizers and nutrients stimulated the algae blooming. Enhanced primary production resulted in an enrichment of organic matter in the sediment. These data support the hypothesis that anthropogenic nutrient loading has been a significant factor on the eutrophication in the Changjiang Estuary.

Classification of seamount morphology and its evaluating significance of ferromanganese crust in the central Pacific Ocean

Using the SeaBeam technology, the morphology of seamount and its relation to the formation of cobalt-rich crust in the central Pacific Ocean were surveyed during the cruise in 2003 for marine mineral resources. The result shows that seamounts can be divided morphologically into the spire seamount and the fiat topped seamount. These two types of seamount bear great differences in their landform, lithology and cobalt-rich crust. On the upper portion of the fiat topped seamount, the fiat top and the sharp escarpments are unfavorable to the growth of crust, and, consequently, the crusts here are mostly laminar or gravelly, their thicknesses generally show great variations, and the consecutive ore body often develops in its deep water region. On the spire topped seamount, however, the fiat area is small, and its gradient is constant without large variation from the top to the bottom. This favors the growth of cobalt-rich crust and often leads to consecutive tabular ore body of medium thickness, occurring on the spire topped seamount from the shallow water region to the deep water region. The cobalt-rich crust on the spire topped seamount is much better than that on the fiat topped seamount for the crust abundance, crust coverage and number of ore-occurrences within unit area. Furthermore, the crust on the spire topped seamount is rich in cobalt, nickel, manganese elements of high economic value. Because the crust with high quality ore often occurs in the shallow water region on the spire topped seamount, it can be mined and use more easily in the future.

Faulting, magmatism and crustal oceanization of the Okinawa Trough

The paper focuses on the characteristics of faulting and magmatism of the Okinawa Trough and the relation between them. En-echelon grabens are ranked oblique to the continental shelf edge uplift, and the Longwang uplift, the rifting block ridge in the northern segment and the ＂Mianhua uplift＂ in the southern segment have possibly preserved characteristics of volcanism and magmatism occurring with those rifting phases. The clockwise rotation of the southern Ryukyu Islands, driven by collision between Luzon and Taiwan, has played a key role in the crustal oceanization, enhancing the crustal extension of the southern segment and inducing volcanic magmatism in those grabens, among which the Yaeyama graben is a typical example of the presence of oceanic crust. Faulting and magmatism were mainly migrating towards the island arc asymmetrically. The crustal oceanization of the Okinawa Trough is difficultly interpreted by the linear magnetic anomaly model, which is fit for the symmetric spreading of the mid-oceanic ridges.

Rifting characteristics of eastern subbasin of South China Sea and its spreading pattern

With processing and interpretation of 25 000 km full-coverage multibeam swath data fromthe eastern South China Sea, it is found that NE-trending and NW-trending linear morphological features such as scarps, horsts and grabens, govern the central part (14°-17° N) of eastern subbasin. Compared with reflection seismic profiles, these NE-trending linear morpho-structures are considered to be the representation of basement structures on seabed and can be divided into three linear structural zones. The trend of the central zone is NE45°-50° occurring around extinct spreading center, the trend of the second zone is NE70° - 78° on both sides of the central one and the trend of the third zone is about NE60° just on the north of the second one. These three NE-trending linear zones are formed in late-stage NW - SE-trending seafloor spreading of the eastern subbasin along NW-trending linear faults, and respectively correspond to three spreading episodes: 17.0- 19.0 Ma (5d-5e), 19.0 - 21.0 Ma (5e-6a) and 21.0 - 24.2 Ma (6a-6c) based on the contrast of morpho-structures to magnetic lineation anomalies.

Resources calculation of cobalt-rich crusts with the grid subdivision and integral method

On the basis of three geological models and several orebody boundaries, a method of grid subdivision and integral has been proposed to calculate and evaluate the resources of cobalt-rich crusts on the seamounts in the central Pacific Ocean. The formulas of this method are deduced and the interface of program module is designed. The method is carried out in the software ＂Auto mapping system of submarine topography and geomorphology MBChart＂. This method and program will possibly become a potential tool to calculate the resources of seamounts and determine the target diggings for China＇ s next Five-year Plan.

Isolation and identification of Rhodosporidium diobovatum DS-0205 from deep-sea sediment of eastern Pacific Ocean

A facultative heterotrophic strain （DS-0205） was isolated from a deep-sea sediment sample collected at a depth of 5.2 km in the eastern Pacific Ocean, China. Strain DS-0205 is motile helmet-like single cell or pairs, forming hemisphere with the center sunken of variable size. It has a widespread carbon source and nitrogen source, including agarose, citric acid, salicin, D-glucitol nitrate, sodium nitrite and cthylamine, tt can grow in the following environment： temperature 4-37℃, pH 2.0-12.0, tolerance to NaCl≤15%. Two phylogenetic trees, one based on the ITS and 5.8S rRNA sequences and the other based on the 18S rRNA sequences, unite strain DS-0205（=JCM 0205） to the type strain of Rhodosporidium diobovatum JCM 3787 through a considerable evolutionary distance. These results suggest that strain DS-0205 is a new strain of the Rhodosporidium diobovatum.

