ALBERT

Beschreibung: The continental shelf off the northeastern coast of the United States was the first of our offshore coastal areas to be charted in detail by the Coast and Geodetic Survey, starting on Georges Bank in 1930. The techniques responsible for this increased accuracy in offshore waters were first described by Rudé (1938) and have been constantly improved. From these soundings Veatch and Smith (1939) compiled their set of contour charts aided by a grant from the Penrose Bequest of the Geological Society of America. These soundings reopened the submarine canyon problem first commented upon by Dana (1863), which had gradually lapsed into obscurity from insuffcient data. The reader is, of course, well aware of the major controversy, with all its far reaching implications, which has been precipitated since the 1930 surveys of Georges Bank were brought to the attention of geologists by Shepard (1933). As more of the new surveys were completed, data from the field sheets were kindly furnished by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for use in dredging and coring operations. This field work, first reported in 1936, was continued from time to time until 1941 as new soundings became available. Rock dredging and coring has been carried out in every major canyon on the slope from Corsair Canyon at the tip of Georges Bank to Norfolk Canyon off the entrance to the Chesapeake (Fig. I). Numerous cores have also been taken from the areas in between; and while the whole slope from Georges to the Chesapeake has not been covered, it is believed that no significant areas have been missed. In fact, cores from the slope taken during the summers of 1940 and 1941 have yielded results that are corroborative rather than new. In 1938 on a cruise from Hudson Gorge to Norfolk Canyon, cores were taken on the slope in areas which Veatch had considered to be the most important (personal communication). In the following report the tows and cores will be described by areas from Georges Bank southwards, as the same region was revisited in successive years. The various samples, however, will be referred to by number followed by the year in which they were taken. The material is in storage in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. The late Joseph A. Cushman was kind enough to identify the Foraminifera which have been obtained in tows from the canyon walls and in cores, except for those described in Appendix A which is contributed by Fred B Phleger, Jr. Most of the type material is in storage in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, although at the present writing some is in the Cushman Laboratory in Sharon, Massachusetts. I am indebted to Lloyd W. Stephenson for identifying a molluscan fauna from one of the canyons, and to W. C. Mansfield who has reported on another formation. Numerous discussions with Percy E. Raymond have, as usual, proved most helpful, and thanks are also due to Eugenia C. Lambert for performing the mechanical analyses and to Constance French for other laboratory assistance. Phleger (1939, 1942, 1946) has previously published on the Foraminifera from the slope and deep water cores. This material is, at present, at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Beschreibung: In 1930 Sir Hubert Wilkins announced his plan for exploring the Polar Sea by submarine. Thanks to the courtesy of the U. S. Navy Department and the U. S. Shipping Board the submarine 0 12 was placed at his disposal and the constructor of this vessel, Mr. Simon Lake, undertook to rebuild it and make it suitable for travelling underneath the Arctic pack-ice. After rebuilding the submarine was in the spring of 1931 named Nautilus. ... The expedition did not reach its goal and the scientific results are, therefore; small as compared to what had been hoped for. But we have shown that an extensive scientific program can be carried out under the conditions onboard a submarine, and it is hoped that the following papers will add to our knowledge of the region which was visited.

Beschreibung: The distribution of dissolved oxygen in the sea is controlled by a combination of its physical, chemical and biological characteristics; on the one hand, the chemical and biological activities tend to vary the content of the dissolved gas whereas, on the other, the circulatory agencies tend to redistribute the oxygen and bring about equilibrium. The fact that there is a constant consumption of dissolved oxygen in the depths and that frequent supersaturation with oxygen occurs at or near the surface of the ocean was observed on the "Challenger" expedition (Dittmar, 1884). An explanation of the cause of supersaturation of oxygen, however, was not forthcoming until 1899 when Martin Knudsen suggested that it was caused by photosynthetic activities of vegetable plankton. The original oxygen content of ocean waters has been obtained from a-thin surface layer in contact with the atmosphere and as a product of photosynthetic activity. In modern concepts of oceanography it is a generally accepted fact that the water masses of the depths of the oceans have at some time and place been at the surface where under the influence of climatic conditions they acquired distinct temperature, salinity and oxygen characteristics. The sinking of the surface layers in the so-called regions of convergence and their ultimate distribution by means of quasi-horizontal and convectional currents results in the whole of the ocean basins being filled with water which has acquired its fundamental characteristics while under the influence of atmospheric conditions. From general knowledge of oceanic circulation, based on researches of Nansen (1912), Jacobsen (1929), Wüst (1928), etc., the water of the western basin of the North Atlantic is probably of several origins and consequently of different ages and oxygen contents. Thus, the deepest part of the whole basin, up to depths of 2000-1500 meters appears to contain water which, for the most part, originated at the surface in high North Atlantic latitudes. Lying on top of this deepest water there is, in the northern half of the region, what appears to be a mixture of it and other North Atlantic water, while in the southern half of the region there is at intermediate depths a mass of water which apparently originated at the surface in high latitudes of the South Atlantic.

Beschreibung: When the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, in cooperation with the Museum of Comparative Zoology, commenced the oceanographic survey of the Gulf of Maine in the summer of 1912 (Bigelow, 1925-1927), it was in the hope that this might later be extended to the coastal waters thence southward; eventually even as far as the Gulf of Mexico. Cruises carried out in connection with investigations of the biology of the mackerel, by the Fisheries' steamer "Albatross II" from 1927 to 1932, supplemented by those of the research ship "Atlantis" of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have made it possible to extend the detailed examination of the physical oceanography of the continental shelf as far as the offing of Chesapeake Bay, and to the offing of Cape Hatteras for some of the months. The present account of the temperature of the region will, it is hoped, be followed shortly by corresponding accounts of salinity, of circulation and of the dominant planktonic communities.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September, 1973

Beschreibung: The dispersion of Love and Rayleigh waves in the period range 17-167 sec. is used to detect the change in the structure of the upper mantle as the age of the sea-floor increases away from the mid-ocean ridge. Using the single station method, the group and phase velocities of Rayleigh waves were measured for 78 paths in the east Pacific. The focal mechanisms of the source events were determined from P-wave first motion data and the azimuthal variation in Rayleigh wave amplitudes. In order to describe the observed Rayleigh wave dispersion, both a systematic increase in velocities with the age of the sea-floor and anisotropy of propagation are required. The maximum change in velocity with age is about 5%, with the contrast between age zones decreasing with increasing period. The greatest change occurs in the first few million years, due to the rapid cooling and solidification of the upper part of the lithosphere. In the 0-5 m.y. age zone, the average thickness of the lithosphere can be no greater than 30 km, including the water and crustal layers. Within 10 m.y. after formation, the lithosphere reaches a thickness of about 60 km. As the mantle continues to cool, the shear velocity within the lithosphere increases within the area of this study, no change occurs in the upper mantle deeper than about 80 km. Rayleigh waves travel fastest in the direction of spreading. The degree of anisotropy in Rayleigh wave propagation is frequency-dependent, reaching a maximum of 2.0 l 0.2 percent at a period of about 70 sec. Several models are constructed which can reproduce this frequencydependent anisotropy. The regional phase velocities of the fundamental and first higher Love modes have been simultaneously measured using a new technique. The squares of the difference between the observed phase and the predicted phase are sumed over 45 paths for a set of trial phase velocities. The trial velocities which give the minimum sum correspond to the average phase velocities of the fundamental and first higher modes. The Love wave data is inconsistent with the Rayleigh wave data unless SH velocity is higher than SV velocity within the uppermost 125 km of the mantle. Anisotropy deeper than 250 km is suggested, but not required, by the data.

Beschreibung: This research was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research under contract N000l4-67-0204-0048.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2006

Beschreibung: Two years of moored oceanographic and automatic weather station data which span the winter ice seasons of 2001-2003 within Marguerite Bay on the western Antarctic Peninsula (wAP) shelf were collected as part of the Southern Ocean Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics program. In order to characterize the ice environment in the region, a novel methodology is developed for determining ice coverage, draft and velocity from moored upward-looking acoustic Doppler current profiler data. A linear momentum balance shows the importance of internal ice stresses in the observed motion of the ice pack. Strong inertial, not tidal, motions were observed in both the sea ice and upper ocean. Estimates of upward diapycnal fluxes of heat and salt from the Upper Circumpolar Deep Water to the surface mixed layer indicate almost no contribution from double diffusive convection. A one-dimensional vertical mixed layer model adapted for investigation of mixing beneath an ice-covered ocean indicates that the initial wind event, rather than subsequent inertial shear, causes the majority of the mixing. This work points towards episodic wind-forced shear at the base of the mixed layer coupled with static instability from brine rejection due to ice production as a major factor in mixing on the wAP shelf.

Beschreibung: The work described in this thesis was funded by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs grant # 99-100092. Additional funding came from the MIT Houghton Fund, the WHOI Ocean Venture Fund and the WHOI Education Office.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2006

Beschreibung: Between 9º-25º E on the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge lie two sharply contrasting supersegments. One 630 km long supersegment erupts N-MORB that is progressively enriched in incompatible element concentrations from east to west. The second 400 km long supersegment contains three separate volcanic centers erupting EMORB and connected by long amagmatic accretionary segments, where mantle is emplaced directly to the seafloor with only scattered N-MORB and E-MORB erupted. Rather than a major break in mantle composition at the discontinuity between the supersegments, this sharp contrast in geometry, physiography, and chemistry reflects “source” versus “process” dominated generation of basalt. Robust along-axis correlation of ridge characteristics (i.e. morphology, upwelling rate, lithospheric thickness), basalt chemistry, and crustal thickness (estimated from gravity) provides a unique opportunity to compare the influence of spreading geometry and rate on MORB generation. What had not been well established until now is the importance of melting processes rather than source at spreading rates 〈 20 mm/yr. Along the orthogonally spreading supersegment (14 mm/yr) moderate degrees of partial melting effectively sample the bulk mantle source, while on the obliquely spreading supersegment (7-14 mm/yr) suppression of mantle melting to low degrees means that the bulk source is not uniformly sampled, and thus “process” rather than “source” dominates melt chemistry.

Beschreibung: The main body of work consisting of major element, trace element, and isotopic data acquisition and interpretation (Chapter 2 & 3) was funded by H. Dick’s grant from the National Science Foundation-OCE 9907630. National Science Foundation-OCE 0137325 supported the U-series work described in Chapter 4. The published work of Chapter 5 was funded by National Science Foundation-EAR 9804891, NSF-OCE 9416620, and NSF-OCE 0096634.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February, 2006

Beschreibung: In this thesis, I present high-resolution stable-isotope and planktonic-fauna records from Bering Sea sediment cores, spanning the time period from 50,000 years ago to the present. During Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3) at 30-20 ky BP (kiloyears before present) in a core from 1467m water depth near Umnak Plateau, there were episodic occurrences of diagenetic carbonate minerals with very low δ13C (-22:4h), high δ18O (6.5h), and high [Mg]/[Ca], which seem associated with sulfate reduction of organic matter and possibly anaerobic oxidation of methane. The episodes lasted less than 1000 years and were spaced about 1000 years apart. During MIS3 at 55-20 ky BP in a core from 2209m water depth on Bowers Ridge, N. pachyderma (s.) and Uvigerina δ18O and δ13C show no coherent variability on millennial time scales. Bering Sea sediments are dysoxic or laminated during the deglaciation. A high sedimentation rate core (200 cm/ky) from 1132m on the Bering Slope is laminated during the Bolling warm phase, Allerod warm phase, and early Holocene, where the ages of lithological transitions agree with the ages of those climate events in Greenland (GISP2) to well within the uncertainty of the age models. The subsurface distribution of radiocarbon was estimated from a compilation of published and unpublished North Pacific benthic-planktonic 14C measurements (475-2700 m water depth). There was no consistent change in 14C profiles between the present and the Last Glacial Maximum, Bolling-Allerod, or the Younger Dryas cold phase. N. pachyderma (s.) δ18O in the Bering Slope core decreases rapidly (in less than 220 y) by 0.7-0.8% at the onset of the Bolling and the end of the Younger Dryas. These isotopic shifts are accompanied by transient decreases in the relative abundance of N. pachyderma (s.), suggesting that the isotopic events are transient warmings and sustained freshenings.

Beschreibung: The work in this thesis was supported by the National Science Foundation award OPP-9912122 to Lloyd Keigwin, the Oak Foundation of Boston, Massachusetts, the Stanley Watson Fellowship, the Paul Fye Fellowship, and the Academic Programs Office at WHOI.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ocean Engineer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Master of Science in Ocean Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1979

Beschreibung: An algorithm is proposed to numerically integrate the inhomogeneous depth-separated wave equation using a state variable technique. The solution obtained for two simple shallow water models is shown to agree well with the known exact solutions. Integration grid density is discussed and a minimum required density specified. The use of complex sound speeds to simulate bottom attenuation is reviewed. A numerical instability inherent to the technique that arises during the use of complex sound speeds is investigated. The algorithm is also applied to a deep ocean profile, and the solution characteristics discussed. Sensitivity problems that arise when modelling the seafloor as a layered elastic medium are analyzed.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2006

Beschreibung: This thesis develops methods for estimating wideband shallow-water acoustic communication channels. The very shallow water wideband channel has three distinct features: large dimension caused by extensive delay spread; limited number of degrees of freedom (DOF) due to resolvable paths and inter-path correlations; and rapid fluctuations induced by scattering from the moving sea surface. Traditional LS estimation techniques often fail to reconcile the rapid fluctuations with the large dimensionality. Subspace based approaches with DOF reduction are confronted with unstable subspace structure subject to significant changes over a short period of time. Based on state-space channel modeling, the first part of this thesis develops algorithms that jointly estimate the channel as well as its dynamics. Algorithms based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and the Expectation Maximization (EM) approach respectively are developed. Analysis shows conceptual parallels, including an identical second-order innovation form shared by the EKF modification and the suboptimal EM, and the shared issue of parameter identifiability due to channel structure, reflected as parameter unobservability in EKF and insufficient excitation in EM. Modifications of both algorithms, including a two-model based EKF and a subspace EM algorithm which selectively track dominant taps and reduce prediction error, are proposed to overcome the identifiability issue. The second part of the thesis develops algorithms that explicitly find the sparse estimate of the delay-Doppler spread function. The study contributes to a better understanding of the channel physical constraints on algorithm design and potential performance improvement. It may also be generalized to other applications where dimensionality and variability collide.

Beschreibung: Financial support for this thesis research was provided by the Office of Naval Research and the WHOI Academic Program Office.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution October, 1977.

Beschreibung: Sediment traps designed to yield quantitative data of particulate fluxes have been deployed and successfully recovered on four moorings in the deep sea. The traps were designed after extensive calibration of different shapes of containers. Further intercalibration of trap design was made in field experiments over a range of current velocities. Experiments with Niskin bottles showed that concentrations of suspended particulate matter obtained with standard filtration methods were low and had to be increased by an average factor of 1.5 to correct for particles settling below the sampling spigot. The trap arrays were designed to sample the particulate fluxes both immediately above and within the nepheloid layer. The data derived from the traps have been used to estimate vertical fluxes of particles including, for the first time, an attempt to distinguish between the flux of material settling from the upper water column (the "primary flux") and material which has been resuspended from some region of the sea floor (resuspension flux). From these data and measurements of the net nepheloid standing crop of particles one can also estimate a residence time for particles resuspended in the nepheloid layer. This residence time appears to be on the order of days to weeks in the bottom 15 m of the water column and weeks to months in the bottom 100 m. Between 80% and 90% of the particles collected in the six traps where particle size was measured were less than 63 μm. The mean size of particles collected in the nepheloid layer was about 20 μm, and above the nepheloid layer the mean was 11 μm. Less than 3% of the organic carbon produced in the photic zone at the trap sites was collected as primary flux 500 m above the sea floor. The primary flux measured at two sites was enough to supply 75% on the upper Rise and 160% on the mid Rise of the organic carbon needed for respiration and for burial in the accumulating sediments. From an intercomparison of the composition of particles falling rapidly (collected in traps), falling slowly or not at all (collected in water bottles), and resting on the sea floor (from a core top), it was determined that elements associated with biogenic matter, such as Ca, Sr, Cu, and I, were carried preferentially by the particles falling rapidly. Once the particles reached the bottom, the concentration of those elements was decreased through decomposition, respiration, or dissolution. Dissolution appears rapid in the vicinity of the sea floor, because despite an abundance of radiolarians, diatoms, and juvenile foraminifera collected in all traps, these forms were rare in core samples. The dynamic nature of thenepheloid layer makes it possible for particles to be resuspended many times before they are finally buried. This enables sediment to be carried long distances from its origin. The recycling of particles near the sea floor may increase dissolution of silicious and carbonate matter.

Beschreibung: Financial aid was provided in the form of a research assistantship from the Office of Naval Research through MIT and WHOI.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September, 1975

Beschreibung: Erosion processes involving fine-grained marine sediments were studied by using an in situ flume to erode undisturbed bottom sediments on the sea floor in Buzzards Bay, a shallow marine embayment off the Massachusetts coast. Tte muddy sea floor in that area is characterized by a deposit-feeding infauna that reworks the sediments. Observations made with the in situ flume suggest that erosion resistance of compacted bottom sediments is up to twice as great as the erosion resistance of biogenically reworked sediments. Estimates of erosional bed shear stress from the in situ flume experiments are similar to estimates made during this study of bed shear stress developed in near-bottom tidal currents. It is inferred that erosion by the in situ flume produces reasonable estimates of bed shear stress necessary to erode undisturbed bottom sediments on the sea floor. Buzzards Bay muds were redeposited in a laboratory flume and eroded after various periods of reworking by the deposit-feeding organisms contained in them. Other Buzzards Bay mud samples were treated to remove organic matter, and the erosion resistance of flat beds of these sediments was also investigated in a laboratory flume. The surface of a biogenically reworked bed after two months was covered with mounds, burrows, trails, and aggregates composed of sediments and organic material. This bed was similar in appearance to many of the beds eroded by the in situ flume. The two month bed eroded at an erosional shear stress similar to the erosional shear stress necessary to erode the in situ Buzzards Bay muds (0.8 dynes/cm2 ) . Beds biogenically reworked for shorter periods had high values of erosional shear stress, up to twice that of the two month bed. The bed shear stress necessary to erode flat beds of Buzzards Bay sediments increased as the concentration of organic matter in the sediments increased. Deposit-feeders were absent in these beds, and the mode of deposition was kept uniform, so the increase of erosion resistance with increase in organic content is considered a reliable indication of sediment behavior, and not an artifact of experimental conditions. During the in situ experiments, lee drifts were created behind resistant roughness elements on the sea floor. A brief study of lee drift formation in the laboratory suggests that the formation of lee drifts from fine-grained sediments can be predicted to take place when the body Reynolds number of the resistant roughness elements is below a critical value.

Beschreibung: The Office of Naval Research supported this research and provided salary support through grants to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Beschreibung: Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Ocean Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2007

Beschreibung: This thesis introduces an algorithm for inverting for the geoacoustic properties of the seafloor in shallow water. The input data required by the algorithm are estimates of the amplitudes of the normal modes excited by a low-frequency pure-tone sound source, and estimates of the water column sound speed profiles at the source and receiver positions. The algorithm makes use of perturbation results, and computes the small correction to an estimated background profile that is necessary to reproduce the measured mode amplitudes. Range-dependent waveguide properties can be inverted for so long as they vary slowly enough in range that the adiabatic approximation is valid. The thesis also presents an estimator which can be used to obtain the input data for the inversion algorithm from pressure measurements made on a vertical line array (VLA). The estimator is an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), which treats the mode amplitudes and eigenvalues as state variables. Numerous synthetic and real-data examples of both the inversion algorithm and the EKF estimator are provided. The inversion algorithm is similar to eigenvalue perturbation methods, and the thesis also presents a combination mode amplitude/eigenvalue inversion algorithm, which combines the advantages of the two techniques.

Beschreibung: The funding that made this research possible came from the Office of Naval Research, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September, 2005

Beschreibung: Minor and trace element records from planktic and benthic foraminifera from Atlantic sediment cores, as well as outputfrom a coupled OA·GCM, were used to investigate the magnitude and distribution of the oceanic response to abrupt Climate events.of the past 20,000 years. The study addressed three major questions: 1) What is the magnitude of high-latitude sea surface temperature and salinity variability during abrupt climate events? 2) Does intermediate depth ventilation change in conjunction with high-latitude climate variability? 3) Are the paleoclimate data consistent with the response of a coupled OAGCM to a freshwater perturbation? To address these questions, analytical methods were implemented for the simultaneous measurement of Mg/Ca, Zn/Ca, Cd/Ca, Mn/Ca and All Ca in foraminiferal samples using inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Paired records of planktic foraminiferal ()IRO and Mg/Ca from the subpolar North Atlantic reveal trends of increasing temperatures (-3°C) and salinities over the course of the Holocene. The records provide the first evidence of open':'ocean cooling (nearly 2°C) and freshening during the 8.2 kyr event, and suggest similar conditions at 9.3 ka. Benthic foraminiferal Cd/Ca results from an intermediate depth, western South Atlantic core (l,268 ni) are consistent with reduced export into the South Atlantic of North Atlantic Intermediate Water during the Younger Dryas. Paired records. of benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca and bIRO from two intermediate depth low latitude western Atlantic sites - one from the Florida Current (751 m) and one from the Little Bahama Bank (l,057 m) - provicie insights into the spatial distribution of intermediate depth temperature and sii!.inity variability during" the Younger Dryas. The intermediate depth paleoceanographic temperature and salinity data are consistent with the results of a GFDL R30 freshwater forced model simulation, suggesting that freshwater forcing is a possible driver or amplifier for B011ing-Aller0d to Younger Dryas climate variability. Benthic foraminiferal Cd/Ca results from an intermediate depth Florida Current core (751 m) are consistent with a decrease in the northward penetration of southern source waters within the return flow of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and an increase in the influence of intermediate depth northern source waters during the Younger Dryas.

Beschreibung: This work was funded by a John Lyons Fellowship and a WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute Fellowship. Analyses were funded by the Ocean and Climate Change Institute and the following grants from the National Science Foundation: OCE98-86748, OCE02- 20776, OCE96-33499,ATM05-01391, and OCE04-02565.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1991

Beschreibung: A general discussion of possible techniques for observation of near-surface currents indicates that the surface-following frame of reference will provide several advantages over the Eulerian or Lagrangian frames. One problem with surface-following measurements is the biasing effects of the waves. A technique for making unbiased measurements is developed. This technique requires that both the sensor velocity and the fluid velocity be measured. A sensor platform, the Surface Acoustic Shear Sensor (SASS), which makes the required measurements is described. The processing scheme for interpreting the measurements from the SASS is described at length. The data that SASS has obtained from two deployments in the Shelf Mixed Layer Experiment (SMILE) is presented. This data shows clearly that the biasing effects of waves can not, in general, be ignored. In the summary of the data we find surprisingly little shear in the downwind direction in the top 4m of the water column. In the crosswind direction observed, observed shear seems to be indicative of an across shelf pressure gradient and intense near-surface mixing.

Beschreibung: Financial support for my work was from NSF grant OCE-87-16937.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution March, 1980

Beschreibung: The Southern Ocean as defined here is the body of water between the Antarctic Continent and the Antarctic Polar Front, (APF). This ocean is considered important in the global thermodynamic balance of the ocean-atmosphere system because large planetary heat losses are believed to occur at high latitudes. The ocean and atmosphere must transport heat poleward to balance these losses. In the Southern Hemisphere, the oceanic contribution to this flux involves a southward transport of heat across the APF into the Southern Ocean where it is given up to the atmosphere through air-sea interactions. In Part I, the air-sea interactions and structure of the near surface waters of the Southern Ocean are investigated with a three dimensional time dependent numerical model. The surface waters in this region in summer are characterized by a relatively warm surface mixed layer with low salinity. Below this layer, a cold temperature extremum is usually observed in vertical profiles which is believed to be the remnant of a deep surface mixed layer produced in winter. The characteristics of this layer, the surface mixed layer and the observed distribution of wintertime sea ice are reproduced well by this model. Unlike some other sea-ice models the air-sea heat exchange is a free variable. Model estimates of the annual heat loss by the Southern Ocean exhibit the observed meridional variation of heat gained by the ocean along the APF with heat lost further south. The model's area average heat loss is much smaller than that estimated with direct observations. While several model parameterizations were made which could be in error, the model results suggest that the Southern Ocean does give up vast amounts of heat to the atmosphere away from the continental margins. The model results and direct calculations of air-sea exchanges suggest a southward heat flux must occur across the APF. The lateral water mass transition across the front is not discontinuous but occurs over a finite sized zone of fluid which is dominated by intrusive finestructure. The characteristics and dynamics of these features are investigated in Part II to try and assess their importance in the meridional heat budget. Observations made on two cruises to the APF are presented and the space-time scales of the features and thermohaline characteristics are discussed. It is suggested that double diffusive processes dominated by salt fingering are active within the intrusions. An extension of Stern's (1967) model of the stability of a thermohaline front to intrusive finestructure driven by saltfingering where small scale viscous processes are included, is presented to explain why intrusions are observed in frontal zones. The model successfully predicts vertical scales of intrusions observed in the ocean and the observed dependence of the intrusions' slopes across density surfaces on the vertical scale. Since the fastest growing intrusion is not strongly determined by the model, though, it is likely that finite amplitude effects determine the dominant scale of interleaving in the ocean. The analysis predicts that intrusions transport heat, salt and density down the mean gradients of the front. For the APF, this heat flux is poleward which is the direction required by the global heat budget. This model does not describe intrusions at finite amplitude or in steady state and so cannot be used to estimate the magnitude of the poleward heat flux due to intrusions in the APF.

Beschreibung: The research reported on here, and my support as a graduate student was provided by the National Science Foundation through grants OCE 75 14056. OCE 76 82036 and OCE 77 28355.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2007

Beschreibung: This thesis presents three studies which apply geophysical tools to the task of better understanding mantle melting phenomena at the upper and lower boundaries of the mantle. The first study uses seafloor bathymetry and small variations in the gravitational acceleration over the Hawaii-Emperor seamount chain to constrain the changes in the igneous production of the hot spot melting in the mantle which has created these structures over the past 80 My. The second study uses multichannel seismic reflection data to constrain the location and depth of axial magma chambers at the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca spreading ridge, and then correlates these magma chamber locations with features of the hydrothermal heat extraction system in the upper crust such as microseismicity caused by thermal cracking and high temperature hydrothermal vent systems observed on the seafloor. The third study uses two-dimensional global pseudospectral seismic wave propagation modeling to characterize the sensitivity of the SPdKS seismic phase to two-dimensional, finite-width ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZs) at the core-mantle boundary. Together these three studies highlight the dynamic complexities of melting in the mantle while offering new tools to understand that complexity.

Beschreibung: This thesis was funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, NSF grant OCE-0002551 to theWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the WHOI Academic Programs Office, the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Department at MIT, and by the WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration Institute.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution November, 1978

Beschreibung: The distribution of dissolved silica in the deep western North Atlantic Ocean is presented. The potential temperature-dissolved silica relationship is compared with the potential temperature salinity relationship in the North Atlantic Deep Water. Geographical variations in the potential temperature- dissolved silica relationship are discussed with particular emphasis on the low silica signal of the Western Boundary Undercurrent (WBUC). The WBUC is shown to have a significant influence on the potential temperature-dissolved silica relationship from the tail of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to Cape Hatteras. It is suggested that a region of enhanced mixing is present west of 65°W that is responsible for the observed changes in the dissolved silica distribution.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June, 1979

Beschreibung: A major goal in the study of plate tectonics is the acquisition of a knowledge of the history of relative motion among the rigid plates of the earth's lithosphere. The three papers of this thesis contribute to this effort and demonstrate that studies of the stability and evolution of triple junctions and of the finite rotations of systems of three plates can yield significantly more accurate tectonic histories than can studies of the relative motions between two plates alone. Topographic and magnetic investigation of the Southwest Indian Ridge and reconstruction of the plate system of the Indian Ocean shows that both Africa and Antarctica are rigid plates and their pole of relative rotation has remained fixed near 8°N, 42°W since the Eocene. A detailed survey of the Indian Ocean triple junction reveals that the Indian Ocean plate motions have remained constant since 10 Ma. The stability conditions of the junction show that the general morphology of the Southwest Indian Ridge results from the evolution of the Indian Ocean triple junction. A method is presented for determining the finite rotations best reconstructing the past relative positions of three plates around a triple junction. The method is illustrated by reconstructions of the plates around the Labrador Sea triple junction at the times of anomalies 24 (56 Ma) and 21 (50 Ma). The region of uncertainty of the Greenland-North America finite pole is mapped for each reconstruction, and it demonstrates that consideration of the three plate system yields more well-constrained results than does a treatment of the two plates alone.

Beschreibung: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research contract N00014-75-C-0291 with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February, 2006

Beschreibung: Benthic and planktonic foraminiferal δ18O (δ18Oc) from a suite of well-dated, high-resolution cores spanning the depth and width of the Straits of Florida reveal significant changes in Gulf Stream cross-current density gradient during the last millennium. These data imply that Gulf Stream transport during the Little Ice Age (LIA: 1200-1850 A.D.) was 2-3 Sv lower than today. The timing of reduced flow is consistent with cold conditions in Northern Hemisphere paleoclimate archives, implicating Gulf Stream heat transport in centennial-scale climate variability of the last 1,000 years. The pattern of flow anomalies with depth suggests reduced LIA transport was due to weaker subtropical gyre wind stress curl. The oxygen isotopic composition of Florida Current surface water (δ18O w) near Dry Tortugas increased 0.4% during the course of the Little Ice Age (LIA: ~1200-1850 A.D.), equivalent to a salinity increase of 0.8-1.5 psu. On the Great Bahama Bank, where smface waters are influenced by the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, δ18Ow increased by 0.3% during the last 200 years. Although a portion (~0.1%) of this shift may be an artifact of anthropogenically-driven changes in surface water ΣCO2, the remaining δl8Ow signal implies a 0.4 to 1 psu increase in salinity after 200 yr BP. The simplest explanation of the δ18Ow data is southward migration of the Atlantic Hadley circulation during the LIA. Scaling of the δ18Ow records to salinity using the modern low-latitude δ18Ow-S slope produces an unrealistic reversal in the salinity gradient between the two sites. Only if C180 w is scaled to salinity using a high-latitude δ18Ow-S slope can the records be reconciled. Changes in atmospheric 14C paralleled shifts in Dry Tortugas δ18Ow , suggesting that variable solar irradiance paced centennial-scale Hadley cell migration and changes in Florida Current salinity during the last millennium.

Beschreibung: I would also like to thank the National Science Foundation (NSF grant OCE-0096469) and WHOI Academic Programs for supporting this work.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution July 1991

Beschreibung: Neoplasia has been found in the livers of bottom-feeding fish taken from heavily contaminated freshwater and marine habitats. This study examined the progressive development and ultimate diversity of liver neoplasia in winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus) from Deer Island Flats, Boston Harbor, MA., U.S.A., and encompassed histopathology, ultrastructural pathology, immunohistochemistry and experimental toxicology. It was found that liver neoplasia was most prevalent adjacent to a major sewage outfall, and that the predominant neoplastic cell type was cholangiocellular. Cholangiocellular neoplasms ranged from non-invasive tubular cholangiomas to invasive anaplastic cholangiocellular carcinomas. The latter were solid, tubular, cystic and scirrhous in form. Hepatocellular adenomas and carcinomas were also present, but only infrequently. Abnormally vacuolated hepatic epithelia were intimately associated with neoplastic lesions of all types. These vacuolated cells were first seen in the center of the hepatic tubule, as vacuolated preductular biliary epithelial cells. Later, cells of the entire hepatic tubule were vacuolated. Foci of vacuolated cells were visible grossly, and often contained or were adjacent to neoplastic lesions. Vacuolation, biliary hyperplasia, aggregation of macrophages and necrosis were first seen in two year old fish. These lesions then appeared to progress, becoming more severe and prevalent as the fish grew. Of the fish for which age data were available, the youngest fish to contain a liver neoplasm was 5 years old. Prevalence of neoplasia did not differ between gender of fish. Liver neoplasia and vacuolation persisted in fish that were maintained in clean water on clean food for five months. However, the prevalence of vacuolation decreased with increasing distance from urban contamination, being absent in fish from Georges Bank. Ultrastructural examination of winter flounder liver from clean and contaminated sites revealed a loss of hepatic glycogen and lipid stores with increasing environmental contamination, with a concomitant increase of abnormal proliferated endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Fluid accumulation in the cisternal space of the ER, and the perinuclear space and mitochondra led to vesicle formation. These vesicles coalesced, to form large cellular vacuoles that compressed the nucleus and residual cytoplasm to the margins of the cell. Vacuolation appeared to be a process that affected preductular cells, hepatocytes, cholangiocytes, neoplastic cells, and exocrine pancreatic cells. To assess the role of vacuolated cells in the progression to neoplasia, evidence for replicative nuclear DNA synthesis was sought by assaying for the nuclear incorporation of a nucleotide analog, bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). Tissue sections from fish labeled with BrdU were stained imunohistochemically using an anti-BrdU monoclonal antibody. Constitutive DNA synthesis was observed in basal gill and intestinal epithelia, and renal hemopoietic cells. Increased levels of DNA synthesis were observed in vacuolated cells, hyperplastic biliary epithelia, and most particularly in neoplastic cells, some of which were vacuolated. These observations were taken to suggest that vacuolated cells were capable of DNA synthesis, and that this, along with their intimate spatial relationship with neoplastic cells implied that they may be involved in the progression to neoplasia. To further investigate these observations, attempts were made to recreate the feral disease in the laboratory. Methods were developed for atraumatic capture, transport and year round maintenance of winter flounder. Long term colonies were established and experiments designed to reproduce the situation in wild-caught fish. The long latency between first exposure of larvae to genotoxic carcinogens in the native fish from Boston, and the actual appearance of neoplasia many years later, leads to the assumption that chronic exposure to epigenetic carcinogens was the rate limiting step in this neoplastic progression. Technical grade chlordane was chosen as representative of the hepatotoxic epigenetic carcinogens present in Boston Harbor sediments. Acute and subacute exposures were conducted, to establish the toxicity of the fish to chlordane, and to examine the resultant histopathology. A chronic feeding study was then conducted for one year, using chlordane and benzo(a)pyrene. Histological alterations induced in treated fish included elevated levels of macrophage aggregations, perisinusoidal edema, necrosis, and a proliferative reaction that involved the formation of structures that were apparently primitive biliary tubules. These studies have shown that winter flounder exposed to chemical contaminants appear to undergo a set of histopathological changes that precede neoplastic change. Cellular vacuolation is a significant change that may be directly involved in the progression to neoplasia. It is a relatively common lesion and is an excellent marker in winter flounder for the detection of the chronic biological effects of the particular chemical contaminants in the Boston Harbor environment, at a stage long before overt neoplasia is evident.

Beschreibung: This research was funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, U.S.P.H.S. grant CA/ES44306, the WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund, a Sea Grant New Initiative grant, The Donaldson Chartable Trust, and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ocean Engineer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and for the degree of Ocean Engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology August 1979

Beschreibung: The flow fields entering intake forms oriented into a steady flume flow has been observed and quantified. This data is applied to a model of zooplankton sampler performance, to predict the fraction of the sampled fluid from which no animals will escape under conditions similar to those of the tests. Flume flow speeds (≈5 cm/s) and intake pumping rate (≈33 gal/min) are scaled by a factor of 20 in the model, while test form dimensions (4 and 7 inch throats and 12 inch outside diameters) are considered to be full-size for the prototype pump samplers. The data presented can be applied to other flow and geometrical scales. The 'lethal cone' and critical fluid deformation rate envelopes are evaluated for eleven intake forms: pointed, bullet-shaped, funnel-shaped, rounded and square-ended. The sharply-pointed intake performed test, for tow speed ≈100 cm/s, swimming speed=30 cm/s and Dc=1. 0 sec-1. 'Sure capture' is predicted in 83% of the sampled water. The four funnel-shaped forms follow consecutively in a rank ordering, with efficiencies, of 77% to 68%.

Beschreibung: Partial funds for the experiments, computer and graphics were received from Sea Grant.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution April 1978

Beschreibung: The structure of the membrane-free nucleoid of Escherichia coli and of unfolded chromosomal DNA was investigated by sedimentation on neutral sucrose gradients after irradiation with 60Co gamma-rays and ultraviolet light (2S4nm). Irradiation both in vivo and in vitro was used as a molecular probe of the constraints on DNA~packaging in the bacterial chromosome. The extremely gentle lysis and unfolding procedures which were developed yielded undamaged, replicating genomes, thus permitting direct measurement of the formation and repair of DNA double-strand breaks at biologically-significant doses of ionizing radiation. In vitro UV-irradiation of nucleoids resulted in an increase in the observed rate of sedimentation due to the formation of an unknown photo-product. In contrast, UV-irradiation of wild-type cells in vivo showed evidence of the formation of incision breaks which resulted in the relaxation of supercoiling in the nucleoid. Strand breakage was also observed following in vivo UV-irradiation of a uvrB-5 strain, but at a lower rate and also accompanied by considerable unfolding of the chromosome. Such lesions may have been the result of direct photochemical reactions in the nucleoid, or enzyme activity associated with a uvr-independent mode of repair. The number of domains of supercoiling was estimated at 170 per genome equivalent of DNA based on measurements of relaxation caused by single-strand break formation in in vivo- and in vitro-gamma-irradiated folded chromosomes. Similar estimates based on the target size of RNA molecules responsible for maintaining the compact packaging of the nucleoid predicted negligible unfolding due to the formation of RNA single-strand breaks at doses up-to 10 Krad, and were born out by experimental measurements. Unfolding of the nucleoid in vitro by limit-digestion with RNase or by heating at 70° resulted in DNA complexes with sedimentation coefficients of 1030±59S and 625±15S respectively. The difference in these rates was apparently due to more complete deproteinization and thus less mass in the heated material. These structures are believed to represent intact, replicating genomes in the form of complex-theta structures containing 2-3 genome equivalents of DNA. The rate of formation of double-strand breaks was determined from molecular weight measurements of thermally unfolded chromosomal DNA gamma-irradiated in vitro. Break formation was linear with dose up to 10 Krad, resulting in 0.27 double-strand breaks per kilorad per genome equivalent of DNA and requiring 1080 eV/double-strand break. The influence of possible non-linear DNA conformations of these calculations is discussed. Repair of ionizing radiation damage to folded chromosomes was observed within 2-3 hours of post-irradiation incubation in growth medium. A model based on recombinational repair is proposed to explain the formation of 2200-2300S material during early stages of incubation and subsequent changes in the gradient profiles. Such behavior is not observed for post-irradiation incubation of wild-type cells in buffer or for a recA-13 strain incubated in growth medium. Association of unrepaired DNA with plasma membrane is proposed to explain the formation of a peak of rapidly sedimenting material (〉〉3100S) during the later stages of repair. Direct evidence of repair of double-strand breaks during post-irradiation incubation in growth medium was obtained from gradient profiles of DNA from RNAse-digested chromosomes. The sedimentation coefficient of broken molecules was restored to the value of unirradiated DNA after 2-3 hours of incubation, and the fraction of the DNA repaired in this fashion was equal to the fraction of cells which survived at the same dose. An average of 2.7 double-strand breaks per genome per lethal event was observed, suggesting that 1-2 double-strand breaks per genome are repairable in this strain of E. coli.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2005

Beschreibung: The changing state of warfare has driven the US Navy's area of operations closer to shore into littoral coastal waters. Mine Warfare has been proven as an extremely effective means of battlespace control in these waters. Mines can be inexpensively mass produced and rapidly deployed over large areas. The most common type of mine in use is the bottom placed mine, an object with simple geometry that sits on the seafloor. These mines often exhibit scour induced burial below the seafloor, making detection through traditional mine hunting methods difficult or impossible, while the mines themselves remain lethal. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has developed a computer model that predicts the extent of mine burial to aid mine hunting and mine clearing operations. Investigations under ONR's Mine Burial Program are presently being conducted to calibrate and validate this model. This thesis uses data from the deployment of an acoustically instrumented model mine near the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory in part of a larger, 16 total object investigation. A 2-axis pencil beam sonar was deployed concurrently with the mine to obtain microbathymetric measurements of the scour pit development and the progression of mine burial. Data correction techniques to correct for beam pattern induced bathymetry errors and a transformed coordinate system are detailed within. An analysis of scour pit dimensions includes scour depth, area, and volume as well as a look into percent burial by depth as a characteristic measurement important for operational mine hunting. The progression of mine burial is related to the wave climate, unsteady flow hydrodynamic forcing, and bed-load transport. The analysis examines the relative roles of these mechanisms in the scour-infill-bury process.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2005

Beschreibung: This thesis develops and utilizes a method for analyzing data from the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory's (NPAL) Basin Acoustic Seamount Scattering Experiment (BASSEX). BASSEX was designed to provide data to support the development of analytical techniques and methods which improve the understanding of sound propagation around underwater seamounts. The depth-dependent sound velocity profile of typical ocean waveguides force sound to travel in convergence zones about a minimum sound speed depth. This ducted nature of the ocean makes modeling the acoustic field around seamounts particularly challenging, compared to an isovelocity medium. The conical shape of seamounts also adds to the complexity of the scatter field. It is important to the U.S. Navy to understand how sound is diffracted around this type of topographic feature. Underwater seamounts can be used to conceal submarines by absorbing and scattering the sound they emit. BASSEX measurements have characterized the size and shape of the forward scatter field around the Kermit-Roosevelt Seamount in the Pacific Ocean. Kermit- Roosevelt is a large, conical seamount which shoals close to the minimum sound speed depth, making it ideal for study. Acoustic sources, including M-sequence and linear frequency-modulated sources, were stationed around the seamount at megameter ranges. A hydrophone array was towed around the seamount to locations which allowed measurement of the perturbation zone. Results from the method developed in this thesis show that the size and shape of the perturbation zone measured coincides with theoretical and experimental results derived in previous work.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2006

Beschreibung: Marine thecate heterotrophic dinoflagellates likely play an important role in the consumption of primary productivity and in the trophic structure of the plankton, yet we know little about these species. This thesis expanded our understanding of the autecology and evolutionary history of the Protoperidinium and diplopsalids. The distributions of Protoperidinium species off the southwestern coast of Ireland were influenced by physical oceanographic conditions coupled with the availability of preferred prey. The distributions of individual Protoperidinium species varied widely from the distribution of total Protoperidinium, indicating differences in ecologies among species. Certain species of Protoperidinium co-occurred with known preferred phytoplankton prey species. Concentrations of other Protoperidinium species were not related to those of any particular phytoplankton species, indicating that these Protoperidinium may rely on phytoplankton or other food sources beyond those already known, may not be species specific selective feeders, or may have become uncoupled from their preferred prey. The description of the sexual and asexual life history of Protoperidinium steidingerae provided the first account of the life history of any Protoperidinium species. Asexual division occurred by eleutheroschisis within a temporary, immotile cyst, yielding two daughter cells. Daughter cells were initially round and half to two-thirds the size of parent cells, then rapidly increased in size, forming horns before separating. Sexual reproduction was constitutive in clonal cultures, indicating that the species may be homothallic. Fusing gametes were isogamous, and resulted in a planozygote with two longitudinal flagella. Hypnozygotes had a mandatory dormancy period of ca. 70 days. Germination resulted in planomeiocytes with two longitudinal flagella. Nuclear cyclosis may occur in the planomeiocyte stage. A high level of morphological diversity among life history stages of P. steidingerae has led to mis-classification and taxonomic inaccuracy of Protoperidinium species identified from field samples. The large subunit ribosomal DNA (LSU rDNA) molecular phylogeny of the heterotrophic dinoflagellates revealed that the genus Protoperidinium appeared to be recently diverged within the dinoflagellates. In maximum parsimony and neighbor joining analysis, Protoperidinium formed a monophyletic group, evolving from diplopsalid dinoflagellates. In maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses, however, Protoperidinium was polyphyletic, as the lenticular, diplopsalid heterotroph, Diplopsalis lenticula Bergh, was inserted within the Protoperidinium clade basal to Protoperidinium excentricum (Paulsen) Balech, and Preperidinium meunieri (Pavillard) Elbrächter fell within a separate clade as a sister to the Oceanica section and Protoperidinium steidingerae Balech. In all analyses, the Protoperidinium were divided into two major clades, with members in the Oceanica group and subgenus Testeria in one clade, and the Excentrica, Conica, Pellucida, Pyriforme, and Divergens sections in another clade. The LSU rDNA molecular phylogeny supported the historical morphologically determined sections, but not a simple morphology-based model of evolution based on thecal plate shape. LSU rDNA gene sequences are frequently used to infer the phylogeny of organisms. The many copies of the LSU rDNA found in the genome are thought to be kept homogenous by concerted evolution. In Protoperidinium species, however, there was high intragenomic diversity in the D1-D6 region of the LSU rDNA. For each species, the clone library was usually comprised of one highly represented copy and many unique sequences. Sequence differences were primarily characterized by single base pair substitutions, single base pair insertion/deletions (indels), and/or large indels. Phylogenetic analysis of all clones gave strong support for monophyly of the polymorphic copies of each species, and recovered the same species tree as an analysis using just one sequence per species. Analysis of LSU rDNA gene expression in three species by RT-PCR indicated that copies with fewer substitutions and fewer and smaller indels are expressed, and that 50% or more of the copies are pseudogenes. High intraspecific and intraindividual LSU rDNA sequence variability could lead to inaccurate species phylogenies and over-estimation of species diversity in environmental sequencing studies. This thesis has explored the ecology, life history, molecular phylogeny, and intraspecific DNA sequence variability of marine thecate heterotrohic dinoflagellates using a wide range of methodologies, including field sampling, culturing, microscopy, morphological analyses, histological staining, and molecular biology. The work here has broadened our understanding of the Protoperidinium and diplopsalids, providing new insights into the ecological and evolutionary relationships of these heterotrophs with other plankton species.

Beschreibung: This thesis could not have taken its current form without the financial freedom allowed me by Gary Comer’s generous gift six years ago. Additional financial support was provided by the Carroll Wilson Award from the MIT Entrepreneurship Society, the Cove Point Foundation, and National Science Foundation grant OCE-0136861.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2007

Beschreibung: The first part of the dissertation investigates the application of the theory of large random matrices to high-dimensional inference problems when the samples are drawn from a multivariate normal distribution. A longstanding problem in sensor array processing is addressed by designing an estimator for the number of signals in white noise that dramatically outperforms that proposed by Wax and Kailath. This methodology is extended to develop new parametric techniques for testing and estimation. Unlike techniques found in the literature, these exhibit robustness to high-dimensionality, sample size constraints and eigenvector misspecification. By interpreting the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix as an interacting particle system, the existence of a phase transition phenomenon in the largest (“signal”) eigenvalue is derived using heuristic arguments. This exposes a fundamental limit on the identifiability of low-level signals due to sample size constraints when using the sample eigenvalues alone. The analysis is extended to address a problem in sensor array processing, posed by Baggeroer and Cox, on the distribution of the outputs of the Capon-MVDR beamformer when the sample covariance matrix is diagonally loaded. The second part of the dissertation investigates the limiting distribution of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a broader class of random matrices. A powerful method is proposed that expands the reach of the theory beyond the special cases of matrices with Gaussian entries; this simultaneously establishes a framework for computational (non-commutative) “free probability” theory. The class of “algebraic” random matrices is defined and the generators of this class are specified. Algebraicity of a random matrix sequence is shown to act as a certificate of the computability of the limiting eigenvalue distribution and, for a subclass, the limiting conditional “eigenvector distribution.” The limiting moments of algebraic random matrix sequences, when they exist, are shown to satisfy a finite depth linear recursion so that they may often be efficiently enumerated in closed form. The method is applied to predict the deterioration in the quality of the sample eigenvectors of large algebraic empirical covariance matrices due to sample size constraints.