Pore-water distribution and quantification of diffusive benthic fluxes of nutrients in the Huanghai and East China Seas sediments

The distribution of nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, phosphate and silicate in pore-water and their exchange between sediments and overlying waters （benthic flux） were determined at nine locations on the shelve of Huanghai and East China Seas. On the basis of the redox potential of sediments and nutrients distributions in the pore-waters, it is found that the benthic sediments are being in a suboxic to anoxic environment in the Huanghai and East China Seas. The nutrients distribution in the pore-waters is mainly controlled by the sediment environment, and ammonia is the major inorganic nitrogen in the pore-waters. On the basis of benthic fluxes of nutrients calculated us- ing Fick＇s first law, there is remarkable efflux of ammonia, dissolved inorganic nitrogen（DIN）, phosphate and silicate from the sediments to the overlying waters in the study area, and their benthic fluxes are 299.3-2 214.8, 404.4-2 159.5 , 5.5-18.8 and 541.3-1 781.6 μmol/（m^2·d） respectively, and perhaps they are the major source of dissolved inorganic nitrogen, phosphate and silicate for the overlying water. At most stations, the nitrate flux was from the overlying waters to the sediments, which suggests that suboxic organic matter decomposition via denitrification is dominated in the most area of Huanghai and East China Seas. High benthic fluxes appearing in the coastal area and relatively low benthic fluxes occurring in the shelf area are found and are consistent with pri- mary productivity zoning in the study area. On the other hand, the ammonia flux displays an exponential decrease with water depth increase and an exponential increase with the bottom water temperature. However, others do not display this trend.

New index of ferromanganese crusts reflecting oceanic environmental oxidation

Ferromanganese crusts (hereinafter crusts) form in aerobic environment and the environmental oxida-tion degree is recorded by the redox sensitive element Co in the crusts. The ages of the layers from the surface to bottom of the crusts are determined, and main element contents at high resolution along the depth sections of three crusts from the Pacific Ocean are analyzed by an electron microprobe. Thus the variations of Co/(Fe+Mn) and Co/(Ni+Cu) with age/depth of the crust layers are obtained. By comparing the ratios of Co/(Fe+Mn) and Co/(Ni+Cu) with the δ 18O curves of the Pacific benthic foraminifera, we find that these two ratios can reflect the variation of the environmental oxidation state under which the crust layers deposit. The evolution of the oxidation degree reflected by the two indexes resembles the evo-lution of temperature since the Oligocene reflected by the δ 18O curves of the Pacific benthic foraminif-era. This suggests that the crust-forming environment after the Oligocene is controlled mainly by the oxygen-rich bottom water originated from the Antarctic bottom water (AABW). However it is not the case prior to the Oligocene. Furthermore it suggests that the environmental oxidation degree controls the formation of the crusts and the Co contents in the crusts. This explains why the Co contents in the crusts increase with time up to now.

Variations in paleoproductivity and the environmental implications over the past six decades in the Changjiang Estuary

Total organic carbon and organic carbon stable isotope, biogenic silica, chlorin were measured from a high resolution sediment core to indicate the variation in paleoproductivity and the environmental implications over the past decades （1942 to 1997） in the Changjiang Estuary. Based on these biomarkers, the shift in the phytoplankton community structure in the past decades was discussed in response to the long-term variations in nutrient concentrations and nutrient ratios. The results showed that the δ 13 C values varied from –26.15‰ to –19.5‰, suggesting the combined organic carbon sources of riverine and marine organisms. Based on the biogenic proxies, paleoproductivity changes were categorized into three stages： low production before 1950; an increase in production with the dominance of diatoms during 1950 to 1980, consistent with increasing of nutrient concentrations; a decrease in production after 1980 when the diatom production decreased while the production of non-silicious phytoplankton increased due to high nutrient inputs, and high N/P and P/Si ratios in the Changjiang Estuary. The sedimentation records also indicated that the riverine organic carbon increased since 1980.

On tectonic movement in the South China Sea during the Cenozoic

The tectonic movement taking place at the end of Cretaceous and the beginning of Cenozoic had opened the Cenozoic phase of polycyclic tectonic movements,then the whole crust of the South China Sea had been mainly subjected to the regional stress field of tectonic tension,which was characterized by rifting depression.Seven times of regional tectonic movement and sedimentation had been assembled into a geological development history of polycyclic oscillation.Especially,the tectonic movements were strongly intensified at the end of Cretacious and the beginning of Paleagene,between Late Eocene and Mid-Oligocene,during Mid-and Late Miocene.These three times of tectonic movement had built the most important regional tectonic interfaces in the South China Sea.Crust movements of the South China Sea were the result and epitome of interaction of the Eurasia,Pacific and Indo-Australia plates,that is,they were introduced by polycyclic changes of directions,rates and strengths of lithospheric movements and asthenospheric flows across the Pacific and Indo-Australia plates.

Correction for Depth Biases to Shallow Water Multibeam Bathymetric Data

Vertical errors often present in multibeam swath bathymetric data. They are mainly sourced by sound refraction, internal wave disturbance, imperfect tide correction, transducer mounting, long period heave, static draft change, dynamic squat and dynamic motion residuals, etc. Although they can be partly removed or reduced by specific algorithms, the synthesized depth biases are unavoidable and sometimes have an important influence on high precise utilization of the final bathymetric data. In order to. confidently identify the decimeter-level changes in seabed morphology by MBES, we must remove or weaken depth biases and improve the precision of multibeam bathymetry further. The fixed-interval profiles that are perpendicular to the vessel track are generated to adjust depth biases between swaths. We present a kind of postprocessing method to minimize the depth biases by the histogram of cumulative depth biases. The datum line in each profile can be obtained by the maximum value of histogram. The corrections of depth biases can be calculated according to the datum line. And then the quality of final bathymetry can be improved by the corrections. The method is verified by a field test.