Beschreibung: I am grateful to the National Science Foundation for supporting this work via grant DMS-0411962 and the Office of Naval Research Graduate Traineeship award

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2006

Beschreibung: Cetacean blubber is a primary site for lipid storage, which the animal utilizes during periods of energetic stress. It is important to understand how the blubber responds to factors such as ontogeny, water temperature, reproductive status, and nutritional state because blubber is also the primary bioaccumulation site for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). During periods of lipid mobilization such as lactation, PCBs from the blubber are mobilized into the circulatory system and may cause toxic effects. One particular toxic mechanism may include the induction of cytochrome P450 enzymes in the integument and liver, which could enhance the biotransformation of PCBs to hydroxylated metabolites (OH-PCBs). OH-PCBs may then interfere with thyroid hormone dependent neurodevelopment. The goals of these studies were to investigate the relationships between lipid dynamics and PCB effects and to devise a quantitative approach to assess neurodevelopment in delphinid cetaceans. Blubber morphology, cytochrome P450 1A1 (CYP1A1) expression in the skin-blubber biopsy, blubber and plasma PCBs, and plasma OH-PCBs were assessed in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). In addition, magnetic resonance (MR) images of the postmortem brain in situ were obtained from Atlantic white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus) specimens.These results showed that: 1) Factors such as ontogeny, water temperature, and reproductive status affected blubber morphology in bottlenose dolphins. In response to warmer water, the lipid content of the blubber decreased and this appeared to involve loss of lipids from adipocytes in the middle blubber layer. Similar to the effects of starvation on blubber morphology, lactation decreased adipocyte size predominantly in the deeper blubber, 2) CYP1A1 levels in the deep blubber were significantly related to the total plasma TEQ98 concentrations, adipocyte shrinkage, and plasma OH-PCB levels, 3) Through in situ MR imaging of stranded, Atlantic white-sided dolphin specimens, the size of brain structures that depend on thyroid hormones for maturation could be measured accurately. Future studies can use this technique, coupled with chemical analysis of brain regions, to determine if thyroid hormone disrupting chemicals in delphinid cetaceans are associated with changes in the size of brain structures.

Beschreibung: Funding for this research was provided by an Environmental Protection Agency STAR fellowship (U-91616101-2) awarded to Eric Montie, NOAA contract #WC1330- 02SE0257, NOAA contract #JHT04P1226, NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, the Florida Protect Wild Dolphins License Plate Fund, the National Woman’s Farm and Garden Association Scholarship awarded to Eric Montie, Shields MRI and CT of Cape Cod, the Quebec Labrador Fund/Atlantic Center for the Environment, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Academic Programs Office, Office of Naval Research, and NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2007

Beschreibung: Zinc (Zn) stable isotopes can record information about important oceanographic processes. This thesis presents data on Zn isotopes in anthropogenic materials, hydrothermal fluids and minerals, cultured marine phytoplankton, natural plankton, and seawater. By measuring Zn isotopes in a diverse array of marine samples, we hope to understand how Zn isotopes are fractionated in the oceans and how Zn isotopes may be used as tracers of marine biogeochemical processes. Common forms of anthropogenic Zn had δ66Zn from +0.08‰ to +0.32‰, a range similar to Zn ores and terrigenous materials. Larger variations were discovered in hydrothermal fluids and minerals, with hydrothermal fluids ranging in δ66Zn from 0.02‰ to +0.93‰, and chimney minerals ranging from -0.09‰ to +1.17‰. Lower-temperature vent systems had higher δ66Zn values, suggesting that precipitation of isotopically light Zn sulfides drives much of the Zn isotope fractionation in hydrothermal systems. In cultured diatoms, a relationship was discovered between Zn transport by either high-affinity or low-affinity uptake pathways, and the magnitude of Zn isotope fractionation. We established isotope effects of δ66Zn = -0.2‰ for high-affinity uptake and δ66Zn = -0.8‰ for low-affinity uptake. This work is the first to describe the molecular basis for biological fractionation of transition metals. Biological fractionation of Zn isotopes under natural conditions was investigated by measuring Zn isotopes in plankton collected in the Peru Upwelling Region and around the world. Seawater dissolved Zn isotopes also reflect the chemical and biological cycling of Zn. The δ66Zn of deep seawater in the North Pacific and North Atlantic is about 0.5‰, and the dissolved δ66Zn gets lighter in the upper water column. This is unexpected based our observations of a biological preference for uptake of light Zn isotopes, and suggests that Zn transport to deep waters may occur by Zn adsorption to sinking particles rather than as primary biological Zn. The thesis, by presenting data on several important aspects of Zn isotope cycling in the oceans, lays the groundwork for further use of Zn isotopes as a marine biogeochemical tracer.

Beschreibung: This research was funded by NSF Research Grants OCE-0002273 and OCE-0326689, the Martin Family Society Fellowship for Sustainability, the Woods Hole Ocean Ventures Fund, and Arunas and Pam Chesonis through an MIT Earth Systems Initiative Ignition Grant.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2007

Beschreibung: Oceanic spreading centers are sites of magmatic, tectonic, and hydrothermal processes. In this thesis I present experimental and seismological constraints on the evolution of these complex regions of focused crustal accretion and extension. Experimental results from drained, triaxial deformation experiments on partially molten olivine reveal that melt extraction rates are linearly dependent on effective mean stress when the effective mean stress is low and non-linearly dependent on effective mean stress when it is high. Microearthquakes recorded above an inferred magma reservoir along the TAG segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge delineate for the first time the arcuate, subsurface structure of a long-lived, active detachment fault. This fault penetrates the entire oceanic crust and forms the high-permeability pathway necessary to sustain long-lived, high-temperature hydrothermal venting in this region. Long-lived detachment faulting exhumes lower crustal and mantle rocks. Residual stresses generated by thermal expansion anisotropy and mismatch in the uplifting, cooling rock trigger grain boundary microfractures if stress intensities at the tips of naturally occurring flaws exceed a critical stress intensity factor. Experimental results coupled with geomechanical models indicate that pervasive grain boundary cracking occurs in mantle peridotite when it is uplifted to within 4 km of the seafloor. Whereas faults provide the high-permeability pathways necessary to sustain high-temperature fluid circulation, grain boundary cracks form the interconnected network required for pervasive alteration of the oceanic lithosphere. This thesis provides fundamental constraints on the rheology, evolution, and alteration of the lithosphere at oceanic spreading centers.

Beschreibung: Research was funded by a MIT Presidential Fellowship and NSF grants OCE-0095936, OCE-9907224, OCE-0137329, OCE-6892222, and OCE-6897400.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1980

Beschreibung: In the New England rocky intertidal community, space is dominated by two perennial plant types, brown fucoid algae (Ascophyllum nodosum and several species of Fucus) in the mid zones and the red alga Chondrus crispus in the low zones. These algae are not grazed by the predominant herbivorous snail, Littorina littorea. Here I report the first direct evidence that these algae produce chemicals which inhibit feeding by the snails. Polyphenols in Fucus vesiculosus and Ascophyllum nodosum were shown to be effective chemical defenses against the snails. Feeding experiments demonstrated that the presence in the diet of as little as 1% polyphenol (dry weight), extracted from these two algal species, caused a significant reduction in feeding by L. littorea; 10% polyphenol (dry wt.) in food media inhibited snail feeding nearly 100%. The phenol and polyphenol contents in different tissues of these two algal species and in other New England rocky intertidal algal species were monitored monthly for one year. F. vesiculosus and A. nodosum showed highest polyphenol contents (1-17% dry wt.); these levels were sufficiently high in all tissues during all months to inhibit snail feeding. The mechanism of action of plant polyphenols against herbivores is through their binding to plant proteins and other nitrogenous compounds, rendering them indigestible. Polyphenol contents were therefore examined in relation to plant nitrogen contents (using polyphenol/nitrogen ratios) to estimate the unavailability of plant nitrogen to herbivores due to polyphenol binding. Annual brown algal species such as Petalonia fascia and Scytosiphon lomentaria had significantly lower levels of phenols and polyphenols than the perennial F. vesiculosus and A. nodosum. These two species are highly preferred as food by L. littorea. C. crispus and the green alga Codium fragile also had low phenol and polyphenol levels, yet they are of low food preference to the snails. Methylene chloride extracts from C. crispus and volatile halocompounds from C. fragile inhibited snail feeding, hence these species have chemical defenses quite different from those of F. vesiculosus and A. nodosum. Factors such as physical defenses, nutritional content, and temporal and spatial escapes are also important in determining algal food preference to herbivores. The release into seawater of volatile hydrocarbons and halomethanes from benthic algae and seagrass was measured to examine the possible role of these compounds as antiherbivore compounds. Bioassays indicated that CH2I2, a compound released into seawater from C. fragile, inhibited feeding of L. littorea. CHBr3, released into seawater by many algal species, appeared to have less activity against the herbivores. This study represents one of the first examinations of plant chemical defenses against herbivores in the marine environment. The findings are discussed in relation to recent theories from terrestrial studies on the commitment of plants to chemical defense.

Beschreibung: Financial support for my research was provided by the National Science Foundation (Grant OCE 78-111573) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Biological Oceanography.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Oceanographic Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2005

Beschreibung: The challenge of estimating the Reynolds stress in an energetic ocean environment derives from the turbulence process overlapping in frequency, or in wavenumber, with the wave process. It was surmised that they would not overlap in the combined wavenumber-frequency spectrum, due to each process having a different dispersion relationship. The turbulence process is thought to obey a linear dispersion relationship, as the turbulent flow is advected with the mean current (Taylor's frozen turbulence approximation). However, the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) looks at radial wavenumbers and frequencies, and finds overlap. Another approach is to exploit the physical differences of each process, namely that the wave induced velocities are correlated over much larger distances than the turbulence induced velocities. This method was explored for current meters by Shaw and Trowbridge. Upon adapting the method for the ADCP, it is found that the resulting Reynolds stress estimates are of the correct order of magnitude, but somewhat noisy. The work of this thesis is to uncover the source of that noise, and to quantify the performance limits of estimating the Reynolds Stress when using ADCP measurements that are contaminated with strong wave-induced velocities. To that end, the space-time correlations of the error, turbulence, and wave processes are developed and then utilized to find the extent to which the environmental and internal processing parameters contribute to this error. It is found that the wave-induced velocities, even when filtered, introduce error variances which are of similar magnitude to that of the Reynolds stresses.

Beschreibung: This thesis has been funded by the NDSEG Fellowship Program (National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship), in association with ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education).

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution April 1982

Beschreibung: The dynamics of steady and unsteady channel flow over large obstacles is studied analytically and numerically in an attempt to determine the applicability of classical hydraulic concepts to such flows. The study is motivated by a need to understand the influence of deep ocean straits and sills on the abyssal circulation. Three types of channel flow are considered: nonrotating one dimensional (Chapter 2); semigeostrophic, constant potential vorticity (Chapter 3); and dispersive, zero potential vorticity (Chapter 4). In each case the discussion centers around the time-dependent adjustment that occurs as a result of sudden obtrusion of an obstacle into a uniform initial flow or the oscillatory upstream forcing of a steady flow over topography. For nondispersive (nonrotating or semigeostrophic) flow, nonlinear adjustment to obstacle obtrusion is examined using a characteristic formulation and numerical results obtained from a Lax-Wendroff scheme. The adjustment process and asymptotic state are found to depend upon the height of the obstacle bO in relation to a critical height bc and a blocking height bb. For bO 〈 bc 〈 bb, isolated packets of nondispersive (long gravity or Kelvin) waves are generated which propagate away from the obstacle, leaving the far field unaffected. For bc 〈 bO 〈 bb, a bore is generated which moves upstream and partially blocks the flow. In the semigeostrophic case, the potential vorticity of the flow is changed by the bore at a rate proportional to the differential rate of energy dissipation along the line of breakage. For bb 〈 bO the flow is completely blocked. Dispersive results in the parameter range bO 〈 bc are obtained from a linear model of the adjustment that results from obstacle obtrusion into a uniform, rotating-channel flow. The results depend on the initial Froude number Fd (based on the Kelvin wave speed). The dispersive modes set up a decaying response about the obstacle if Fd 〈 1 and (possibly resonant) lee waves if Fd 〉 1. However, the far-field upstream response is found to depend on the behavior of the nondispersive Kelvin modes and is therefore nil. Nonlinear steady solutions to nondispersive flow are obtained through direct integration of the equations of motion. The characteristic formulation is used to evaluate the stability of various steady solutions with respect to small disturbances. Of the four types of steady solution, the one in which hydraulic control occurs is found to be the most stable. This is verified by numerical experiments in which the steady, controlled flow is perturbed by disturbances generated upstream. If the topography is complicated (contains more than sill, say), then controlled flows may become destabilized and oscillations may be excited near the topography. The transmission across the obstacle of energy associated with upstream-forced oscillations is studied using a reflection theory for small amplitude waves. The theory assumes quasi-steady flow over the obstacle and is accurate for waves long compared to the obstacle. For nonrotating flow, the reflection coefficients are bounded below by a value of 1/3. For semigeostrophic flow, however, the reflection coefficient can be arbitrarily small for large values of potential vorticity. This is explained as a result of the boundary-layer character of the semigeostrophic flow.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1982

Beschreibung: In an effort to understand the more general mechanisms and rates of pre-depositional reactions that transform organic matter, the types and relevant time scales of reactions that transform carotenoid pigments in the oceanic water column were studied. Suspended particulate matter collected from surface waters of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts and the Peru upwelling system has a carotenoid distribution reflecting the phytoplanktonic source of the material. The carotenoid distribution of sediment trap samples collected in these same areas was dominated by transformation products. Fucoxanthin, the primary carotenoid of marine diatoms, typically constituted 77-100% of the total fucopigments in suspended particulate material. In sediment trap samples this pigment constituted only 4-85% of the total. The remaining 15-96% of the pigments consisted of the fucoxanthin transformations products: free alcohols (2-94%), dehydrates (0-6%), and opened epoxides (0-19%). Preliminary results suggest that carotenoid esters are hydrolyzed to free alcohols at a rate determined by the turnover of primary productivity. The dehydrated and epoxide opened intermediates of fucoxanthin represent products of transformation reactions that operate over much longer time scales (0.1-10 yrs). Dehydration and epoxide opening are not significant water column transformations, but are important in surface sediments.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by the Ocean Sciences Section, National Science Foundation grants OCE 79-25352 and OCE 81-18436, the Office of Naval Research Contract N00014-74-Co-262NR 083-004, the Woods Hole Coastal Research Center project 25 000067 04, and a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Student Fellowship.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May 1980

Beschreibung: This study of particulate matter in the water column and the underlying surface sediments verifies the occurrence of local, present-day resuspension in the deep sea. The location of the major portion of this work was the South Iceland Rise, a region influenced by the flow of Norwegian Sea Overflow Water. Measured current velocities exceeded 20 cm/sec in the axis of the bottom current for the duration of the deployments, approximately two weeks. Particulate matter was sampled with Niskin bottles, to obtain the standing crop of suspended matter and with sediment traps, to obtain the material in flux through the water column. Box cores were taken to obtain surface sediment samples for comparison with the trap samples. Suspended particulate matter (SPM) and light-scattering studies demonstrate that in the Iceland Rise area the correlation of the L-DGO nephelometer to concentration of SPM differs between clear water and the nepheloid layer. Correlations of light scattering to SPM concentration also differ regionally, but for predicting concentration from light scattering, regression lines at two locations are indistinguishable. Particle size distributions have lower variance in the nepheloid layer than those in clear water which have roughly equal volumes of material in logarithmically increasing size grades from 1-20 μm. Apparent density differences between SPM in clear water and the nepheloid layer are not distinguishable in the Iceland Rise study; apparent densities increase in the nepheloid layer in the western North Atlantic. An apparent density of 1.1 g/cm3 adequately separates clear water from nepheloid layer samples in this region. Compositional variations seen between clear water and the nepheloid layer include a decrease in small coccoliths and an increase in clays and mineral matter. These compositional variations are more dramatic in the western North Atlantic region, due to dissolution of carbonate at the seafloor, later resuspended into the nepheloid layer. Sedimentological evidence of resuspension and redistribution of material are: 1) presence of sediment drifts throughout the Iceland Basin; 2) occurrence of coarse, glacial age sediments beneath the axis of the bottom current; and 3) differences in mineralogy, carbonate and organic carbon contents between surface sediments beneath the bottom current and those in a channel. A comparison of the vertical flux of material measured by sediment traps at 500 meters above bottom (mab) with the accumulation rate in cores, shows that the present-day surface input is an order of magnitude smaller than the accumulation rate. This observation suggests transport of material into some sections of the region by bottom currents or by turbidity currents. The horizontal flux of particulate matter into and out of the region by the bottom current is 100 kg/sec. This material may contribute to the formation of Gardar sediment drift downstream. The trends in % CaC03 and % organic carbon through the water column and in the surface sediments suggest that dissolution of carbonate and decomposition and consumption of organic carbon occurs primarily at the seafloor. These data also suggest preferential preservation at channel stations and/or preferential erosion beneath the bottom current. A comparison of sediment-trap samples with box-core surface samples further supports present-day resuspension. Benthic foraminifera, iron-oxidicoated planktonic foraminifera and the glacial, subpolar planktonic foraminifera (Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sinistral)) in traps at 10,100 and a few specimens at 500 mab, provide conclusive evidence for local resuspension. The coarse fraction (〉125 μm) of the sediment trap material collected at 10 mab comprises 21-34% of the samples Calculations indicate that this material is locally derived (few kilometers) resuspended material.

Beschreibung: This work was financially supported by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, ONR through contracts N00014-79-C-00-7l NR 083-004, N00014-74-C0262 NR 083-004, and N00014-75-C-029l and ERDA through contracts 13-7923 and 13-2559.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2007.

Beschreibung: The water circulation and evolution of water temperature over the inner continental shelf are investigated using observations of water velocity, temperature, density, and bottom pressure; surface gravity waves; wind stress; and heat flux between the ocean and atmosphere during 2001-2007. When waves are small, cross-shelf wind stress is the dominant mechanism driving cross-shelf circulation. The along-shelf wind stress does not drive a substantial cross-shelf circulation. The response to a given wind stress is stronger in summer than winter. The cross-shelf transport in the surface layer during winter agrees with a two-dimensional, unstratified model. During large waves and onshore winds the cross-shelf velocity is nearly vertically uniform, because the wind- and wave-driven shears cancel. During large waves and offshore winds the velocity is strongly vertically sheared because the wind- and wave-driven shears have the same sign. The subtidal, depth-average cross-shelf momentum balance is a combination of geostrophic balance and a coastal set-up and set-down balance driven by the cross-shelf wind stress. The estimated wave radiation stress gradient is also large. The dominant along-shelf momentum balance is between the wind stress and pressure gradient, but the bottom stress, acceleration, Coriolis, Hasselmann wave stress, and nonlinear advection are not negligible. The fluctuating along-shelf pressure gradient is a local sea level response to wind forcing, not a remotely generated pressure gradient. In summer, the water is persistently cooled due to a mean upwelling circulation. The cross-shelf heat flux nearly balances the strong surface heating throughout midsummer, so the water temperature is almost constant. The along-shelf heat flux divergence is apparently small. In winter, the change in water temperature is closer to that expected due to the surface cooling. Heat transport due to surface gravity waves is substantial.

Beschreibung: My last three years of thesis work were supported by National Aeronautics and Space Administration Headquarters under the Earth System Science Fellowship Grant NNG04GQ14H, and by WHOI Academic Programs Fellowship Funds. I also benefited from the freedom of a Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship during my first year in the Joint Program, which allowed me more time than is usual to explore different research topics before choosing an advisor. This research was also funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant NNG04GL03G and the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation under grants OCE-0241292 and OCE-0548961. The Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory is partly funded by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Jewett/EDUC/Harrison Foundation. The ADCP deployments at CBLAST site F were funded by National Science Foundation Small Grant for Exploratory Research OCE-0337892. Ship time for deployment and recovery of the F ADCP was provided by Robert Weller through Office of Naval Research contracts N00014-01-1-0029 and N00014-05-10090 for the Low-Wind Component of the Coupled Boundary Layers Air-Sea Transfer Experiment.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1976

Beschreibung: Analytical methods have been developed for the determination of iodate, iodide and particulate iodine in sea water. Iodate is converted to tri-iodide and the absorbance of tri-iodide at 353 nm is measured. The precision of this method is ca. ±3%. Iodide is first separated from most other anions by an AG 1-x8 anion exchange column and then precipitated as palladous iodide with elemental palladium as the carrier. The precipitate is analyzed by neutron activation analysis. The precision of the method is ±5% and the reagent blank is 0.005 uM. Marine suspended matter is collected by passing sea water under pressure through a 0.6 u (37 mm diameter) Nuclepore filter. The iodine content of the particles is determined by neutron activation analysis. The method has excellent reproducibility and the filter blank is ca. 3 ng. Iodate is depleted in the surface waters of the Equatorial Atlantic. The depletion is more pronounced than in the Argentine Basin and possibly reflects the higher productivity in the equatorial area. Superimposed on this feature, a thin lens of water, of a few tens of meters thick and with high iodate concentrations, can be traced across the Atlantic. Along the equator, this lens occurs at 80 m at 33˚W and rises upwards to 55 m at 10˚W and it coincides with a core of highly saline water which is characteristic of the Equatorial Undercurrent. Longitudinal sections reflect the complexity of the equatorial current system. At least three cores of water with high iodate concentrations may be identified. These waters may be transported to the equatorial region from the highly productive areas along the north-western and western African coasts and the Amazon plume. In anoxic basins, the concentration of iodide increases rapidly in the mixing zone from 0.02 uM to 0.44 uM in the Cariaco Trench and from 0.01 uM to 0.23 uM in the Black Sea. The iodate concentration, meanwhile. decreases to zero. A maximum in the total iodine to salinity ratio is observed just above the oxygen-sulfide interface (15 to 17 nmoles/g); it is suggestive of particle dissolution in a strong pycnocline. Below the interface, the total iodine to salinity ratio is constant at 12.3 nmoles/g in the anoxic zone of the Cariaco Trench, whereas, in the Black Sea, it increases with depth from 10.0 to 19.4 nmoles/g and suggests a possible flux of iodide from the sediments. By considering the distribution of iodate and iodide in oxic and anoxic basins and our present analytical capability, the lower limit of the pE of the oceans is estimated to be 10.7. Thermodynamic considerations further suggest that the iodide-iodate couple is a poor indica tor for the pE of the oceans with a limited usable range of 10.0 to 10.7. In the Gulf of Maine during the winter of 1974 to 1975. the effect of winter mixing was conspicuous. Uniform concentrations of iodide and iodate were observed in the mixed layer above the sill. The absence of a depletion of iodate and the low iodide concentration (0.04 uM) in the surface waters reflect the low biological activity in this region during winters. Profiles of particulate iodine are characterized by high concentrations in the euphotic zone (〉5 ng/kg), and lower concentrations (〈 2 ng/kg) at greater depths. Occasionally, high concentrations have also been observed in the nepheloid layer. The iodine-containing particles are probably biogenic. A section in the Western Atlantic from 75°N to 55˚S shows evidence of the transport of particles along isopycnals and the re-suspension of surface sediments to considerable distance from the bottom. The standing crops in the top 200 m may be qualitatively correlated with the primary productivity. Thermodynamic considerations show that iodide is a metastable form at the pH of sea water. Laboratory studies fail to show the oxidation of iodide at measurable rates. Elemental iodine is unstable in sea water and undergoes hydrolysis to form hypoiodous acid in seconds. Hypoiodous acid is also unstable and has a life time of minutes to hours. It may react with organic compounds to form iodinated derivatives or it may be reduced to iodide by a reducing agent. The disproportionation of hypoiodite to form iodate seems to be a slower process. A possible chemical cycle for iodine in the marine environment is proposed.

Beschreibung: This work was supported at various phases by NSF Grant GA-13574, NSF-IDOE Grant GX 33295, NSF Grant DES 74- 22292 and by a research fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2007

Beschreibung: Present-day expeditionary oceanography is beginning to shift from a focus on short- term ship and submersible deployments to an ocean observatory mode where long- term temporally-focused studies are feasible. As a result, a critical need for in situ chemical sensors is evolving. New sensors take a significant amount of time to develop; thus, the evaluation of techniques in the laboratory for use in the ocean environment is becoming increasingly important. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) possesses many of the characteristics required for such in situ chemical sensing, and is a promising technique for field measurements in extreme environments. Although many LIBS researchers have focused their work on liquid jets or surfaces, little at- tention has been paid to bulk liquid analysis, and especially to the effect of oceanic pressures on LIBS signals. In this work, laboratory experiments validate the LIBS technique in a simulated deep ocean environment to pressures up to 2.76 × 107 Pa. A key focus of this work is the validation that select elements important for understand- ing hydrothermal vent fluid chemistry (Na, Ca, Mn, Mg, K, and Li) are detectable using LIBS. A data processing scheme that accurately deals with the extreme nature of laser-induced plasma formation was developed that allows for statistically accu- rate comparisons of spectra. The use of both single and double pulse LIBS for high pressure bulk aqueous solutions is explored and the system parameters needed for the detection of the key analytes are optimized. Using both single and double pulse LIBS, the limits of detection were found to be higher than expected as a result of the spectrometer used in this experimentation. However, the results of this validation show that LIBS possesses the characteristics to be a viable chemical sensing method for in situ analyte detection in high pressure environments like the deep ocean.

Beschreibung: National Science Foundation for support of this research under grants OCE0352278 and OCE0352242. Additional support was received from WHOI’s Deep Ocean Exploration Institute who awarded this research with two grants. The WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund and the Department of Defense

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1993

Beschreibung: Dimethylsulfide (DMS) plays a central role in the transfer of sulfur from the ocean to the atmosphere, and ultimately to land. The most abundant volatile organosulfur compound in seawater, DMS is believed to account for the bulk of the sea-to-air biogenic sulfur flux. DMS has also been implicated as the major precursor of submicron-sized sulfate aerosol over the ocean. This aerosol acts as an effective site for cloud droplet condensation, suggesting a possibly important role for DMS in marine cloud formation. In the ocean, the precursor of DMS is presumed to be the zwitterionic sulfonium compound dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), a common osmoticum in certain classes of marine algae. While some algae can cleave DMSP intracellularly to form DMS, correlation of DMS concentrations with indicators of algal productivity on a local scale is poor. This thesis focuses on an alternative pathway of DMS formation: microbial cleavage of dissolved (extracellular) DMSP. In laboratory studies, bacteria able to cleave DMSP to form DMS were isolated from seawater by a DMSP enrichment technique, and the kinetics of DMSP uptake and DMS production were examined closely in pure cultures of a bacterial isolate from the Sargasso Sea. The isolate could grow with both DMSP and acrylic acid, one of the products of DMSP cleavage, as the sole source of carbon and energy, and the enzyme catalyzing DMSP cleavage appeared to be induced by both of these compounds. Kinetic parameters were estimated for DMSP uptake and cleavage by whole cells. Comparison of the 16S rRNA sequence of this isolate with that of known eubacteria showed that it was most closely related to Erythrobacter longus, an aerobic, bacteriochlorophyll-containing member of the α proteobacteria. DMS production from dissolved DMSP, along with microbial DMSP and DMS removal, was investigated in seawater incubation experiments with the goal of establishing turnover times for DMSP and DMS. These were determined to be on the order of days in both coastal (Vineyard Sound) and oligotrophic (Sargasso Sea) seawater. Loss of DMSP from the dissolved phase always occurred more rapidly than production of DMS; on average, microbial removal processes turned DMSP over on timescales of less than a day. This suggests that processes which do not result in DMS production, such as demethylation, may be important sinks for DMSP. Kinetic parameters for DMSP uptake and DMS production varied, possibly as a function of season. However, more data are needed to assess the seasonal dependence of this process. These results imply that microbial production of DMS from dissolved DMSP is likely to be a quantitatively significant mode of DMS formation in both coastal and oligotrophic marine environments. Timescales of DMS turnover with respect to this process are comparable to published estimates of DMS turnover times due to biological consumption, indicating that coupling between these two microbially-mediated processes may constitute an important control on oceanic DMS levels.

Beschreibung: Financial support for this work was provided by the NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program (NGT-50456), NASA (NAGW-606), NSF (OCE-902532), the Ocean Ventures Fund, and the WHOI Education Office

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2007

Beschreibung: This thesis covers a comprehensive analysis of long-range, deep-ocean, low-frequency, sound propagation experimental results obtained from the North Pacific Ocean. The statistics of acoustic fields after propagation through internal-wave-induced sound-speed fluctuations are explored experimentally and theoretically. The thesis starts with the investigation of the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory 98-99 data by exploring the space-time scales of ocean sound speed variability and the contributions from different frequency bands. The validity of the Garret & Munk internal-wave model is checked in the upper ocean of the eastern North Pacific. All these results impose hard bounds on the strength and characteristic scales of sound speed fluctuations one might expect in this region of the North Pacific for both internal-wave band fluctuations and mesoscale band fluctuations. The thesis then presents a detailed analysis of the low frequency, broadband sound arrivals obtained in the North Pacific Ocean. The observed acoustic variability is compared with acoustic predictions based on the weak fluctuation theory of Rytov, and direct parabolic equation Monte Carlo simulations. The comparisons show that a resonance condition exists between the local acoustic ray and the internal wave field such that only the internal-waves whose crests are parallel to the local ray path will contribute to acoustic scattering: This effect leads to an important filtering of the acoustic spectra relative to the internal-wave spectra. We believe that this is the first observational evidence for the acoustic ray and internal wave resonance. Finally, the thesis examined the evolution with distance, of the acoustic arrival pattern of the off-axis sound source transmissions in the Long-range Ocean Acoustic Propagation EXperiment. The observations of mean intensity time-fronts are compared to the deterministic ray, parabolic equation (with/without internal waves) and (one-way coupled) normal mode calculations. It is found the diffraction effect is dominant in the shorter-range transmission. In the longer range, the (internal wave) scattering effect smears the energy in both the spatial and temporal scales and thus has a dominant role in the finale region.

Beschreibung: The funding that made this research possible came from the Office of Naval Research, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution November 1980

Beschreibung: Plankton samples have been carefully collected from a variety of marine environments under the rigorous conditions necessary to prevent contamination for major and trace-chemical analysis. Immediately after collection, the samples were subjected to a series of physical and chemical leaching-decomposition experiments designed to identify the major and trace element composition of particulate carrier phases. Elements examined through some or all of these experiments were: C, N, P, Mg, Ca, Si, Fe, Mn, Ni, Cu, Cd, Al, Ba, and Zn. Emphasis was placed on the identification of trace element/major element ratios in the biogenic materials. The majority of the trace elements in the samples were directly associated with the non-skeletal organic phases of the plankton. These associations included a very labile fraction which was rapidly released into seawater and a more refractory fraction which involved specific metal-organic binding. Calcium carbonate and opal were not significant carriers for any of the trace elements studied. A refractory phase containing Al and Fe in terrigenous ratios was present in all samples, even from the more remote marine locations. The concentration of this carrier phase within the plankton samples varied in proportion to the estimated rate of supply of terrigenous matter and in opposition to the rate of production of the biogenic particulate matter. The aluminosilicates contributed insignificant amounts to the other trace elements studied. A trace concentration of particulate Al was identified which was more labile and associated with the organic fractions of the samples. Variations in the surface water concentrations of dissolved Cu, Ni, Cd, and Zn with respect to P are compared to the ratios measured in the plankton samples and their regeneration products. The trace element/major element ratios ,in the residual plankton materials can be combined with estimates of the carrier fluxes to account for the transport of trace elements required to maintain their deep enrichment. A variety of processes determining the geochemical cycles of specific trace elements were identified. As much as 50% of the Cd, Ni, Mn, and P are rapidly released from plankton and recycled within the surface ocean. During this process, the metal/P ratio in the residual particles must decrease by 10-30% for Cd and increase by a factor of 2-4 for Ni and Cu to balance their deep enrichments. Although Mn is taken up and regenerated by plankton, the magnitude of this process is small with respect to other non-biogenic Mn fluxes and has very little influence on its dissolved distribution. The Ba content of all known surface carriers is insufficient to account for the deep enrichment of Ba. A secondary concentration process results in the formation of significant particulate Ba within the upper thermocline.

Beschreibung: Portions of the data in this research have been collected under the NSF grant DES 75-03826 and ONR grant N00014-80-C-0273. I have been supported for the last three years on an NSF National Needs Graduate Traineeship to the MIT-WHOI Joint Program. Ship time was generously provided by various principal investigators of the NSF Galapagos Hydrothermal research program and the NSF-IDOE MANOP program.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Philosophy and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution November 1980

Beschreibung: Suspended particulate matter was collected by sediment traps deployed in the Sargasso Sea (Site S2), the north equatorial Atlantic (Site E), the north equatorial Pacific (Site P), and the Panama Basin (STIE Site). Additional samples of suspended particles were obtained by in situ filtration at Site F., at the STIE Site, and in the Guatemala Basin. Concentrations of dissolved Th and Pa were determined by extraction onto manganese dioxide adsorbers at Site P, at a second site in the Sargasso Sea (Site D), at the STIE Site and in the Guatemala Basin. Sediment samples were obtained from cores taken near Sites E and P. Results have shown unequivocally that suspended particulate matter in the open ocean preferentially scavenges Th relative to Pa. This behavior could not have been predicted from the known physical chemistry of Th and Pa. Dissolved 230Th/231Pa activity ratios were 3-5 at Sites P and D and 3-8 at the STIE Site. In contrast, unsupported 230Th/231Pa ratios were 22-35 (average 29.7 for 7 samples) in sediment-trap samples from greater than 2000 m at Sites S2, E and P. Ratios were lower in particulate matter sampled at shallower depths. Particles filtered at 3600 m and 5000 m at Site E had ratios of 50 and 40. In contrast to the open ocean samples described above, samples collected by six sediment traps at depths of 667-3791 m in the Panama Basin had unsupported 230Th/231Pa ratios of 4-8, and the deepest samples had the lowest ratios. Fractionation of Th and Pa that was observed at the three open ocean sites either does not occur or occurs to a very limited extent in the Panama Basin. Particulate 230Th/231Pa ratios were negatively correlated with the concentration of suspended particles. However, variable scavenging rates, as indicated by variable particle concentration, do not completely control the ratio at which Th and Pa are scavenged from solution. Major biogenic and inorganic components of trapped material were found in approximately the same proportions in the STIE samples and in samples from Sites E and S2. Lower 230Th/231Pa ratios found in the STIE samples must therefore result from subtle changes in the chemical properties of the particles. Consideration of 230Th/23lPa ratios in several depositional environments indicates that no single factor controls the ratio at which Th and Pa are adsorbed from seawater. Fluxes of 210Th and 231Pa were less than their rates of production in the overlying water column in every trap at Sites S2, E, and P. In the Panama Basin, fluxes measured with the same traps were greater than or equal to their rates of production. These results are a strong indication that even extremely reactive elements such as Th and Pa are redistributed within the oceans. Redistribution occurs because variable scavenging rates in different environments set up horizontal concentration gradients. Horizontal mixing processes produce a net horizontal transport of Th and Pa from areas of 1ow scavenging rates to areas of high scavenging rates. Protactinium is redistributed to a greater extent than Th. Fluxes of 230Th can be used to set lower limits for horizonttal transport of Pa even when absolute trapping efficiencies of the sediment traps are not known. Less than 50% of the Pa produced at the open ocean sites is removed from the water column by scavenging to settling particles. The remainder is removed by horizontal transport to other environments. At Sites E and P, 230Th/231Pa ratios were identical in the deepest sediment trap sample and in surface sediments. However, 230Th/232Th and 231Pa/232Th ratios were 2.5 times higher in trapped particles than in surface sediments. The 230Th/232Th ratios were 5.5 times higher in particles filtered at 3600 m and 5000 m at Site E than in surface sediments. This observation is best explained by dissolution of most of the 230Th and 231Pa scavenged by settling particles during remineralization of labile biogenic phases. The behaviors of certain other radioisotopes were also studied. 232Th is present only in detrital mineral components of trapped material. Concentrations of 232Th in trapped particles correlate closely with Al and K, at ratios approaching that of average shale or crustal abundances at Site E and P and basalts at the STIE Site. High specifìc activities of 228Th and 239+240Pu were found in sediment trap samples throughout the water column at Sites E and P and in the Panama Basin. The dominant source of these isotopes is near the sea surface and also near the sea floor in the case of 228Th. Thus it appears that the bulk of the trapped material is recently derived from the sea surface where it incorporates these isotopes,with little loss during rapid transit through the water column. A bioauthigenic form of particulate uranium is produced at the sea surface and remineralized in the deep ocean along with its labile carrier phase(s). This flux of uranium to the deep ocean is 0.25-1.0 dpm/cm2103 years, which is insufficient to cause a measurable concentration gradient in the uranium distribution within the mixing time of the oceans. Increased concentrations and fluxes of particulate uranium were not found in the eastern equatorial North Pacific under areas of an intense oxygen minimum. Therefore, reduction of uranium to the tetravalent state with subsequent scavenging to settling particles in oxygen minima is not a mechanism removing uranium from the oceans.

Beschreibung: Financial support for parts of this work have come from many sources, including: National Science Foundation Grants OCE-7826318, OCE-7825724, and OCE-7727004; Department of Energy Contract EY-76-S-02-3566; a Cottrell Research Grant from the Research Corporation; the WHOI Ocean Industries Program; a fellowship from the WHOI Education Office, and the Paul Fye Fellowship

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ocean Engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May 1982

Beschreibung: Seismic refraction experiments have been used extensively in the past thirty five years in investigations of the structure of the oceanic crust. The longer range of the refraction or wide angle reflection technique, on the order of tens of kilometers, permits a deeper and wider area of examination, although with less resolution, than the spatially limited seismic reflection experiment. Observations of arrivals from the Mohorovicic discontinuity, at an average depth of seven kilometers below the sea floor, are routinely made. The major focus in interpreting refraction data has been the analysis of travel time/range data and the "inversion" of this data for the purpose of determining a velocity versus depth profile of the crust. The most frequent application of this procedure is the geophysicist's use of velocities for postulating geologic structures and rock types below the sediment (Christensen & Salisbury, 1975). Another area using refraction data, less widely seen, falls into the ocean acoustician's domain. In studying the behaviour of sound in the ocean, the sea floor is often modelled as a boundary with a half space below, and with some form of reflection characteristic and/or loss mechanism. If acoustic energy, upon encountering the bottom, was either reflected or transmitted directly, this would be appropriate, and the determination of reflection and transmission coefficients for the sea-sediment interface would probably be sufficient. However, sound energy does penetrate beneath the sea floor and is both reflected and refracted back to the water. In an active acoustical experiment, especially at longer ranges, a significant amount of the received energy may come from waves that have interacted with the earth's crust and have been reinjected into the water. Since these arrivals can be detected in the ocean, their study is of concern for the acoustician. The role of bottom interaction, especially at low frequencies, is now an area of intense research activity in modelling acoustic propagation. In particular, in the language of the sonar engineer, the TL, or transmission loss, of this energy is of major importance for i) predicting the character of the sound field at a receiver in future experiments, ii) for comparing crustal loss with the better known TL of paths remaining primarily in the water layer, and iii) expanding the role of arrival amplitudes in inversion theory. Just as there may be a number of possib1e paths in the sea between a source and receiver, each with a different loss characteristic, trajectories in the crust are variegated and exhibit different TL behaviors. It is important to be able to differentiate the energy partitioned among the different paths, and to determine which paths are most important. Resolving the locus of a particular acoustic path is intimately tied to the problem of determining the velocity structure of a medium. To the limits of the geometrical optics approximation of acoustic behaviour, sometimes sorely pressed at low frequencies, a completely detailed knowledge of sound speed variations, both laterally and with depth, plus known source characteristics and attenuation losses in the medium, enables one in principle to predict signals observed at a receiver. For an ocean acoustician, the requirement of environmental knowledge of the sound speed profiles, both in water and crust, needed to predict the amplitude and timing of data, is clearly very burdensome. In the past twenty five years, however, models of the oceanic crust have been formulated which are statistically consistent over much of the oceans. These models divide the crust into three or more horizontal layers with certain average thicknesses and velocities (Raitt, 1963). At least within the confines of these models, if a typical transmission loss were known for each of these layers, an acoustician can make predictions of the expected strength and timing of crustal arrivals at other stations. Most of this environmental information has been obtained from refraction and/or wide angle reflection data, usually via travel time analysis. Little has been done in developing models accounting for amplitude dependence.

Beschreibung: This work was supported under ONR contract N-00014-75-C-0852.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2008

Beschreibung: The subtidal circulation of the southeast Greenland shelf is described using a set of highresolution hydrographic and velocity transects occupied in summer 2004. The main feature present is the East Greenland Coastal Current (EGCC), a low-salinity, highvelocity jet with a wedge-shaped hydrographic structure characteristic of other surface buoyancy-driven currents. The EGCC was observed along the entire Greenland shelf south of Denmark Strait, while the transect north of the strait showed only a weak shelf flow. This observation, combined with evidence from chemical tracer measurements that imply the EGCC contains a significant Pacific Water signal, suggests that the EGCC is an inner branch of the polar-origin East Greenland Current (EGC). A set of idealized laboratory experiments on the interaction of a buoyant current with a submarine canyon also supported this hypothesis, showing that for the observed range of oceanic parameters, a buoyant current such as the EGC could exhibit both flow across the canyon mouth or into the canyon itself, setting the stage for EGCC formation. Repeat sections occupied at Cape Farewell between 1997 and 2004 show that the alongshelf wind stress can also have a strong influence on the structure and strength of the EGCC and EGC on timescales of 2-3 days. Accounting for the wind-induced effects, the volume transport of the combined EGC/EGCC system is found to be roughly constant (~2 Sv) over the study domain, from 68°N to Cape Farewell near 60°N. The corresponding freshwater transport increases by roughly 60% over this distance (59 to 96 mSv, referenced to a salinity of 34.8). This trend is explained by constructing a simple freshwater budget of the EGCC/EGC system that accounts for meltwater runoff, melting sea-ice and icebergs, and net precipitation minus evaporation. Variability on interannual timescales is examined by calculating the Pacific Water content in the EGC/EGCC from 1984-2004 in the vicinity of Denmark Strait. The PW content is found to correlate significantly with the Arctic Oscillation index, lagged by 9 years, suggesting that the Arctic Ocean circulation patterns bring varying amounts of Pacific Water to the North Atlantic via the EGC/EGCC.

Beschreibung: Funding for the cruise and analysis was provided by National Science Foundation grant OCE-0450658, which along with NSF grant OCE- 0095427 provided funds for my tuition and stipend as well.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2008

Beschreibung: I build on the deterministic phytoplankton growth model of Sosik et al. by introducing process error, which simulates real variation in population growth and inaccuracies in the structure of the matrix model. Adding a stochastic component allows me to use maximum likelihood methods of parameter estimation. I lay out the method used to calculate parameter estimates, confidence intervals, and estimated population growth rates, then use a simplified three-stage model to test the efficacy of this method with simulated observations. I repeat similar tests with the full model based on Sosik et al., then test this model with a set of data from a laboratory culture whose population growth rate was independently determined. In general, the parameter estimates I obtain for simulated data are better the lower the levels of stochasticity. Despite large confidence intervals around some model parameter estimates, the estimated population growth rates have relatively small confidence intervals. The parameter estimates I obtained for the laboratory data fell in a region of the parameter space that in general contains parameter sets that are difficult to estimate, although the estimated population growth rate was close to the independently determined value.

Beschreibung: My research was supported by MIT, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a grant from the National Science Foundation (OCE-0530830).

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Beschreibung: In this thesis I have endeavored to determine the factors and physical processes that controlled SST and thermocline depth at 10°N, 125°W during the Pan American Climate Study (PACS) field program. Analysis based on the PACS data set, TOPEX/Poseidon sea surface height data, European Remote Sensing satellite wind data, and model simulations and experiments reveals that the dominant mechanisms affecting the thermocline depth and SST at the mooring site during the measurement period were local surface fluxes, Ekman pumping, and vertical mixing associated with enhancement of the vertical shear by strong near-inertial waves in the upper ocean superimposed upon intra-seasonal baroclinic Rossby waves and the large scale zonal flow.

Beschreibung: This work was funded under NOAA Grant NA17RJ1223 and I also gratefully acknowledge receipt of an MIT Presidential Fellowship in 2000-2001.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Beschreibung: The incidence and known distribution of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) have both increased dramatically in recent decades. A concurrent rise in bloom frequency and geographic range of PSP toxin-producing Alexandrium dinoflagellates explains the increase in PSP, but the reasons for changes in Alexandrium occurrence are unknown. This thesis explores the phylogeny, taxonomy, and biogeography of Alexandrium in light of this recent expansion. Alexandrium phylogeny was reconstructed through rDNA sequence analysis and compared to traditional morphological taxonomy. Alexandrium split into two groups, termed the α and ß clades. Interspecific relationships did not correlate with the morphological traits traditionally used to identify and group species, although other traits appeared phylogenetic ally conserved. The ability to produce toxins has been acquired and/or lost multiple times during Alexandrium evolution. Because most PSP events are caused by either the tamarensis or minutum complexes, the phylogeny, species definitions, and biogeography of each complex was examined. The morphospecies of the tamarensis complex, A. catenella, A. tamarense, and A. fundyense, did not represent valid species by the phylogenetic, biologic or morphological species concepts. Instead, five cryptic species were identified through phylogeny and mating incompatibility. A. universa and A. toxipotens contain all toxic strains, while A. mediterra, A. tamarensis and A. tasmanense contain only non-toxic isolates. Within the minutum group, A. lusitanicum and A. angustitabulatum were also not distinct species based on morphology and phylogeny while A. insuetum and A. tamutum were clearly distinct. Three new minutum group species were identified on the basis of morphology, phylogeny and prior research. Unlike the pattern found for the tamarensis complex, toxic and non-toxic A. minutum strains cannot be segregated based upon LSU sequences. The reconstructed biogeography of the tamarensis and minutum complexes indicate that both natural dispersal and human-assisted transportation of Alexandrium have caused the geographic spread. Human-assisted transport of toxic A. catenella-type cells from Asia to the Thau Lagoon, France, was demonstrated in chapter iv. This thesis demonstrates the importance of human action in the recent PSP increase, better defines species boundaries and provides an invaluable genetic database for tracking future Alexandrium spread and distinguishing between harmful and non-toxic Alexandrium blooms.

Beschreibung: Financial support was provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, a NSF doctoral fellowship, NOAA Grants No. NA960P0099, NA160P1438, NSF Grants No. OCE-9808173, OCE-9415536 and supported by the U.S. ECOHAB Program sponsored by NOAA, the U.S. EP A, NSF, NASA and ONR.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Beschreibung: The cosmogenic radionuclide 10Be is a unique tracer of shallow sediment subduction in volcanic arcs. The range in 10Be enrichment in the Central American Volcanic Arc between Guatemala and Costa Rica is not controlled by variations in 10Be concentrations in subducting sediment seaward of the Middle America Trench. Sedimentary 10Be is correlated negatively with 143Nd/144Nd, illustrating that 10Be concentrations varied both between and within cores due to mixing between terrigenous clay and volcanic ash endmember components. This mixing behavior was determined to be a function of grain size controls on 10Be concentrations. A negative correlation of bulk sedimentary 10Be concentrations with median grain size and a positive correlation with the proportion of the sediment grains that were 〈32 μm in diameter demonstrated that high concentrations of 10Be in fine-grained, terrigenous sediments were diluted by larger grained volcanogenic material. The sharp decrease in 10Be enrichment in the Central American Volcanic Arc between southeastern Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica correlates with changes in fault structure in the subducting Cocos plate. Offshore of Nicaragua, extensional faults associated with plate bending have throw equal to or greater than the overlying subducting sediment thickness. These faults enable efficient subduction of the entire sediment package by preventing relocation of the décollement within the downgoing sediments. Offshore of Costa Rica, the reduction of fault relief results in basement faults that do not penetrate the overlying sediment. A conceptual model is proposed in which the absence of significant basement roughness allows the décollement to descend into the subducting sediment column, leading to subsequent underplating and therefore removal of the bulk of the sediment layer that contains 10Be. Basement fault relief was linearly related to plate curvature and trench depth. The systematic shoaling of the plate from southeastern Nicaragua to northwestern Costa Rica is not explained by changes in plate age for this region. Instead, it is hypothesized that the flexural shape of the plate offshore of southeastern Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica represents a lateral response to a buoyant load caused by the thick crust and elevated thermal regime in the Cocos plate offshore of southeastern Costa Rica.

Beschreibung: Funding for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund, the WHOI Deep Ocean Institute Graduate Fellowship, and Geological Society of America Graduate Research Grant #7179-02.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Beschreibung: Groundwater discharge into estuaries and the coastal ocean is an important mechanism for the transport of dissolved chemical species to coastal waters. Because many dissolved species are present in groundwater in concentrations that are orders of magnitude higher than typical river concentrations, groundwater-borne nutrients and pollutants can have a substantial impact on the chemistry and biology of estuaries and the coastal ocean. However, direct fluxes of groundwater into the coastal ocean (submarine groundwater discharge, or SGD) can be difficult to quantify. Geochemical tracers of groundwater discharge can reflect the cumulative SGD flux from numerous small, widely dispersed, and perhaps ephemeral sources such as springs, seeps, and diffuse discharge. The natural radiocarbon content (Δ14C) of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) was developed as a tracer of fresh, terrestrially driven fluxes from confined aquifers. This Δ14C method was tested during five sampling periods from November 1999 to April 2002 in two small estuaries in southeastern North Carolina. In coastal North Carolina, fresh water artesian discharge is characterized by a low Δ14C signature acquired from the carbonate aquifer rock. Mixing models were used to evaluate the inputs from potential sources of DIC-Δ14C to each estuary, including seawater, springs, fresh water stream inputs, and salt marsh respiration DIC additions. These calculations showed that artesian discharge dominated the total fresh water input to these estuaries during nearly all sampling periods. These new Δ14C-based SGD estimates were compared with groundwater flux estimates derived from radium isotopes and from radon-222. It is clear that these tracers reflect different components of the total SGD. The fluxes of low-Δ14C and of 222Rn were dominated by artesian discharge. Estuarine 226Ra showed strong artesian influence, but also reflected the salt water SGD processes that controlled the other three radium isotopes. The flux of 228Ra seemed to reflect seepage from the terrestrial surficial aquifer as well as salt water recirculation through estuarine sediments. The fluxes of 224Ra and 223Ra were dominated by salt water recirculation through salt marsh sediments. This multi-tracer approach provides a comprehensive assessment of the various components contributing to the total SGD.

Beschreibung: This work was funded by grants from the Rinehart Coastal Research Center/Coastal Ocean Institute at WHOI (RCRC/COI Awards 25035057, 27040014 and 27040048), WHOI SeaGrant Project R/-47, the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometer at WHOI, and the WHOI Academic Programs Office and its Ocean Ventures Fund.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2003

Beschreibung: This thesis examines the evolution of a mud-dominated coastal sedimentary system on multiple time scales. Fine-grained systems exhibit different properties and behavior from sandy coasts, and have received relatively little research attention to date. Evidence is presented for shoreline accretion under energetic conditions associated with storms and winter cold fronts. The identification of energetic events as agents of coastal accretion stands in contrast to the traditional assumption that low-energy conditions are required for deposition of fine-grained sediment. Mudflat accretion is proposed to depend upon the presence of an unconsolidated mud sea floor immediately offshore, proximity to a fluvial sediment source, onshore winds, which generate waves that resuspend sediment and advect it shoreward, and a low tidal range. This study constrains the present influence of the Atchafalaya River on stratigraphic evolution of the inner continental shelf in western Louisiana. Sedimentary and acoustic data are used to identify the western limit of the distal Atchafalaya prodelta and to estimate the proportion of Atchafalaya River sediment that accumulates on the inner shelf seaward of Louisiana's chenier plain coast. The results demonstrate a link between sedimentary facies distribution on the inner shelf and patterns of accretion and shoreline retreat on the chenier plain coast.

Beschreibung: Among my funding sources was a two-year fellowship from the Clare Booth Luce Foundation. I have received research grants from the Geological Society of America Foundation (Grant 6873-01) and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (Kenneth H. Crandall Memorial grant).

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2003

Beschreibung: The presence of aqueous organic compounds derived from sedimentary organic matter has the potential to influence a range of chemical processes in hydrothermal vent environments. For example, hydrothermal alteration experiments indicate that alteration of organic-rich sediments leads to up to an order of magnitude more metals in solution than alteration of organic-poor basalt. This result is in contrast to traditional models for the evolution of vent fluids at sediment-covered mid-ocean ridge axis environments, and indicates the fundamental importance of including the effects of organic compounds in models of crustal alteration processes. However, in order to rigorously constrain their role in crustal alteration processes, quantitative information on the abundances and distributions of organic compounds in hydrothermal vent fluids is required. This thesis was undertaken to provide quantitative information on the distributions and stable carbon isotopic compositions of several low-molecular weight organic compounds (C1-C4 alkanes, C2-C3 alkenes, benzene and toluene) in fluids collected in July, 2000, at three sites on the northern Juan de Fuca Ridge: the Dead Dog and ODP Mound fields, which are located at Middle Valley, and the Main Endeavour Field, located on the Endeavour segment. At Middle Valley, the ridge axis is covered by up to 1.5 km of hemipelagic sediment containing up to 0.5 wt.% organic carbon. The Main Endeavour Field (MEF) is located approximately 70 km south of Middle Valley in a sediment-free ridge-crest environment, but previously measured high concentrations of NH3 and isotopically light CH4 relative to other bare-rock sites suggest that the chemical composition of these fluids is affected by sub-seafloor alteration of sedimentary material (LILLEY et al., 1993). Differences in the absolute and relative concentrations of NH3 and organic compounds and the stable carbon isotopic compositions of the C1-C3 organic compounds suggest that the three fields represent a continuum in terms of the extent of secondary alteration of the aqueous organic compounds, with the Dead Dog fluids the least altered, the MEF fluids the most altered and ODP Mound fluids in an intermediate state. At the two Middle Valley sites, the greater extent of alteration in the ODP Mound fluids as compared to the Dead Dog fluids is due either to higher temperatures in the subsurface reaction zone, or a greater residence time of the fluids at high temperatures. Higher reaction zone temperatures at the ODP Mound field than at the Dead Dog field are consistent with differences in endmember C1 concentrations between the two fields. The greater extent of alteration in the MEF fluids is caused by relatively oxidizing conditions in the subsurface reaction zone that promote faster reaction kinetics. Temperatures in the subsurface reaction zones calculated by assuming equilibrium among aqueous alkanes, alkenes and hydrogen are consistent with other inorganic indicators (C1 and Si concentrations) of temperature, indicating that metastable equilibrium among these compounds may be attained in natural systems. Isotopic equilibration among CH4 and CO2 appears to have been attained in ODP Mound fluids due to the high temperatures in the subsurface reaction zone and the approach to chemical equilibrium from excess methane. However, isotopic equilibrium between CH4 and CO2 was not attained in the MEF fluids, due to a short residence time of the fluids in the crust following late-stage addition of magmatic-derived CO2 to the fluids. Time series analysis indicate that Middle Valley fluid compositions are generally characterized by stable concentrations over the last decade. However, decreases in Br concentrations in Dead Dog fluids from 1990 to 2000 suggest that either a greater proportion of the fluids interact with basalt rather than sediments or that the sediment with which hydrothermal fluids interact is becoming exhausted. In contrast, the concentrations of H2 and H2S and the δ34S of H2S are quite different in fluids sampled from vents of differing ages at the ODP Mound field, despite their close spatial proximity. The observed variations are caused by the reaction of hydrogen-rich fluids within the ODP Mound massive sulfide to reduce pyrite to pyrrhotite during upflow. The replacement of pyrite by pyrrhotite is opposite to the reaction predicted during the weathering of sulfide minerals weather on the seafloor and reflects the real-time equilibration of the reduced fluids with mound mineralogy due to the very young age (〈2 years) venting from Spire vent. The presence of aqueous organic compounds therefore affects not only the inorganic chemical speciation in vent fluids, but can also control the mineralogy of associated sulfide deposits. These results also indicate that vent fluid compositions do not necessarily reflect conditions in the deep subsurface, but can be altered by reactions occurring in the shallow subsurface.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by grants to Jeffrey Seewald from the Petroleum Research Fund (323lO-AC2), administered by the American Chemical Society, the National Science Foundation (OCE-9618179, OCE-9906752, OCE-0136954) and the WHOI Green Technology Fund.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2003

Beschreibung: Inertial terms dominate the single-gyre ocean model and prevent western-intensification when the viscosity is small. This occurs long before the oceanically-appropriate parameter range. It is demonstrated here that the circulation is controlled if a mechanism for ultimate removal of vorticity exists, even if it is active only in a narrow region near the boundary. Vorticity removal is modeled here as a viscosity enhanced very near the solid boundaries to roughly parameterize missing boundary physics like topographic interaction and three dimensional turbulence over the shelf. This boundary-enhanced viscosity allows western-intensified mean flows even when the inertial boundary width, is much wider than the frictional region because eddies flux vorticity from within the interior streamlines to the frictional region for removal. Using boundary-enhanced viscosity, western-intensified calculations are possible with lower interior viscosity than in previous studies. Interesting behaviors result: a boundary-layer balance novel to the model, calculations with promise for eddy parameterization, eddy-driven gyres rotating opposite the wind, and temporal complexity including basin resonances. I also demonstrate that multiple-gyre calculations have weaker mean circulation than single-gyres with the same viscosity and subtropical forcing. Despite traditional understanding, almost no inter-gyre flux occurs if no-slip boundary conditions are used. The inter-gyre eddy flux is in control only with exactly symmetric gyres and free slip boundaries. Even without the inter-gyre flux, the multiple-gyre circulation is weak because of sinuous instabilities on the jet which are not present in the single-gyre model. These modes efficiently flux vorticity to the boundary and reduce the circulation without an inter-gyre flux, postponing inertial domination to much smaller viscosities. Then sinuous modes in combination with boundary-enhanced viscosity can control the circulation.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2003

Beschreibung: A novel distributed underwater acoustic networking (UAN) protocol suitable for ad-hoc deployments of both stationary and mobile nodes dispersed across a relatively wide coverage area is presented. Nodes are dynamically clustered in a distributed manner based on the estimated position of one-hop neighbor nodes within a shallow water environment. The spatial dynamic cellular clustering scheme allows scalable communication resource allocation and channel reuse similar in design to land-based cellular architectures, except devoid of the need for a centralized controlling infrastructure. Simulation results demonstrate that relatively high degrees of interference immunity, network connectivity, and network stability can be achieved despite the severe limitations of the underwater acoustic channel.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2008

Beschreibung: This thesis studies the dynamics of a rotating compressible gas sphere, driven by internal convection, as a model for the dynamics on the giant planets. We develop a new general circulation model for the Jovian atmosphere, based on the MITgcm dynamical core augmenting the nonhydrostatic model. The grid extends deep into the planet's interior allowing the model to compute the dynamics of a whole sphere of gas rather than a spherical shell (including the strong variations in gravity and the equation of state). Different from most previous 3D convection models, this model is anelastic rather than Boussinesq and thereby incorporates the full density variation of the planet. We show that the density gradients caused by convection drive the system away from an isentropic and therefore barotropic state as previously assumed, leading to significant baroclinic shear. This shear is concentrated mainly in the upper levels and associated with baroclinic compressibility effects. The interior flow organizes in large cyclonically rotating columnar eddies parallel to the rotation axis, which drive upgradient angular momentum eddy fluxes, generating the observed equatorial superrotation. Heat fluxes align with the axis of rotation, contributing to the observed flat meridional emission. We show the transition from weak convection cases with symmetric spiraling columnar modes similar to those found in previous analytic linear theory, to more turbulent cases which exhibit similar, though less regular and solely cyclonic, convection columns which manifest on the surface in the form of waves embedded within the superrotation. We develop a mechanical understanding of this system and scaling laws by studying simpler configurations and the dependence on physical properties such as the rotation period, bottom boundary location and forcing structure. These columnar cyclonic structures propagate eastward, driven by dynamics similar to that of a Rossby wave except that the restoring planetary vorticity gradient is in the opposite direction, due to the spherical geometry in the interior. We further study these interior dynamics using a simplified barotropic annulus model, which shows that the planetary vorticity radial variation causes the eddy angular momentum flux divergence, which drives the superrotating equatorial flow. In addition we study the interaction of the interior dynamics with a stable exterior weather layer, using a quasigeostrophic two layer channel model on a beta plane, where the columnar interior is therefore represented by a negative beta effect. We find that baroclinic instability of even a weak shear can drive strong, stable multiple zonal jets. For this model we find an analytic nonlinear solution, truncated to one growing mode, that exhibits a multiple jet meridional structure, driven by the nonlinear interaction between the eddies. Finally, given the density field from our 3D convection model we derive the high order gravitational spectra of Jupiter, which is a measurable quantity for the upcoming JUNO mission to Jupiter.

Beschreibung: Funding was provided by the MIT Presidential Fellowship, the Charney Fellowship, WHOI Academics Programs, NSF grants OPP-9910052, OCE-0137023, AST-0708106 and NASA grant NN-6066GC286.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2008

Beschreibung: The work was motivated by studies of Austin and Lentz (2002) and Pedlosky (2007). The above mentioned works considered two different responses of the stratified flow to a downwelling favorable wind forcing. The first study investigated a time dependent flow with a formation of a constantly expanding relatively well mixed region near the shore and the second considered a steady flow that arises when an offshore varying wind is applied. In my thesis I use ROMS to determine which type of response will take place based on the wind amplitude near the coast. It was demonstrated that if the value of the wind is much smaller than the critical value (determined by the stratification, the rotation rate and the horizontal diffusivity) then the flow is steady (the bbl case) and similar to the one investigated by Pedlosky. If the wind is of the order, or larger than, the critical value then the response is time dependent (the pool case) and similar to the one described by Austin and Lentz. The resulting flow structure of each response was also investigated. I examined the sensitivity of the bbl response to variations in the background vertical diffusivity, the initial stratification and the bottom slope. It was shown that a higher background vertical diffusivity, a higher stratification and a shallower bottom slope correspond to thinner (vertically) and narrower (horizontally) bbl. For the pool case the time dependent structure was also examined, using a number of idealized models. It was shown that the rate of the pool region expansion is a complex function of the local wind stress amplitude and the local depth.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2008

Beschreibung: Coupled ocean/atmosphere simulations exhibit systematicwarm biases over the SouthWest African (SWA) coastal region. Recent investigations indicate that coastal ocean dynamics may play an important role in determining the SST patterns, but none of them provide a detailed analysis. In this study, I analyze simulations produced both by coupled models and by idealized models. Then results are interpreted on the basis of a theoretical framework. Finally the conclusion is reached that the insufficient resolution of the ocean component in the coupled model is responsible for the warm biases over the SWA coastal region. The coarse resolution used in the ocean model has an artificially stretched coastal side-wall boundary layer, which induces a smaller upwelling velocity in the boundary layer. The vertical heat transport decreases even when the volume transport is unchanged because of its nonlinear relationship with the magnitude of the upwelling velocity. Based on the scaling of the idealized model simulations, a simplified calculation shows that the vertical heat transport is inversely proportional to the zonal resolution over the coastal region. Therefore, increasing the horizontal resolution can considerably improve the coastal SST simulation, and better resolve the coastal dynamics.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2008

Beschreibung: This thesis formulates an estimation framework for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) that addresses the problem of scalability in large environments. We describe an estimation-theoretic algorithm that achieves significant gains in computational efficiency while maintaining consistent estimates for the vehicle pose and the map of the environment. We specifically address the feature-based SLAM problem in which the robot represents the environment as a collection of landmarks. The thesis takes a Bayesian approach whereby we maintain a joint posterior over the vehicle pose and feature states, conditioned upon measurement data. We model the distribution as Gaussian and parametrize the posterior in the canonical form, in terms of the information (inverse covariance) matrix. When sparse, this representation is amenable to computationally efficient Bayesian SLAM filtering. However, while a large majority of the elements within the normalized information matrix are very small in magnitude, it is fully populated nonetheless. Recent feature-based SLAM filters achieve the scalability benefits of a sparse parametrization by explicitly pruning these weak links in an effort to enforce sparsity. We analyze one such algorithm, the Sparse Extended Information Filter (SEIF), which has laid much of the groundwork concerning the computational benefits of the sparse canonical form. The thesis performs a detailed analysis of the process by which the SEIF approximates the sparsity of the information matrix and reveals key insights into the consequences of different sparsification strategies. We demonstrate that the SEIF yields a sparse approximation to the posterior that is inconsistent, suffering from exaggerated confidence estimates. This overconfidence has detrimental effects on important aspects of the SLAM process and affects the higher level goal of producing accurate maps for subsequent localization and path planning. This thesis proposes an alternative scalable filter that maintains sparsity while preserving the consistency of the distribution. We leverage insights into the natural structure of the feature-based canonical parametrization and derive a method that actively maintains an exactly sparse posterior. Our algorithm exploits the structure of the parametrization to achieve gains in efficiency, with a computational cost that scales linearly with the size of the map. Unlike similar techniques that sacrifice consistency for improved scalability, our algorithm performs inference over a posterior that is conservative relative to the nominal Gaussian distribution. Consequently, we preserve the consistency of the pose and map estimates and avoid the effects of an overconfident posterior. We demonstrate our filter alongside the SEIF and the standard EKF both in simulation as well as on two real-world datasets. While we maintain the computational advantages of an exactly sparse representation, the results show convincingly that our method yields conservative estimates for the robot pose and map that are nearly identical to those of the original Gaussian distribution as produced by the EKF, but at much less computational expense. The thesis concludes with an extension of our SLAM filter to a complex underwater environment. We describe a systems-level framework for localization and mapping relative to a ship hull with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) equipped with a forward-looking sonar. The approach utilizes our filter to fuse measurements of vehicle attitude and motion from onboard sensors with data from sonar images of the hull. We employ the system to perform three-dimensional, 6-DOF SLAM on a ship hull.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2002

Beschreibung: This thesis investigates the complexities of acoustic scattering by finite bodies in general and by fish in particular through the development of an advanced acoustic scattering model and detailed laboratory acoustic measurements. A general acoustic scattering model is developed that is accurate and numerically effcient for a wide range of frequencies, angles of orientation, irregular axisymmetric shapes and boundary conditions. The model presented is an extension of a two-dimensional conformal mapping approach to scattering by irregular, finite-length bodies of revolution. An extensive series of broadband acoustic backscattering measurements has been conducted involving alewife fish (Alosa pseudoharengus), which are morphologically similar to the Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus). A greater-than-octave bandwidth (40-95 kHz), shaped, linearly swept, frequency modulated signal was used to insonify live, adult alewife that were tethered while being rotated in 1-degree increments over all angles of orientation in two planes of rotation (lateral and dorsal/ventral). Spectral analysis correlates frequency dependencies to morphology and orientation. Pulse compression processing temporally resolves multiple returns from each individual which show good correlation with size and orientation, and demonstrate that there exists more than one significant scattering feature in the animaL. Imaging technologies used to exactly measure the morphology of the scattering features of fish include very highresolution Phase Contrast X-rays (PCX) and Computerized Tomography (CT) scans, which are used for morphological evaluation and incorporation into the scattering modeL. Studies such as this one, which combine scattering models with high-resolution morphological information and high-quality laboratory data, are crucial to the quantitative use of acoustics in the ocean.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 1982

Beschreibung: In this thesis, seismic waves generated by sources ranging from 2.7 kg shots of TNT to magnitude 5 earthquakes are studied in order to determine the seismic activity and crustal structure of the Orozco transform fault. Most of the data were collected by a network of 29 ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) and hydrophones (OBH) which were deployed as part of project ROSE (Rivera Ocean Seismic Experiment). Additional information is provided by magnetic anomaly and bathymetric data collected during and prior to ROSE and by teleseismic earthquakes recorded by the WWSSN (Worldwide Seismic Station Network). In Chapter II, the tectonic setting, bathymetry and teleseismic history of the Orozco Fracture Zone are summarized. Covering an area of 90 x 90 km which includes ridges and troughs trending both parallel and perpendicular to the present spreading direction (approximately east-west), the bathymetry of the transform portion of the fracture zone does not resemble that of other transform faults which have been studied in detail. A detailed study of one of the largest teleseismic earthquakes (mb=5.1) indicates right lateral strike-slip faulting with a strike parallel to the present spreading direction and a focal depth of less than 5 km. The moment sum from teleseismic earthquakes suggests an average fault width of at most a few kilometers. Because the teleseismic earthquake locations are too imprecise to define the present plate boundary and the magnetic anomaly data are too sparse to resolve the recent tectonic history, more questions are raised than are answered by the results in this chapter. These questions provide the focus for the study of the ROSE data. Chapter III contains an examination of the transfer function between seafloor motion and data recorded by the MIT OBS. The response of the recording system is determined and the coupling of the OBS to the seafloor during tests at two nearshore sites is analysed. Applying these results to the ROSE data, we conclude that the ground motion in the absence of the instrument can be adequately determined for at least one of the MIT OBS deployed during ROSE. Hypocentral parameters for 70 earthquakes, calculated for an assumed laterally homogeneous velocity structure which was adapted from the results of several refraction surveys in the area, are presented in Chapter IV. Because of the large number of stations in the ROSE network, the epicentral locations, focal depths and source mechanisms are determined with a precision unprecedented in marine microseismic work. Relative to the assumed model, most horizontal errors are less than ±1 km; vertical errors are somewhat larger. All epicenters are within the transform region of the Orozco Fracture Zone. About half of the epicenters define a narrow line of activity parallel to the spreading direction and situated along a deep topographic trough which forms the northern boundary of the transform zone (region 1). Most well determined depths are very shallow (〈4km) and no shallowing of activity is observed as the rise-transform intersection is approached. In fact, the deepest depths (4-10km) are for earthquakes within 10 km of the intersection; these apparent depth differences are supported by the waveforms recorded a t the MIT OBS. First motion polarities for all but two of the earthquakes in region 1 are compatible with right lateral strike-slip faulting along a nearly vertical plane striking parallel to the spreading direct ion. Another zone of activity is observed in the central part of the transform (region 2). The apparent horizontal and vertical distribution of activity is more scattered than for the first group and the first motion radiation patterns of these events do not appear to be compatible with any known fault mechanism. No difference can be resolved between the stress drops or b values in the two regions. In Chapter V, lateral variations in the crustal structure within the transform region are determined and the effect of these structures on the results of the previous chapter is evaluated. Several data sources provide information on different aspects of the crustal structure. Incident angles and azimuths of body waves from shots and earthquakes measured at one of the MIT OSS show systematic deflections from the angles expected for a laterally homogeneous structure. The effect of various factors on the observed angles and azimuths is discussed and it is concluded that at least some of the deflection reflects regional lateral velocity heterogeneity. Structures which can explain the observations are found by tracing rays through three dimensional velocity grids. High velocities are inferred at upper mantle depths beneath a shallow, north-south trending ridge to the west of the OBS, suggesting that the crust under the ridge is no thicker, and perhaps thinner, than the surrounding crust. Observations from sources in region 2 suggest the presence of a low velocity zone in the central transform between the sources and the receiver. That the presence of such a body provides answers to several of the questions raised in Chapter IV about the hypocenters and mechanisms of earthquakes in region 2 is circumstantial evidence supporting this model. These proposed structures do not significantly affect the hypocenters and fault plane solutions for sources in region 1. The crustal velocity structure beneath the north-south trending ridges in the central transform and outside of the transform zone is determined by travel time and amplitude modeling of the data from several lines of small shots recorded at WHOI OBH. Outside of the transform zone, a velocity-depth structure typical of oceanic crust throughout the world oceans is found from three unreversed profiles: a 1 to 2 km thick layer in which the velocity increases from about 3 to 6.7 km/sec overlies a 4 to 4.5 km thick layer with a nearly constant velocity of 6.8 km/sec. A reversed profile over one of the north-south trending ridges, on the other hand, indicates an anomalous velocity structure with a gradient of 0.5 sec-1 throughout most of the crust ( from 5.25 km/sec to 7.15 km/sec over 3.5 km). A decrease in the gradient at the base of the crust to about 0.1 sec-1 and a thin, higher gradient layer in the upper few hundred meters are also required to fit the travel time and amplitude data. A total crustal thickness of about 5.4 km is obtained. An upper mantle velocity of 8.0 to 8.13 km/sec throughout much of the transform zone is determined from travel times of large shots of TNT recorded at MIT and WHOI instruments. "Relocations" of the large shots relative to the velocity model assumed in Chapter IV support the conclusion from the ray tracing that results from region 2 may be systematically biased because of lateral velocity heterogeneity whereas results from region 1 are not affected. In the last chapter, the results on crustal structure and seismicity are combined in order to define the present plate boundary and to speculate on the history of the present configuration.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research, under contracts N00014-75-C-0291 and N00014-80-C-0273

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 2002

Beschreibung: We have investigated the near liquidus phase relations of a primitive absarokite from the Mascota region in Western Mexico. Sample M.102 was chosen because it has high MgO contents, a high Mg# and F090 olivine phenocrysts, indicating it is primitive mantle melt. High-pressure experiments on a synthetic analogue of the absarokite composition with a H2O content of either -1 7 wt% or -5.1 wt% were cared out in a piston cylinder apparatus. The composition with -1.7 wt% H2O is multiply saturated with olivine and orthopyroxene as liquidus phases at 1.6 GPa and 1400°C. At the same pressure clinopyroxene appears 30°C below the liquidus. With a H2O content of -5.1 wt% composition M.102 is multiply saturated with olivine and orthopyroxene on the liquidus at 1.7 GPa and 1300°C. Assuming batch melting, we suggest that absarokite M.102 segregated from a depleted lherzolite or harburgite residue at depth -50 km depth in the mantle wedge. Unlike most lavas in the region, the absarokite has not ponded and fractionated at the crust mantle interface (-35-40 km), and the temperatures of multiple saturation indicate that the mantle wedge beneath the Jalisco block is hotter than previously thought. The low degree batch melting of an original metasomatised harzburgite source, can produce the observed trace element abundances. The liquidus phase relations are not consistent with the presence of non-peridotitic veins at the depth of last equilibration. Therefore, we propose that the Mascota absarokites segregated at an apparent melt fraction of less than 5% from a depleted peridotitic source. They initially formed by a small degree of melting of a metasomatised original source at greater depth.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2002

Beschreibung: This thesis investigates the evolution of lithospheric deformation and crustal structure from continental margins to mid-ocean ridges. The first part (Ch. 2) examines the style of segmentation along the U.S. East Coast Margin and investigates the relationship between incipient margin structure and segmentation at the modem Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The second part (Chs. 3-5) focuses on the mechanics of faulting in extending lithosphere. In Ch. 3, I show that the incorporation of a strain-rate softening rheology in continuum models results in localized zones of high strain rate that are not imposed a priori and develop in response to the rheology and boundar conditions. I then use this approach to quantify the effects of thermal state, crustal thickness, and crustal rheology on the predicted style of extension deformation. The mechanics of fault initiation and propagation along mid-ocean ridge segments is investigated in Ch. 4. Two modes of fault development are identified: Mode C faults that initiate near the center of a segment and Mode E faults that initiate at the segment ends. Numerical results from Ch. 5 predict that over time scales longer than a typical earhquake cycle transform faults behave as zones of significant weakness. Furthermore, these models indicate that Mode E faults formed at the inside-comer of a ridge-transform intersection wil experience preferential growth relative to faults formed at the conjugate outside-comer due to their proximity to the weak transform zone. Finally, the last par of this thesis (Ch. 6) presents a new method to quantify the relationship between the seismic velocity and composition of igneous rocks. A direct relationship is derived to relate V p to major element composition and typical velocity-depth profiles are used to calculate compositional bounds for the lower continental, margin, and oceanic crust.

Beschreibung: Funding was provided by NASA through grants NAG5-3264, NAG5-4806, NAG5-11113, and NAG5-9143, and by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution April 1983

Beschreibung: Ocean acoustic tomography was proposed in 1978 by Munk and Wunsch as a possible technique for monitoring the evolution of temperature, density, and current fields over large regions. In 1981, the Ocean Tomography Group deployed four 224 Hz acoustic sources and five receivers in an array which fit within a box 300 km. on a side centered on 26°N, 70°W (southwest of Bermuda). The experiment was intended both to demonstrate the practicality of tomography as an observation tool and to extend the understanding of mesoscale evolution in the low-energy region far from the strong Gulf Stream recirculation. The propagation of 224 Hz sound energy in the ocean can be described as a set of rays traveling from source to receiver, with each ray taking a different path through the ocean in a vertical plane connecting the source and receiver. The sources transmitted a phase-coded signal which was processed at the receiver to produce a pulse at the time of arrival of the signal. Rays can be distinguished by their different pulse travel times, and these travel times change in response to variations in sound speed and current in the ocean through which the rays passed. In order to reconstruct the ocean variations from the observed travel time changes, it is necessary to specify models for both the variations and their effect on the travel times. The dependence of travel time on the oceanic sound speed and current fields can be calculated using ray paths traced by computer. The vertical structure of the sound speed and current fields in the ocean were modelled as a combination of Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) from MODE. The horizontal structure was continuous, but was constrained to have a gaussian covariance with a 100 km. e- folding scale. The resulting estimator closely resembles objective mapping as used in meteorology and physical oceanography. The tomographic system has at present only been used to estimate sound speed structure for comparison with the traditional measurements, especially the first two NOAA CTD surveys, but the method provides means for estimating density, temperature or velocity fields, and these will be produced in the future. The sound speed estimates made using the tomographic system match the traditional measurements to within the associated error bars, and there are several possibilities for improving the signal to noise ratio of the data. Given high-precision data, tomographic systems can resolve ocean structures at small scales, such as in the Gulf Stream, or at large scales, over entire ocean basins. Work is in progress to evaluate the usefulness of tomography as an observation tool in these applications.

Beschreibung: My support for the first 3 years came from an NSF graduate fellowship, and I was then supported as a research assistant by NSF Grant OCE-8017791.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2002

Beschreibung: Predictions of chlorophyll concentration from satellite ocean color are an indicator of phytoplankton primary productivity, with implications for foodweb structure, fisheries, and the global carbon cycle. Current models describing the relationship between optical properties and chlorophyll do not account for much of the optical variability observed in natural waters, because of the presence of seawater constituents that do not covary with phytoplankton pigment concentration. In an attempt to better understand variability in these models, the contributions of seawater constituents to ocean optical properties were investigated. A combination of Mie theory and flow cytometry was used to determine the diameter, complex refractive index (n+n'i), and optical cross-sections of individual particles, based on a method developed in the laboratory using phytoplankton cultures. Individual particle measurements were used to interpret variability in concurrently measured bulk optical properties in New England continental shelf waters in two seasons. The summed contribution to scattering of individual particles in the size range of 0.1-50 μm accounted for approximately the entire scattering coefficient measured independently using bulk methods. In surface waters in both seasons, the large diameters and n' of eukaryotic phytoplankton caused them to be the main particle contributors to both absorption and scattering. Minerals were the main contributor to backscattering, bb, in the spring, whereas in the summer both minerals and detritus contributed to bb. Synechococcus and heterotrophic bacteria were less important optically, contributing ≤11% each to attenuation in either season. The role of seawater constituents in determining remote sensing reflectance, Rrs, was determined using radiative transfer theory. Seasonal differences in the spectral shape of Rrs were contributed to approximately equally by eukaryotic phytoplankton absorption, dissolved absorption, and non-phytoplankton bb. A higher inverse wavelength dependence of non-phytoplankton bb in the summer was caused by the contribution of small detritus, in contrast to larger minerals in the spring. Measurements of bb and Rrs were compared to values from bio-optical models based on chlorophyll concentration. Differences in measured and modeled bb and Rrs were caused by higher dissolved absorption and higher backscattering efficiencies and scattering by non-phytoplankton than were assumed by the model.

Beschreibung: This work has been supported in par by: a NASA Earth System Science Fellowship to R. Green, ONR grants NOOOI4-95-1-0333 and NOOOI4-96-1-0965 to H. Sosik and R. Olson, and the Education Office.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2009

Beschreibung: Self-localization of an underwater vehicle is particularly challenging due to the absence of Global Positioning System (GPS) reception or features at known positions that could otherwise have been used for position computation. Thus Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) applications typically require the pre-deployment of a set of beacons. This thesis examines the scenario in which the members of a group of AUVs exchange navigation information with one another so as to improve their individual position estimates. We describe how the underwater environment poses unique challenges to vehicle navigation not encountered in other environments in which robots operate and how cooperation can improve the performance of self-localization. As intra-vehicle communication is crucial to cooperation, we also address the constraints of the communication channel and the effect that these constraints have on the design of cooperation strategies. The classical approaches to underwater self-localization of a single vehicle, as well as more recently developed techniques are presented. We then examine how methods used for cooperating land-vehicles can be transferred to the underwater domain. An algorithm for distributed self-localization, which is designed to take the specific characteristics of the environment into account, is proposed. We also address how correlated position estimates of cooperating vehicles can lead to overconfidence in individual position estimates. Finally, key to any successful cooperative navigation strategy is the incorporation of the relative positioning between vehicles. The performance of localization algorithms with different geometries is analyzed and a distributed algorithm for the dynamic positioning of vehicles, which serve as dedicated navigation beacons for a fleet of AUVs, is proposed.

Beschreibung: This work was funded by Office of Naval Research grants N00014-97-1-0202, N00014-05-1-0255, N00014-02-C-0210, N00014-07-1-1102 and the ASAP MURI program led by Naomi Leonard of Princeton University.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2009

Beschreibung: This research presents a parallel hypothesis method for autonomous underwater vehicle navigation that enables a vehicle to expand the operating envelope of existing long baseline acoustic navigation systems by incorporating information that is not normally used. The parallel hypothesis method allows the in-situ identification of acoustic multipath time-of-flight measurements between a vehicle and an external transponder and uses them in real-time to augment the navigation algorithm during periods when direct-path time-of-flight measurements are not available. A proof of concept was conducted using real-world data obtained by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Deep Submergence Lab's Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) and Sentry autonomous underwater vehicles during operations on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. This algorithm uses a nested architecture to break the navigation solution down into basic building blocks for each type of available external information. The algorithm classifies external information as either line of position or gridded observations. For any line of position observation, the algorithm generates a multi-modal block of parallel position estimate hypotheses. The multimodal hypotheses are input into an arbiter which produces a single unimodal output. If a priori maps of gridded information are available, they are used within the arbiter structure to aid in the elimination of false hypotheses. For the proof of concept, this research uses ranges from a single external acoustic transponder in the hypothesis generation process and grids of low-resolution bathymetric data from a ship-based multibeam sonar in the arbitration process. The major contributions of this research include the in-situ identification of acoustic multipath time-of-flight measurements, the multiscale utilization of a priori low-resolution bathymetric data in a high-resolution navigation algorithm, and the design of a navigation algorithm with a exible architecture. This flexible architecture allows the incorporation of multimodal beliefs without requiring a complex mechanism for real-time hypothesis generation and culling, and it allows the real-time incorporation of multiple types of external information as they become available in situ into the overall navigation solution.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2009

Beschreibung: The lateral line system on fish has been found to aid in schooling behavior, courtship communication, active and passive hydrodynamic imaging, and prey detection. The most widely used artificial prey stimulus has been the vibrating sphere, which some fish are able to detect even when the signal velocities to its lateral line are orders of magnitude smaller than background current velocities. It is not clear how the fish are able to extract this signal. This thesis uses a series of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations, matched with recent experiments, to quantify the effects of 3D fish body parts on the received dipole signals, and to determine signal detection abilities of the lateral line system in background flow conditions. An approximation is developed for the dipole induced, oscillatory, boundary layer velocity profile over the surface of a fish. An analytic solution is developed for the case when the surface is a wall, and is accurate at points of maximal surface tangential velocity. Results indicate that the flow outside a thin viscous layer remains potential in nature, and that body parts, such as fins, do not significantly affect the received dipole signal in still water conditions. In addition, the canal lateral line system of the sculpin is shown to be over 100 times more sensitive than the superficial lateral line system to high frequency dipole stimuli. Analytical models were developed for the Mottled Sculpin canal and superficial neuromast motions, in response to hydrodynamic signals. When the background flow was laminar, the neuromast motions induced by the stimulus signal at threshold had a spectral peak larger than spectral peaks resulting from the background flow induced motions. When the turbulence level increased, the resulting induced neuromast motions had dominant low frequency oscillations. For fish using the signal encoding mechanisms of phase-locking or spike rate increasing, signal masking should occur.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution January 1983

Beschreibung: A simple model for the bottom boundary layer on the continental shelf is presented. The governing equations are developed for a stratified, turbulent Ekman layer in a combined wave and current flow over a moveable sediment bed. An eddy diffusivity closure scheme that includes the effect of suspended sediment, temperature, and salinity induced stratification on the vertical turbulent diffusion of mass and momentum couples the resulting unsteady conservation equations for fluid momentum, fluid mass, and suspended sediment mass. The wave velocity, current velocity, and suspended sediment concentration profiles predicted by the simultaneous solution of the conservation equations require the physical bottom roughness and a sediment reference concentrati on to be specified as boundary conditions. The physical bottom roughness associated with biologically generated bedforms, wave generated ripples, and near bed sediment transport are calculated as functions of the flow and sediment conditions. Using expressions for the height of sediment transporting layer and the sediment velocity, an expression for the sediment reference concentration is developed by matching laboratory measurements of sediment transport rates in oscillatory flow. The model predicts that the bottom flow field is highly dependent on (1) the nonlinear wave and current interaction, which increases the boundary shear stress and enhances vertical turbulent diffusion, (2) the effect of the boundary shear stress on a moveable sediment bed, which determines the physical bottom roughness and the amount of sediment in suspension, and (3) the effect of stable stratification, which inhibits vertical turbulent transport and couples the flow to the suspended sediment and fluid density profiles. The validity of the theoretical approach is supported by model predictions that are in excellent agreement with high quality data collected during two continental shelf bottom boundary layer experiments for a wide range of flow and bottom conditions.

Beschreibung: Funding for the work resulting in this Thesis has been provided by the American Gas Association (Project No. PR-153-126), the National Science Foundation (Grant No. OCE~8014930), and NOAA-Sea Grant (NA-79AA-D-0010l; NA 79AA-D-00102).

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2002

Beschreibung: This thesis addresses the sources and transport of nuclear weapons related contamination in the Ob River region, Siberia. In addition to being one of the largest rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean, the bulk of the former Soviet Union's nuclear fuel reprocessing and weapons testing facilities (i.e. Mayak, Tomsk-7, and Semipalitinsk) are located within the Ob drainage basin. The atom ratios 240Pu/239Pu, 237Np/239Pu, and 13Cs/240Pu, measured by magnetic-sector ICP-MS, are used to distinguish between contamination derived from global fallout and contamination derived from local sources. Deposition chronologies estimated for sediment cores are used to construct a record of weapons related contamination at the sites sampled. Contaminant records indicate that in addition to debris from atmospheric weapons tests, materials derived from local sources have also played a role in nuclear weapons related contamination of the Ob region. Isotopic data presented in this study clearly demonstrate that non-fallout contamination has been transported the full length of the Tobol, Irysh, and Ob Rivers (i.e. the tributaries draining Mayak, Semipalitinsk, and Tomsk-7, respectively). In several instances, unique isotopic compositions are observed in sediments collected from tributaries draining each of the suspected non-fallout sources. In such cases, these materials and their deposition ages have been used to link contamination in the Ob delta to Mayak, Tomsk-7, or Semipalitinsk. Linear transport rate estimates (km yr-1) indicate that contaminated sediments transit between source tributaries and the Ob delta on time-scales of ≤ l year. These estimates suggest that a catastrophic release of contamination due to dam failure at one of the many reservoirs located at both Mayak and Tomsk-7 that contain high levels of radioactive waste would result in measurable levels of contamination in the delta within as little as 1 year. Isotopic concentrations in sequentially extracted sediments containing weapons related contamination reveal that the majority of plutonium and neptunium (80 to 90 percent) behaves in a similar fashion regardless of the source and is removed by treating the sediments with citrate-dithionite. This indicates that plutonium and neptunium are not truly refractory and likely associate with redox sensitive sedimentary components. Isotopic ratios measured in extracted fractions suggest that only a minor fraction of contamination is associated with acid leachable or acid digestible sedimentary phases.

Beschreibung: Funding for this research was provided by the Office of Naval Research under Grants N00014-93-1-1139, and NOOOI4-1-95), and the National Science Foundation under Grant EAR-98-07590.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2002

Beschreibung: The linear and nonlinear Rossby wave solutions are examined in homogeneous square basins on the ß-plane both with and without a thin meridional barrier In the presence of the meridional barrier the basin is almost partitioned into two; only two small gaps of equal width, d, to the north and south of the barrier allow communication between the eastern.and western sub-basins. Solutions are forced by a steady periodic wind forcing applied over a meridional strip near the eastern side. Bottom friction is present to allow the solutions to reach equilibrium. The linear solution for the basin containing the barrier is determined analytically and the nonlinear solutions for both basins are found numerically. In the linear solution with the barrier present, particular attention was paid to the resonant solutions. We examined the effects of varying the symmetry of the forcing about the mid-latitude, the frequency of the periodic forcing and the strength of the bottom friction. For each solution we focus on how the no net circulation condition, which is central to any solution in a barrier basin, is satisfied. The nonlinear solutions were studied for both basin configurations. In each case the transition from the weakly nonlinear solution to the turbulent solution was examined, as the forcing frequency and forcing strength were varied. Only integer multiples of the forcing frequency are present in the weakly nonlinear solutions. The turbulent solutions were accompanied by the appearance of many other frequencies whose exact origins are unknown, but are probably the result of instabilities. A hysteresis was found for the turbulent solutions of both the barrier-free and barrier basins. In the weakly nonlinear solutions of the barrier basin it was predicted and confirmed that there is never a steady net flow from sub-basin to sub-basin. It was also shown that with a symmetric forcing all modes oscillating with an odd multiple of the forcing frequency are symmetric and all modes oscillating with even multiples of the forcing frequency are antisymmetric.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1982

Beschreibung: Zooplankton samples were collected with the MOCNESS (Multiple Opening/ Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System) on six cruises in the western North Atlantic Ocean during the period from August 1975 to November 1977 as part of the study of the biology, physics, and chemistry of Gulf Stream cold core rings. The physical, chemical and biological properties of the Slope Water to the North of the Gulf Stream differ substantially from the properties of the Northern Sargasso Sea to the south. The purpose of this thesis was to identify the horizontal, vertical and seasonal abundance patterns of chaetognaths in this region and to relate these patterns to environmental conditions. Twenty one chaetognath species were identified, of which eighteen were abundant enough for analysis of the spatial and temporal abundance patterns. The most important sources of sampling error in this study were mesh selection and avoidance, which bias the abundance estimates, and patchiness and subsampling, which add variability to the abundance estimates. The 0.333 mm mesh of the MOCNESS does not appear to sample individuals of any of the species less than 6 mm in length very well. Avoidance appears to be a problem only for the larger individuals (〉20 mm) of the larger species. Variability due to small scale patchiness was less for this study than for many previous studies, and this may have been due either to the location of the tows in presumably less variable open ocean regions or to the increased volume of water filtered relative to previous studies. Subsampling with the Folsom plankton sample splitter introduced more variability than predicted by the binomial distribution, and for some species the subsampling variability was greater than that due to patchiness. In spite of these sources of variability, significant spatial and temporal abundance patterns were detectable for most of the species in this region. Vertical distributions of chaetognaths in this region were similar to those reported for these species from other regions. Nine species were classified as epipelagic, four were classified as mesopelagic, and five species were classified as bathypelagic. Diel vertical migrations were not detected for any of the species, but due to the depth intervals sampled, migrations of less than 100 m were not detectable. Ontogenetic migrations were detected for the seven meso- and bathypelagic species for which these migrations were examined. The epi- and bathypelagic species were shallower in the Slope Water than in the Northern Sargasso Sea, suggesting that they were orienting their vertical distributions to temperature. The mesopelagic species showed little difference in vertical distribution between the two hydrographic regions. For Sagitta lyra, the only species for which size frequency data was collected from all the tows, the vertical distribution as measured by median population depth was found to be significantly correlated with average individual size. This suggests that observed differences in vertical distribution for the meso- and bathypelagic species at different times and places in the oceans may be due to changes in the size structure of the population coupled with ontogenetic migrations rather than to responses to differing environmental conditions. It may be possible to correlate the vertical distributions of size or sexual maturity classes with environmental variables such as temperature and light. The differences in hydrography between the Slope Water and the Northern Sargasso Sea were also reflected in the species abundances. Seven species were significantly more abundant in the Slope Water, nine were significantly more abundant in the Northern Sargasso Sea, and two species showed no significant differences between the two regions. Recurrent group analysis did not delineate these groupings, and it is suggested that quantitative methods employing abundance estimates be used to detect associations among species. Ordination analysis (e.g. factor analysis and correspondence analysis) was found to delineate the species groupings adequately. The hydrographic differences in abundance for these chaetognaths were most likely related to differences in food abundance and temperature structure of the water column between the Slope Water and Northern Sargasso Sea. Seasonal abundance differences were not detected for the seven Slope Water species, yet seasonal abundance differences are expected in such temperate regions. Most of the Northern Sargasso Sea species were most abundant in the spring, and this was presumably related to the late winter-early spring peak in primary productivity and zooplankton biomass in this region. The spatial and temporal abundance patterns of chaetognaths in Gulf Stream cold core rings were also studied. The patterns were similar to predictions made on the basis of their abundance differences between the Slope Water and Northern Sargasso Sea, but a few species showed anamolous patterns. Further studies of the chaetognath fauna of both warm and cold Core rings should provide invaluable insight into the processes regulating the spatial and temporal abundance patterns of these organisms.

Beschreibung: Financial support was provided by the Education Office at WHOI and from NSF Grants OCE-7709l32 and OCE-80l7248 to Peter Wiebe.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2003

Beschreibung: Oceanic observations indicate that abyssal mixing is localized in regions of rough topography. How locally mixed fluid interacts with the ambient fluid is an open question. Laboratory experiments explore the interaction of mechanically induced boundary mixing and an interior body of linearly stratified rotating fluid. A single oscillating bar produces a small region of turbulence along the wall at middepth. Mixed fluid quickly reaches a steady state height set by a turbulent-buoyant balance, independent of rotation. Initially, the bar is exposed on three sides. Mixed fluid intrudes directly into the interior rather than forming a boundary current. The circulation patterns suggest a model of unmixed fluid being laterally entrained into the turbulent zone. In accord with the model, observed outflux is constant, independent of stratification and restricted by rotation. Later the bar is laterally confines between two walls, which form a channel opening into the basin. A small percentage of mixed fluid enters a boundary current, which exits the channel. The bulk forms a cyclonic circulation in front of the bar, which blocks the channel and restricts horizontal entrainment. In the confined case, the volume flux of mixed fluid decays with time.

Beschreibung: This work was supported by the Ocean Ventures Fund, the Westcott Fund and the WHOI Education Office. Financial support was also provided by the National Science Foundation through grant OCE-9616949.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2002

Beschreibung: One of the major problems in wireless communications is compensating for the time-varying intersymbol interference (ISI) due to multipath. Underwater acoustic communications is one such type of wireless communications in which the channel is highly dynamic and the amount of ISI due to multipath is relatively large. In the underwater acoustic channel, associated with each of the deterministic propagation paths are macro-multipath fluctuations which depend on large scale environmental features and geometry, and micro-multipath fluctuations which are dependent on small scale environmental inhomogeneities. For arrivals which are unsaturated or partially saturated, the fluctuations in ISI are dominated by the macro-multipath fluctuations resulting in correlated fluctuations between different taps of the sampled channel impulse response. Traditional recursive least squares (RLS) algorithms used for adapting channel equalizers do not exploit this structure. A channel subspace post-filtering algorithm that treats the least squares channel estimate as a noisy time series and exploits the channel correlation structure to reduce the channel estimation error is presented. The improvement in performance of the algorithm with respect to traditional least squares algorithms is predicted theoretically, and demonstrated using both simulation and experimental data. An adaptive equalizer structure that explicitly uses this improved estimate of the channel impulse response is discussed. The improvement in performance of such an equalizer due to the use of the post-filtered estimate is also predicted theoretically, and demonstrated using both simulation and experimental data.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by an ONR Graduate Traineeship Award Grant #N00014-00-10049.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2000.

Beschreibung: Geometrically compliant mooring systems that change their shape to accommodate deformations are common in oceanographic and offshore energy production applications. Because of the inherent geometric nonlinearities, analyses of such systems typically require the use of a sophisticated numerical model. This thesis describes one such model and uses that model along with experimental results to develop simpler forms for understanding the dynamic response of geometrically compliant moorings. The numerical program combines the box method spatial discretization with the generalized- a method for temporal integration. Compared to other schemes commonly employed for the temporal integration of the cable dynamics equations, including box method, trapezoidal rule, backward differences, and Newmark’s method, the generalized-a algorithm has the advantages of second-order accuracy, controllable numerical dissipation, and improved stability when applied to the nonlinear problem. The numerical program is validated using results from laboratory and field experiments. Field experiment and numerical results are used to develop a simple model for dynamic tension response to vertical motion in geometrically compliant moorings. As part of that development, the role of inertia, drag, and stiffness in the tension response are explored. For most moorings, the response is dominated by inertial and drag effects. The simple model uses just two terms to accurately capture these effects, including the coupling between inertia and drag. The separability of the responses to vertical and horizontal motions is demonstrated and a preliminary model for the response to horizontal motions is presented. The interaction of the mooring line with the sea floor in catenary moorings is considered. Using video and tension data from laboratory experiments, the tension shock condition at the touchdown point and its implications are observed for the first time. The lateral motion of line along the bottom associated with a shock during unloading may be a significant cause of chain wear in the touchdown region. Results from the laboratory experiments are also used to demonstrate the suitability of the elastic foundation approach to modeling sea floor interaction in numerical programs.

Beschreibung: During my initial three years of study I was supported by an Office of Naval Research Graduate Fellowship. More recently, including the time spent on the research described in this thesis, I have been supported by the Office of Naval Research under grant numbers N00014-92-J-1269 and N00014-97-1-0583.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2009

Beschreibung: Observations and inverse models suggest that small-scale turbulent mixing is enhanced in the Southern Ocean in regions above rough topography. The enhancement extends 1 km above the topography suggesting that mixing is supported by breaking of gravity waves radiated from the ocean bottom. In other regions, gravity wave radiation by bottom topography has been primarily associated with the barotropic tide. In this study, we explore the alternative hypothesis that the enhanced mixing in the Southern Ocean is sustained by internal waves generated by geostrophic motions flowing over bottom topography. Weakly-nonlinear theory is used to describe the internal wave generation and the feedback of the waves on the zonally averaged flow. A major finding is that the waves generated at the ocean bottom at finite inverse Froude numbers drive vigorous inertial oscillations. The wave radiation and dissipation at equilibrium is therefore the result of both geostrophic flow and inertial oscillations and differs substantially from the classical lee wave problem. The theoretical predictions are tested versus two-dimensional and three-dimensional high resolution numerical simulations with parameters representative of the Drake Passage region. Theory and fully nonlinear numerical simulations are used to estimate internal wave radiation from LADCP, CTD and topography data from two regions in the Southern Ocean: Drake Passage and the Southeast Pacific. The results show that radiation and dissipation of internal waves generated by geostrophic motions reproduce the magnitude and distribution of dissipation measured in the region.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2009

Beschreibung: A confluence of several coastal oceanographic features creates an acoustically interesting region with high variability along the New England Shelfbreak. Determining the effect of the variability on acoustic propagation is critical for sonar systems. In the Nantucket Shoals area of the Middle Atlantic Bight, two experiments, the New England Shelfbreak Tests (NEST), were conducted in May and June, 2007 and 2008, to study this variability. A comprehensive climatology of the region along with the experimental data provided detailed information about the variability of the water column, particularly the temperature and sound speed fields. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of the ocean sound speed field defined a set of perturbations to the background sound speed field for each of the NEST Scanfish surveys. Attenuation due to bottom sediments is the major contributor of transmission loss in the ocean. In shallow water, available propagation paths most often include bottom interaction. Perturbations in the ocean sound speed field can cause changes in the angle of incidence of sound rays with the bottom, which can result in changes to the amount of sound energy lost to the bottom. In lieu of complex transmission loss models, the loss/bounce model provides a simpler way to predict transmission loss changes due to perturbations in the background sound speed field in the ocean. Using an acoustic wavenumber perturbation method, sound speed perturbations, defined by the ocean EOF modes, are translated into a change in the horizontal wavenumber, which in turn changes the modal angle of incidence. The loss/bounce model calculates the loss of sound energy (dB) per bottom bounce over a given distance based on the change in angle of incidence. Evaluated using experimental data from NEST, the loss/bounce model provided accurate predictions of changes to transmission loss due to perturbations of the background sound speed field.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2001

Beschreibung: The interaction between the eddy field and the mean flow near the Gulf Stream is studied here using satellite altimeter measurements and an eddy resolving numerical modeL. The eddy vorticity flux in the quasigeostrophic framework is obtained from the stream function standard deviation and spatial correlation function assuming the correlation function is homogeneous. An analytical expression is found for the stream function correlation using the altimetric and numerical data. Cases when the correlation function is anisotropic are compared to the isotropic case previously studied by Hogg (1993), who found that the eddy vorticity flux drives two counter rotating gyres on either side of the stream. The anisotropy can be important in the eddy vorticity flux, even when its departure from the isotropic case is smalL. Meridional or zonal anisotropies can drive recirculation gyres similar in strength and position to the ones driven by the isotropic case. The results when including anisotropy in the diagonal direction suggest that the homogenoeus assumption may not be valid.

Beschreibung: This work was founded in part by a Fulbright/CONACyT fellowship and a J. Seward Johnson Fellowship through the Education Offce in WHOI.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2001

Beschreibung: Megamullions in slow-spreading oceanic crust are characterized by smooth "turtle-back" morphology and are interpreted to be rotated footwalls of long-lived detachment faults. Megamullions have been analyzed in preliminary studies, but many questions remain about structural and tectonic details of their formation, in particular how the hanging wall develops in conjugate crust on the opposing side of the rift axis. This study compares the structure of an off-axis megamullion complex and its conjugate hanging wall crust on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge near 27°N. Two megamullion complexes, an older (Ml) and younger (M2), formed successively on the west side of the rift axis in approximately the same location within one spreading segment. Megamullion M1 formed while the spreading segment had only one inside comer on the west flank, and megamullion M2 formed after the segment developed double inside comers west of the axis and double outside comers east of the axis. The older megamullion formed between ~22.3 and ~20.4 Ma, and the younger megamullion formed between ~20.6 and ~18.3 Ma; they are presently ~200-300 km off-axis. Reconstruction poles of plate rotation were derived and plate reconstructions were made for periods prior to initiation of the megamullion complex (anomaly 6Ar, ~22.6 Ma), after the termination of mega mullion M1 and during the development of megamullion M2 (anomaly 5E, ~19 9 Ma), and shortly following the termination of megamullion M2 (anomaly 5C, ~17.6 Ma). These reconstructions were used to compare morphological and geophysical features of both flanks at each stage of the megamullions' development. Megamullion M1's breakaway occurred at ~22.3 Ma and slip along this detachment fault continued and propagated northward at ~20.6 Ma to form the northern portion ofM2. The exhumed footwall of mega mullion M1 has weak spreading-parallel lineations interpreted as mullion structures on its surface, and it forms an elevated plateau between the enclosing segment boundaries (non-transform discontinuities). There was an expansion southward of the detachment fault forming megamullion M2 at ~ 20.1 Ma. It either cut a new detachment fault through megamullion M1, stranding a piece of megamullion M1 on the conjugate side (east flank), or it linked into the active detachment fault that was forming megamullion M1 or propagated into its hanging wall. The expanded detachment of mega mullion M2 and the termination of mega mullion M1 occurred during a time when the enclosing spreading segment roughly doubled in length and formed two inside comers. Megamullion M2 developed prominent, high-amplitude (~600 m) mullion structures that parallel the spreading direction for more than 20 km at each inside comer. Its detachment fault was abandoned ~ 18.6 Ma in the south and ~ 18.3 Ma in the north. The gravity of this area demonstrates a consistent pattern of higher gravity corresponding to inside comers with thinner crust, apparently caused by fault exhumation of deep lithosphere, and lower gravity values corresponding to outside comers, indicating thicker crust, most likely a result of volcanic accretion. The gravity pattern of the area also helps with interpreting evolution of the megamullion complex. The southern section of megamullion M1 exhibits a series of inside-comer highs and elevated gravity values while the northern section has lower gravity values until megamullion M2 began to form. This change coincides with the change of the northern segment edge from an outside comer to an inside comer. During the formation of megamullion M2, a gravity high developed over the center of the megamullion. After the termination of megamullion M2, the gravity values of both the northern and southern sections of the spreading segment decrease. This pattern suggests exhumation of higher-density lithosphere during formation of M1 and M2, and a return to more normal ridge-axis conditions following termination of the megamullion complex. The gravity of conjugate crust is consistently more negative, slightly decreasing in value during the formation of megamullion M2. This suggests that crust on the east flank is significantly thicker than that on the west flank, and that rift-axis magmatism may have slightly increased at the time that megamullion M2 formed. We modeled gravity of an idealized structural cross-section of megamullion M2 to investigate possible structure and composition of the megamullion. Models with different detachment-fault angles and degrees of serpentinization of exhumed mantle that may be present in the megamullion were compared to Residual Mantle Bouguer Anomaly (RMBA) profiles. All models show gravity peaks slightly skewed towards the termination because higher-density rock is exposed closer to the termination than to the breakaway. Four models that varied the detachment fault angle show small variations that are unresolvable in the actual gravity data. Thus, the gravity profile of a megamullion is not diagnostic of its detachment fault angle from 30° to 60°/90°. Models that varied the degree of serpentinization of a lithospheric wedge beneath the megamullion show that slight variations in density give rise to large changes in the modeled gravity profiles. Comparison of model results against gravity profiles taken across megamullion M2 indicate that the magnitude of the gravity high associated with the megamullion is best explained by densities between 2800 kg/m3 and 3000 kg/m3 in the main body of the megamullion. This corresponds to peridotite serpentinized approximately 50%, or to gabbro (~2800 kg/m3).

Beschreibung: This study was supported by ONR grant N00014-90-J-1621 and by NSF grant OCE-9503561

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2001

Beschreibung: Processes that enable marine phytoplankton to acquire trace metals are fundamental to our understanding of primary productivity and global carbon cycling. This thesis explored the biogeochemistry of cobalt using analytical chemistry and physiological experiments with the dominant phytoplankton species, Prochlorococcus. A high sensitivity method for Co speciation was developed using hanging mercury drop cathodic stripping voltammetry. Dissolved Co at the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series station (BATS) in the Sargasso Sea was bound by strong organic complexes with a conditional stability constant of logK=16.3l0.9. A depth profile of Co at BATS revealed a nutrient-like profile. Biweekly time series measurements of total cobalt near Bermuda from the MITESS sampler were 0-47pM throughout 1999, and averaged 20±10pM in 1999. A transect of total cobalt from BATS to American coastal waters ranged from 19- 133pM and correlated negatively with salinity (r2=0.93), suggestive of coastal waters as an input source. Prochlorococcus strains MED4-Ax and SS120 showed an absolute requirement for Co, despite replete Zn. 57Co uptake rates and growth rates were enhanced by additions of filtered low Co cultures, suggesting that a ligand is present that facilitates Co uptake. Bottle incubations from a Synechococcus bloom in the Pacific showed production of 425pM strong cobalt ligand. These and other lines of evidence support the hypothesis that a cobalt ligand, or cobalophore, is involved in cobalt uptake. Co-limited Prochlorococcus cultures exhibited an increase in the fraction of cells in G2 relative to other cell cycle stages during exponential growth, and the durations of this stage increased with decreasing cobalt concentrations. This effect was not observed with Fe, N, or P-limited cultures, suggestive of a specific biochemical function of cobalt that would interfere with the late stages of the cell cycle. The ligand Teta was explored as a means to induce cobalt limitation. The CoTeta complex was not bioavailable to the Sargasso Sea microbial assemblage in short-term experiments. Bottle incubations with Teta did not induce cobalt limitation of Prochlorococcus. These results are consistent with the lower conditional stability constant for CoTeta (logK=11.2l0.1) relative to natural cobalt ligands in seawater, and with culture studies that suggest uptake of cobalt via strong organic ligands.

Beschreibung: The work in this thesis was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (#OCE-9618729) for cyanobacteria metal interactions in the Sargasso Sea. I have been funded through WHOI on an NSF coastal traineeship (#DGE-9454129) for my first year, followed by an EP A STAR Graduate Fellowship for the subsequent years. Additional funding was supplied by the WHOI Educational Endowment Funds and by the WHOI Ditty Bag fund for part of the DNA/cell cycle work.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 2001

Beschreibung: Pinniped (seal and sea lion) auditory systems operate in two acoustically distinct environments, air and water. Piniped species differ in how much time they typically spend in water. They therefore offer an exceptional opportunity to investigate aquatic versus terrestrial hearing mechanisms. The Otariidae (sea lions and fur seals) generally divide their time evenly between land and water and have several adaptations; e.g. external pinnae, related to this lifestyle. Phocidae (true seals) spend the majority of their time in water; they lack external pinnae and have well developed ear canal valves. Differences in hearing ranges and sensitivities have been reported recently for members of both of these familes (Kastak, D., Schusterman, RJ., 1998. Low frequency amphibious hearing in pinnipeds. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1303,2216- 2228.; Moore, P.W.B., Schusterman, RJ., 1987. Audiometric assessment of northern fur seals, Callorhinus ursinus. Mar. Mamm. Sci. 3,31-53.). In this project, the ear anatomy of three species of pinnipeds: an otariid, the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), and two phocids, the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) and the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), was examined using computerized tomography (CT scans) and gross dissection. Thee-dimensional reconstructions of the heads and ears from CT data were used to determine interaural dimensions and ossicular chain morphometrics. Ossicular weights and densities were measured conventionally. Results strongly support a canalcentric system for pinniped sound reception and localization. Further, true seals show adaptations for aquatic high frequency specialization.

Beschreibung: I was supported by an NDSEG fellowship from ONR.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2001

Beschreibung: Half of the ocean crust is formed at spreading centers with total opening rates less than 40 km/Myr. The objective of this Thesis is to investigate temporal variations in active ridge processes and crustal aging at slow-spreading centers by comparing axial crustal structure with that on conjugate flanks of the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) (full rate, 20 km/Myr) and the ultra-slow spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) (full rate, 14 km/Myr). Seismic refraction data collected along the rift valley and flanking rift mountains of the OH-l segment (35°N) at the MAR show that the entire crustal section is constructed within a zone that is less than 5 km wide. Shallow-level hydrothermal circulation within the axial valley is suggested by the rift mountain seismic profiles, which show that the upper crust is 20% thinner and 16% faster along strike than zero-age crust. These effects probably result from fissure sealing within the extrusive crust. Deeper crustal velocities remain relatively constant at the segment midpoint within the first 2 Myr, but are reduced near the segment offsets presumably by faulting and fracturing associated with uplift out of the rift valley. A temporal variation in axial melt supply is suggested by a 15% difference in along-strike crustal thickness between the rift valley and rift mountains, with relatively less melt supplied today than 2 Ma. Crustal accretion at the SWIR appears to occur in a similar manner as at the MAR, although gravity and seismic data indicate that the average crustal thickness is 2-4 km less at the ultra-slow spreading SWIR. A 25 Myr record on both flanks of the ridge shows that seafloor spreading has been highly asymmetric through time, with 35% faster crustal accretion on the Antarctic (south) plate. A small-offset non-transform discontinuity between two ridge segments is just as stable as two neighboring transform discontinuities, although a single mantle Bouguer gravity anomaly centered over the non-transform offset indicates that this boundary does not significantly perturb underlying mantle flow. Off-axis magnetic anomalies are recorded with high fidelity despite the very low spreading rates and the absence of a basaltic upper crust in one area. The lower crust may be the dominant off-axis carrier of the magnetic signal, contrary to traditional models of crustal magnetic structure. Morphological and gravity data show evidence of asymmetric crustal accretion across the SWIR ridge axis, with slightly warmer mantle temperatures beneath the slower-spreading African (north) plate.

Beschreibung: Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation through Contract No. OCE-9300450 and by the Joint Oceanographic Institutions through Subcontract No. JSC1-00.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2009

Beschreibung: Over the past 20 years, underwater vehicle technology has undergone drastic improvements, and vehicles are quickly gaining popularity as a tool for numerous oceanographic tasks. Systems used on the vehicle to alter buoyancy, or variable buoyancy (VB) systems, have seen only minor improvements during the same time period. Though current VB systems are extremely robust, their lack of performance has become a hinderance to the advancement of vehicle capabilities. This thesis first explores the current status of VB systems, then creates a model of each system to determine performance. Second, in order to quantitatively compare fundamentally different VB systems, two metrics, βm and βvol, are developed and applied to current systems. By determining the ratio of performance to size, these metrics give engineers a tool to aid VB system development. Finally, the fundamental challenges in developing more advanced VB systems are explored, and a couple of technologies are investigated for their potential use in new systems.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution March 2001

Beschreibung: Numerical solutions of the unstable, growing modes are found for the two-layer inviscid quasigeostrophic equations in a meridional channel. A steady mean flow in the N-S direction is imposed in the upper layer, and it is assumed that changes in planetary vorticity following this mean flow are balanced by the input of vorticity from an imposed wind stress curl. Thus in the two-layer system, the vertical shear, in thermal wind balance, is associated with an interface slope which provides a gradient of potential vorticity (PV) in the x-direction, of equal magnitude and opposite sign in the two layers. In the y-direction the PV gradient has the value of planetary beta, β in both layers. The unstable modes of this system exhibit a boundary-layer structure across the channel. They are intensified in the west. The growth rates of the unstable modes are of the same order as the zonal case, however the range of wavenumber and shear for which instability is possible is larger. Established cutoff criteria for the equal-layer zonal case are not applicable, and no analogous criteria has yet been found. Growing modes are found even for very weakly sheared flows, and this suggests that baroclinic instability may represent a more significant source of mid-ocean eddy energy than previously believed.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant 9901654.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2001

Beschreibung: In recent years, the use of clay minerals has emerged as one of the most promising strategies for directly controlling harmful algal blooms (HABs). Its principle is based on the mutual aggregation of algal cells and mineral particles, leading to the formation of large flocs that rapidly settle to the ocean floor. This work investigated the effectiveness of various domestic clays against a number of bloom-forming species from the United States. Twenty-five clays were tested against the dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis (formerly Gymnodinium breve), and the chrysophyte, Aureococcus anophagefferens. In general, the highest removal efficiencies (RE 〉 90% at 0.25 g rl of clay) against K. brevis were found using montmorillonite, bentonite and phosphatic clays (i.e. a product of phosphate mining containing large amounts of montmorillonite). The RE of phosphatic clays remained high (〉 80%) even at 0.03 g rl. Kaolinite and zeolite were mostly ineffective against K. brevis. Removal with clay exceeded those for alum, polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and several other polymeric flocculants by a factor of two. However, the combination of phosphatic clay and PAC (at 5 mg rl) decreased the amount of clay needed to maintain 80% RE by one order of magnitude. Cell viability and recovery remained high when clay loading stayed below 0.03 g rl with or without resuspension of the sediment. However, cell mortality approached 100% with 0.50 g rl even with daily resuspension. Between 0.10 and 0.25 g rl, K. brevis survival and recovery depended on the interplay of clay loading, the frequency of resuspension, and duration of contact prior to the first resuspension event. For A. anophagefferens, the RE did not exceed 40% for any clay at 0.25 g rl even in combination with coagulants and flocculants. The highest removal was achieved by thoroughly mixing the clay slurry (e.g. phosphatic clay) into the cell culture. The RE by phosphatic clay varied significantly in a survey consisting of 17 different species from five algal classes. Moreover, the removal trends varied substantially with increasing cell concentration. For example, cell removal increased with increasing clay loading and cell concentration for K. brevis. However, RE dropped below 70% when cell concentration was 〈 1000 cell ml-1 for clay loadings up to 0.50 g rl. This suggested that a critical number of organisms should be present for clays to remain effective. Similarly, enhanced removal with increasing cell concentration was also found in Akashiwo sanguinea (formerly Gymnodinium sanguineum), Heterosigma akashiwo and Heterocapsa triquetra. In the six remaining species, RE initially increased then decreased, or RE remained constant as more cells were treated. The removal pattern among the species at comparable cell numbers did not correlate with the cross-sectional area (R2 = 0.23), swimming speed (R2 = 0.04), or a type of cell covering (i.e. theca, silica frustule). However, when the total collision frequency coefficients were calculated (including collisions due to cell motility) over the interval when clays were 〈 50 μm, these values correlated well with the empirical RB's for the flagellated species (R2 = 0.90). These results suggested that collisions due to cell motility may be important during the early stages of aggregation when clay sizes are relatively small (i.e. near the surface where the clay layer is initially added). The electrophoretic mobility (EPM) of marine microalgae displayed a small range of negative values. While the values were smaller that those reported from freshwater species, these results confirmed earlier assumptions that marine species carry a negative charge like their freshwater counterparts. In addition, these results also revealed that the stabilities of cell suspensions in seawater are not controlled by charge neutralization. However, these measurements did not provide direct information on why one species was more readily removed over another by a given clay mineral (e.g. phosphatic clay). The EPM of clays in freshwater also exhibited predictable negative values, with montmorillonites showing the highest stability and phosphatic clays the lowest. Kaolinite and zeolite displayed a range of intermediate values. These differences vanished when the clays were suspended in natural seawater (29.6 salinity), reducing the surface charge to a small range of negative values. This effect occurred even at 1116 of the final salinity (1.85 salinity). Viewed alone, these results did not provide direct information on why one clay mineral worked better than another against a given algal species (e.g. K. brevis). Kinetic and modelling experiments using K. brevis and three minerals revealed some distinct patterns in aggregation and settling among the clays, including how they removed the organisms. After dispersing on the surface, phosphatic clays aggregated quickly by virtue of low stability (low EPM). Cell removal coincided with the onset of settling. Also, kaolinite aggregated quickly and was controlled by size as well as stability. However, cell removal followed clay settling over 40 min, after which cell removal decreased yielding only 46% RE. Bentonite aggregated slowly over 90 min due to its high stability (high EPM), but produced a number of large voluminous flocs that steadily removed the algae. The sinking rate of flocs increased as cells became incorporated, but the onset of settling was delayed when cells were present in phosphatic clay and kaolinite due to a predicted reduction in aggregate density. The process of kinetics and sedimentation were modelled using first order equations for all mineral-algae combinations. Finally, phosphatic clays demonstrated the ability to selectively remove K. brevis in a mixed culture with the dinoflagellate, Prorocentrum micans, or the diatom, Skeletonema costatum. While the RE's were generally comparable to individual cultures, the RE of either species increased in the presence of the other, especially for K. brevis. Similar results were observed in mesocosm studies using a natural assemblage during a Karenia bloom. In fact, the RE of K. brevis were higher than would be predicted from single species laboratory studies given its low initial concentration. Overall, this research demonstrated the effectiveness of clay treatment against a number of HAB species in the U.S. This work also provided new insights into the aggregation phenomenon between minerals and living algal cells by focusing on the physical (cell size), chemical and behavioral (i.e. motility) properties of both particle types, the effect of particle concentration, and the aggregation kinetics of the clay-algae system.

Beschreibung: This work has been funded by the following: EPA Grant CR827090, Florida Institute of Phosphate Research Grant 99-03-138, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Contracts MR266, 99157 and Purchase Order No. S7701 615727, Sholley Foundation, and the Cove Point Foundation. Scholarships to the author were provided by the Ford Foundation, and the Education Office of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2001

Beschreibung: The importance of the persistence of multiple inlets in coastal systems is fundamental for issues such as water quality, navigability, and beach/barrier stability. In long embayments, having extended residence times, the stability of multiple inlets can be important for more efficient flushing and water exchange between the embayment and the ocean. Many approaches have been used to analyze inlet stability, but have focused on single rather than multiple tidal inlet systems, relying solely on measured data to describe and predict the behavior of tidal inlets and/or suggesting empirical stability relationships between inlet morphology and inlet/bay hydrodynamics. At present, the only multiple tidal inlet stability model available combines a linear analytical model for the flow and an empirical relationship for equilibrium, suggesting that multiple inlet systems are unstable and ultimately all inlets will close or, at best, one will remain open. Focusing on shallow multiple tidal inlet systems and in particular on Ria Formosa, a shallow coastal lagoon in the south of Portugal known to have maintained persistently multiple inlets in a historical time scale, the morphodynamic and hydrodynamic response to disturbances in the physical characteristics of the lagoon and inlets was studied through a) the analysis of historical data of the region, b) the analysis of tidal data (velocity and water surface elevation) collected in the study site, and c) through the numerical modeling of the system hydrodynamics under various inlet scenarios (using RMA-2V, a vertically averaged finite element model), with emphasis on the contribution of the hydrodynamic response (changes in tidal prism, residual discharge and current, sediment transport capacity, tidal distortion, and cross-sectional averaged maximum velocity) to maintain the multiple inlets open. The model results show that multiple tidal inlet systems can exhibit stable inlet configurations, and that the strong hydrodynamic interaction between inlets, as well as the non-linear distortion of the tide, play a major role in multiple inlet persistence. Some of the results and findings are specific to Ria Formosa, and others can be generalized and used to identify processes contributing to stability in shallow systems with multiple inlets servicing a single embayment.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May 2001

Beschreibung: A comparison of monthly biogeochemical measurements made from 1993 to 1995, combined with hydrography and satellite altimetry, was used to observe the impacts of nine eddy events on primary productivity and particle flux in the Sargasso Sea. Measurements of primary production, thorium-234 flux, nitrate+nitrite, and photosynthetic pigments made at the US JGOFS Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site were used. During the three years of this study, four out of six high thorium- 234 flux events over 1000 dpm/m2/d occurred during the passage of an eddy. Primary production nearly as high as the spring bloom maximum was observed in two modewater eddies (May 1993 and July 1995). The 1994 spring bloom at BATS was suppressed by the passage of an anticyclone. Distinct phytoplankton community shifts were observed in mode-water eddies, which had an increased percentage diatoms and dinoflagelletes, and in cyclones, which had an increased percentage cyanobacteria (excluding Prochlorococcus). The difference in the observations of mode-water eddies and cyclones may result from the age of the eddy, which was very important to the biological response. In general, eddies that were one to two months old elicited a large biological response; eddies that were three months old may show a biological response and were accompanied by high thorium flux measurements; eddies that were four months old or older did not show a biological response or high thorium flux. Our conceptual model depicting the importance of temporal changes during eddy upwelling and decay fit the observations well in all 7 upwelling eddies. Additional information is needed to determine the importance of deeper mixed layers and winter mixing to the magnitude of the eddy impacts. Also, sampling generally captured only the beginning, end, and lor edge of an eddy due to the monthly to semi-monthly frequency of the measurements made at BATS. Lagrangian studies, higher resolution time-series, and/or more spatial coverage is needed to provide additional information for improved C and N budgets in the Sargasso Sea and to complete our understanding of the temporal changes that occur in an eddy.

Beschreibung: Funding for this work was provided by NASA and NSF through the JGOFS Synthesis and Modeling Program.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2009

Beschreibung: Estimates of natural climate variability during the past millennium provide a frame of reference in which to assess the significance of recent changes. This thesis investigates new methods of reconstructing low-latitude sea surface temperature (SST) and hydrography, and combines these methods with traditional techniques to improve the present understanding of western North Atlantic climate variability. A new strontium/calcium (Sr/Ca) - SST calibration is derived for Atlantic Montastrea corals. This calibration shows that Montastrea Sr/Ca is a promising SST proxy if the effect of coral growth is considered. Further analyses of coral growth using Computed Axial Tomography (CAT) imaging indicate growth in Siderastrea corals varies inversely with SST on interannual timescales. A 440-year reconstruction of low-latitude western North Atlantic SST based on this relationship suggests the largest cooling of the last few centuries occurred from ~1650-1730 A.D., and was ~1ºC cooler than today. Sporadic multidecadal variability in this record is inconsistent with evidence for a persistent 65-80 year North Atlantic SST oscillation. Volcanic and anthropogenic radiative forcing are identified as important sources of externally-forced SST variability, with the latter accounting for most of the 20th century warming trend. An 1800-year reconstruction of SST and hydrography near the Gulf Stream also suggests SSTs remained within about 1ºC of modern values. This cooling is small relative to other regional proxy records and may reflect the influence of internal oceanic and atmospheric circulation. Simulations with an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) indicate that the magnitude of cooling estimated by proxy records is consistent with tropical hydrologic proxy records.

Beschreibung: Funding for this research was provided by a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship, National Science Foundation grants OCE-0402728, OCE-0623364, ATM-033746, the WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute, the WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund, the WHOI Ocean Life Institute, the MIT Student Assistance Fund, award number USA-0002, made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution May 1979

Beschreibung: Concern with the impact of human activities on the coastal region of the world's oceans has elicited interest in the so-called "coastal boundary layer"-that band of water adjacent to the coast where ocean currents adjust to the presence of a boundary. Within this zone, roughly 10 km wide, several physical processes appear to be important. One of these, the tides, is of particular interest because their deterministic nature allows unusually thorough analysis from short time series, and because they tend to obscure the other processes. The Coastal Boundary Layer Transect (COBOLT) experiment was conducted within 12 km of the south shore of Long Island, New York to elucidate the characteristics of the coastal boundary layer in the Middle Atlantic Bight. Analysis of data from this experiment shows that 35% of the kinetic energy of currents averaged over the 30 m depth are due to the semidiurnal and diurnal tides. The tidal ellipses, show considerable vertical structure. Near-surface tidal ellipses rotate in the clockwise direction for semidiurnal and diurnal tides, while near-bottom ellipses rotate in the counterclockwise direction for the semidiurnal tide. The angle between the major axis of the ellipse and the local coastline decreases downward for semidiurnal and increases downward for diurnal tides. The major axis of the tidal ellipse formed from the depth averaged semidiurnal currents is not parallel to the local shoreline but is oriented at an angle of -15 degrees. This orientation "tilt" is a consequence of the onshore flux of energy which is computed to be about 800 watts/m. A constant eddy viscosity model with a slippery bottom boundary condition reproduces the main features observed in the vertical structure of both semidiurnal and diurnal tidal ellipses. Another model employing long, rotational, gravity waves (Sverdrup waves) and an absorbing coastline explains the ellipse orientations and onshore energy flux as a consequence of energy dissipation in shallow water. Finally, an analytical model with realistic topography suggests that tidal dissipation may occur very close (2-3 km) to the shore. Internal tidal oscillations primarily occur at diurnal frequencies in the COBOLT data. Analysis suggests that this energy may be Doppler-shifted to higher frequencies by the mean currents of the coastal region. These motions are trapped to the shore and are almost exclusively first baroclinic mode internal waves.

Beschreibung: This work was supported by the Department of Energy under Brookhaven National Laboratory subcontract numbers 325373-8 and 359133-S.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution April 1985

Beschreibung: The biochemical and physiological bases underlying primary production of particulate protein amino acids were investigated in an effort to understand the relationship between algal protein metabolism and particulate organic matter composition. In order to examine biochemical processes associated with conversion of inorganic carbon and nitrogen into protein, the effects of NH+4 limitation on free amino acid and protein composition and incorporation of inorganic 14C were studied in the marine chlorophyte, Nannochloris sp. (clone GSB Nanna). Free amino acid metabolism was sensitive to changes in steady state NH+4-limited growth rates. Reduced carbon and nitrogen flux into protein resulting from nitrogen limitation of growth was associated with reductions in proportions of cellular carbon and nitrogen in the intracellular free amino acid (IFAA) pool. Growth rate-dependent changes IFAA pool composition reflected changes in rate limiting steps which were intermediate between assimilation of inorganic nitrogen and the incorporation of nitrogen into macromolecules. The proportion of cellular carbon in both protein and pools of free amino acids decreased with decreasing growth rate. Distributions of incorporated inorganic 14C among free amino acids and protein provided qualitative descriptions of growth related compositional variations. Saturation rates of (IFAA) carbon with dissolved inorganic 14C did not significantly change as growth rates decreased. In contrast, saturation rates of free glutamate, glycine + alanine and valine did decrease with growth rate. At low growth rate, specific activities of the newly assimilated glutamate, valine, and glycine + alanine in protein were higher than specific activities of their corresponding free amino acid pools. This was likely a consequence of metabolic segregation and more rapid saturation of protein precursor pools. Enrichment of NH+4-limited steady state cultures of Nannochloris sp. with NH+4 led to a dramatic time dependent increase in free glutamine concentrations accompanied by differential increases in other free amino acids. Patterns of isotope incorporation into the free amino acids reflected real changes in concentrations. Increases were associated with the diversion of photosynthetically fixed carbon from lipophilic material towards amino acid biosynthesls, and signalled the onset of increased protein synthesis. Preliminary investigations of two other marine phytoplankton species, Dunaliella tertiolecta (clone Dun) and Thalassiosira weissflogii (clone Actin), suggested that the nature and timing of the biochemical response to NH+4 enrichment is different among different species. At high light intensity, increased NH+4 limitation of Nannochloris sp. was associated with decreases in cellular protein, protein to carbon ratios, and protein to chlorophyll a ratios. At low light intensities, cellular protein and protein to carbon ratios did not decrease with increasing NH+4 limitation. Chlorophyll a to protein ratios were generally higher at low light intensity and decreased with increasing NH+4 limitation, suggesting that nitrogen limitation suppressed low light enhancement of chlorophyll a production. Observed incorporation rates of inorganic 14C exceeded predicted rates for glycine and alanine in protein under combined conditions of light and nitrogen limitation, an indication that protein turnover in excess of net synthesis was important under these conditions. The characteristics of protein composition and incorporation of inorganic 14C were examined in steady state NH+4-limited cultures of three other species of marine phytoplankton. The species studied included Chaetoceros simplex (clone BBSM). Chattonella luteus (clone Olisth), and Chroomonas salina (clone 3C). Saturation of protein precursors was different for different species and for different protein amino acids. Nannochloris sp. displayed the most rapid and complete equilibration, while C. simplex exhibited relatively slow or incomplete saturation and high sensitivity to nitrogen depletion. Intermediate patterns were observed for the other species. For all species examined, protein glycine and alanine demonstrated relatively rapid and complete equilibration of precursor pools, and were least sensitive to nitrogen depletion. With the knowledge that these selected amino acids consistently demonstrated relatively rapid and complete equilibration of precursor pools with 14C-inorganlc carbon in several taxonomically distinct marine algae, primary production of particulate protein amino acids and its relationship to the composition of particulate organic matter was investigated in the epilimnion of a semi-enclosed marine basin, Salt Pond, MA. Studies were conducted previous to and throughout a major bloom of Olisthodiscus magnus. Before the bloom, the ratio of particulate protein amino acid (PPAA) production to particulate organic carbon (POC) production was not significantly different from the relative proportions of PPAA and POC in the particulate organic matter. Comparisons between estimated production and observed concentration changes indicated residence times of POC and PPAA were similar (10 - 20 days). Thus with respect to POC and PPAA, particulate organic matter composition reflected the composition of organic matter being produced by photoautotrophs. During the bloom decline, the PPAA/POC production ratio, a reflection of the activities of the metabolically active algal population, was significantly less than the PPAA/POC ratio of the particulate organic matter. This discrepancy can be attributed either to increased turnover of protein associated with the low inorganic nitrogen concentrations and in situ light intensities, or selective removal of PPAA carbon by secondary transformational processes.

Beschreibung: Financial support for this research was provided by the Coastal Research Center (25/67.10) through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, by the National Science Foundation (OCE-82-15854), and by the Education Department.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution December 1985

Beschreibung: Samples from time-series sediment traps deployed in three distinct oceanographic settings (North Pacific, Panama Basin, and Black Sea) provide strong evidence for rapid settling of marine particles by aggregates. Particle water column residence times were determined by measuring the time lag between the interception of a flux event in a shallow trap and the interception of the same event in a deeper trap at the same site. Effective sinking speeds were determined by dividing the vertical offset of the traps (meters) by the interception lag time (days). At station Papa in the North Pacific, all particles settle at 175 m day-1, regardless of their composition, indicating that all types of material may be settling in common packages. Evidence from the other two sites (Panama Basin and Black Sea) shows that particle transport may be vertical, lateral, or a combination of directions, with much of the Black Sea flux signal being dominated by lateral input. In order to ascertain whether marine snow aggregates represent viable transport packages, surveys were conducted of the abundance of these aggregates at several stations in the eastern North Atlantic and Panama Basin using a photographic technique. Marine snow aggregates were found in concentrations ranging from ~1 mm3 liter-1 to more than 500 mm3 liter-1. In open ocean environments, abundances are higher near the surface (production) and decline with depth (decomposition). However, in areas near sources of deep input of resuspended material, concentrations reach mid-water maxima, reflecting lateral transport. A model is proposed to relate the observed aggregate abundances, time series sediment flux and inferred circulation. In this model, depthwise variations in sediment flux and aggregate abundance result from suspension from the sea floor and lateral transport of suspended aggregates which were produced or modified on the sea floor. Temporal changes in sediment flux result from variations in the input of fast-sinking material which falls from the surface, intercepts the suspended aggregates, and transports them to the sea floor. A new combination sediment trap and camera system was built and deployed in the Panama Basin with the intent of measuring the flux of marine snow aggregates. This device consists of a cylindrical tube which is open at the top and sealed at the bottom by a clear plate. Material lying on the bottom plate is illuminated by strobe lights mounted in the wall of the cylinder and photographed by a camera which is positioned below the bottom plate. Flux is determined as the number of aggregates arriving during the time interval between photographic frames (# area-1 time-1). Results show that essentially all material arrives in the form of aggregates with minor contributions of fecal pellets and solitary particles. Sinking speeds (m day-1), calculated by dividing the flux of aggregates (# m-2 day-1) by their abundance (# m-3), indicate that the larger (4-5mm) aggregates are flocculent and sink slowly (~1m day-1) while the smaller aggregates (1-2.5mm) are more compact and sink more quickly (~36m day-1). These large, slow-sinking aggregates may have been re-suspended from the sediment water interface at nearby basin margins.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by ONR contract numbers N00014-82-C-0019 and N00014-85-C-0001, NSF grant numbers OCE-83-09024, OCE-84-17106, and DPP-85-01152 and the WHO1 education office.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1986

Beschreibung: A study of the remineralization of organic carbon was conducted in the organic-rich sediments of Buzzards Bay, MA. Major processes affecting the carbon chemistry in sediments are reflected by changes in the stable carbon isotope ratios of dissolved inorganic carbon (ΣCO2) in sediment pore water. Six cores were collected seasonally over a period of two years. The following species were measured in the pore waters: ΣCO2, δ13C-ΣCO2, PO4, ΣH2S, Alk, DOC, and Ca. Measurements of pore water collected seasonally show large gradients with depth, which are larger in summer than in winter. The δ13C (PDB) of ΣCO2 varies from 1.3 o/oo in the bottom water to approximately -10 o/oo at 30 cm. During all seasons, there was a trend towards more negative values with depth in the upper 8 cm due to the remineralization of organic matter. There was a trend toward more positive values below 8 cm, most likely due to biological irrigation of sediments with bottom water. Below 16-20 cm, a negative gradient was re-established which indicates a return to remineralization as the main process affecting pore water chemistry. Using the ΣCO2 depth profile, it was estimated that 67-85 gC/m2 are oxidized annually and 5 gC/m2-yr are buried. The amount of carbon oxidized represented remineralization occurring within the sediments. This estimate indicated that approximately 20% of the annual primary productivity reached the sediments. The calculated remineralization rates varied seasonally with the high of 7.5 x 10-9 mol/L-sec observed in August 84 and the low (0.6 x 10-9) in December 83. The calculated remineralization rates were dependent on the amount of irrigation in the sediments; if the irrigation parameter is known to ±20%, then the remineralization rates are known to this certainty also. The amount of irrigation in the sediments was estimated using the results of a seasonal study of 222Rn/22R6a disequilibria at the same study site (Martin, 1985). Estimates of the annual remineralization in the sediments using solid-phase data indicated that the solid-phase profiles were not at steady-state concentrations. The isotopic signature of ΣCO2 was used as an indicator of the processes affecting ΣCO2 in pore water. During every month, the oxidation of organic carbon to CO2 provided over half of the carbon added to the ΣCO2 pool. However, in every month, the δ13C of ΣCO2 added to the pore water in the surface sediments was greater than -15 o/oo, significantly greater than the δ13C of solid-phase organic carbon in the sediments (-20.6 o/oo). The δ13C of ΣCO2 added to the pore water in the sediments deeper than 7 cm was between -20 and -21 o/oo, similar to the organic carbon in the sediments. Possible explanations of the 13C-enrichment observed in the surface sediments were: a) significant dissolution of CaC0, (δ13C = + 1.7 o/oo), b) the addition of significant amounts of carbonate ion from bottom water to pore water, c) an isotopic difference between the carbon oxidized in the sediments and that remaining in the sediments. The effect of CaCO3 dissolution was quantified using measured dissolved Ca profiles and was not large enough to explain the observed isotopic enrichment. An additional source of 13C-enriched carbon was bottom water carbonate ion. In every month studied, there was a net flux of ΣCO2 from pore water to bottom water. The flux of pore water ΣCO2 to bottom water ranged from a minimum of 10 x 10-12 mol/cm2-sec in December 83 to a maximum of 50 x 10-12 mol/cm2-sec in August 84. However, because the pH of bottom water was about 8 while that of the pore water was less than or equal to 7, the relative proportion of the different species of inorganic carbon (H2CO*3, HCO-3, CO2-3 was very different in bottom water and pore water. Thus, while there was a net flux of ΣCO2 from pore water to bottom water, there was a flux of carbonate ion from bottom water to pore water. Because bottom water ΣCO2 was more 13C-enriched than pore water ΣCO2, the transfer of bottom water carbonate ion to pore water was a source of 13C-enriched carbon to the pore water. If the δ13C of CO2 added to the pore water from the oxidation of organic carbon was -20.6 o/oo, then the flux of Co2-3 from bottom water to pore water must have been 10-30% of the total flux of ΣCO2 from pore water to bottom water. This is consistent with the amount calculated from the observed gradient in carbonate ion. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine whether the δ13C of CO2 produced from the oxidation of organic carbon (δ13C-OCox) was different from the δ13C of organic carbon in the sediments (δ13C-SOC). In the laboratory experiments, mud from the sampling site was incubated at a constant temperature. Three depths were studied (0-3, 10-15, and 20-25 cm). For the first study (IE1), sediment was stirred to homogenize it before packing into centrifuge tubes for incubation. For the second study (IE2), sediment was introduced directly into glass incubation tubes by subcoring. The second procedure greatly reduced disturbance to the sediment. Rates of CO2 production were calculated from the concentrations of ΣCO2 measured over up to 46 days. In both studies, the values of Rc in the deeper intervals were about 10% of the surface values. This was consistent with the field results, although the rates decreased more rapidly in the field. In all cases, the remineralization rates during the beginning of IE1 were much greater than those at the beginning of IE2. The sediment for IE1 was collected in February 84. The measured value of Rc in the surface sediment of the laboratory experiment (24 x 10-9 mol/L-sec) was much greater than the value of Rc observed in the field in another winter month, December 83 (.62 x 10-9). The sediment for IE2 was collected in August 85. The measured values of Rc in the surface sediment (6.6-12 x 10-9 mol/L-sec) were consistent with the field values from August 84 (7.5 x 10-9). The ΣCO2 results indicated that IE2 reproduced field conditions more accurately than IE1 did. The isotopic results from the experiments strongly suggested that δ13C-OCox in the surface sediments (-17.8 o/oo ± 1.9 o/oo) was greater than δ13C-SOC (-20.6 ± 0.2 o/oo). The magnitude of the observed fractionation was small enough that the observed values of δ13C-ΣCO2 in the pore waters could be explained by fractionated oxidation coupled with the diffusion of carbonate ion from bottom water to pore water. The observed fractionation was most likely due to the multiple sources of organic carbon to coastal sediments. A study of the natural levels of radiocarbon In these sediments indicated that the carbon preserved in the sediments is approximately 30% terrestrial while the rest is from phytoplankton.

Beschreibung: Financial support was provided by the Education Office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program In Oceanography, by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to the Coastal Research Center, WHOI, and by the National Science foundation under grant NSF OCE83-15412.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 1991

Beschreibung: The effluent from a collection of diffuse hydrothennal vents was modelled to determine the fate of this source of flow under typical environmental conditions at seafloor spreading centers. A laboratory simulation was conducted to test an analytic model of diffuse plume rise. The results showed that diffuse plumes are likely to remain near the seafloor, with their maximum rise height scaled with the diameter of the source of diffuse flow. The entrainment of ambient seawater into these plumes is limited by the proximity to the seafloor, thus slowing the rate of dilution. The model of diffuse plume behaviour was used to guide the design and implementation of a scheme for monitoring the flow from diffuse hydrothermal vents in the ocean. A deployment of an array at the Southern Juan de Fuca Ridge yielded measurements of a variety of diffuse plume properties, including total heat output. Two distinct sources of hydrothermal flow were detected during the field deployment. The larger source was 1-1 .5km north of the instrument array. and its energy output was 450±270MW. A smaller source was located 100m east of one instrument in the array. The energy output of this source was 12±8MW. The rise heights of the centerlines of these plumes were 45m and 10m, respectively.

Beschreibung: Supported by the WHOI Friends of Vents, with a grant from the Mellon Foundation, by the WHOI ScaGrant (NA86-AA-D-SG090, WHOI project number R10-11-PD), and by the National Science Foundation (OCE-8917448).

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2010

Beschreibung: In the present work, we study the statistics of wavefields obtained from non-linear phase-resolved simulations. The numerical model used to generate the waves models wave-wave interactions based on the fully non-linear Zakharov equations. We vary the simulated wavefield's input spectral properties: directional spreading function, Phillips parameter and peak shape parameter. We then investigate the relationships between a wavefield's input spectral properties and its output physical properties via statistical analysis. We investigate surface elevation distribution, wave definition methods in a nonlinear wavefield with a two-dimensional wavenumber, defined waves' distributions, and the occurrence and spacing of large wave events.

Beschreibung: This project was supported by the US Office of Naval Research and the Joint Program between MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution April 1975

Beschreibung: The influence of natural short-term fluctuations in environmental parameters on three components of transient benthic invertebrate community structure: abundance of individuals and species, biomass of individuals, and species diversity, were investigated in this study. The effect of low dissolved-oxygen on transient benthic community structure was studied with samples from Golfo Dulce, an intermittently anoxic basin off the west coast of Costa Rica and the Posa de Cariaco, an anoxoic trench off the north coast of Venezuela. Periodic fluctuations in oxygen concentration were accompanied by a community numerically dominated by a single polychaete species and low species diversity. As the frequency of fluctuations in oxygen concentration decreased, the number of species and individuals in the community increased with a corresponding increase in species diversity. In contrast to fluctuating oxygen conditions which eliminated many species from the community, fluctuating amounts of suspended matter in the bottom water allowed one species to proliferate while maintaining the total species list length. High rates of terrigenious sedimentation occurring naturally off the Spanish Sahara coast produced conditions which apparently hampered the feeding mechanisms of a spionid polychaete. Further offshore, where the diversity should be expected to increase, the spionids were able to flourish. The result was greater numerical abundance and biomass offshore and a lower transient diversity value. Results of simulation of catastophic burial by in situ burial of small isolated portions of Buzzards Bay sediment indicated that sedimentation rates recorded off Spanish Sahara would not eliminate species by burial. However, the small size of the organisms found off Spanish Sahara is probably a result of the constant expenditure of energy for escape. In regions of fluctuating environmental conditions, diversity values are low, principally because of dominance by a single species. Increasingly stable conditions, even though stressful, result in a more even distribution of individuals among the species present and a correspondingly high transient value.

Beschreibung: This work was funded by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Predoctoral Fellowship, N.S.F. Grant GA-3655l, and N.S.F. Grant GA-33502.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2009

Beschreibung: Interaction between the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the continental slope/shelf in the Marguerite Bay and west Antarctic Peninsula is examined as interaction between a wind-driven channel flow and a zonally uniform slope with a bay-shaped shelf to the south. Two control mechanisms, eddy advection and propagation of topographic waves, are identified in barotropic vortex-escarpment interactions. The two mechanisms advect the potential vorticity (PV) perturbations in opposite directions in anticyclone-induced interactions but in the same direction in cyclone-induced interactions, resulting in dramatic differences in the two kinds of interactions. The topographic waves become more nonlinear near the western(eastern if in the Northern Hemisphere) boundary of the bay, where strong cross-escarpment motion occurs. In the interaction between a surface anticyclone and a slope penetrating into the upper layer in a two-layer isopycnal model, the eddy advection decays on length scales on the order of the internal deformation radius, so shoreward over a slope that is wider than the deformation radius, the wave mechanism becomes noticeably significant. It acts to spread the cross-isobath transport in a much wider range while the transport directly driven by the anticyclone is concentrated in space. A two-layer wind-driven channel flow is constructed to the north of the slope in the Southern Hemisphere, spontaneously generating eddies through baroclinic instability. A PV front forms in the first layer shoreward of the base of the topography due to the lower-layer eddy-slope interactions. Perturbed by the jet in the center of the channel, the front interacts with the slope/shelf persistently yet episodically, driving a clockwise mean circulation within the bay as well as crossisobath transport. Both the transports across the slope edge and out of the bay are comparable with the maximum Ekman transport in the channel, indicative of the significance of the examined mechanism. The wave-boundary interaction identified in the barotropic model is found essential for the out-of-bay transport and responsible for the heterogeneity of the transport within the bay. Much more water is transported out of the bay from the west than from the east, and the southeastern area is the most isolated region. These results suggest that strong out-of-bay transport may be found near the western boundary of the Marguerite Bay while the southeastern region is a retention area where high population of Antarctic krill may be found.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 1984

Beschreibung: The distribution and feeding behavior of bacterivorous micro flagellates (2-20 μm protozoa) and their ingestion by copepods were examined in an attempt to assess the importance of these protozoa as a trophic link between planktonic bacteria and zooplankton. The abundance of microflagellates relative to other picoplankton (0.2-2.0 μm) and nanoplankton (2-20 μm) populations in water samples in the North Atlantic and in Lake Ontario and on macroaggregates in the North Atlantic was determined using direct microscopical and culture estimation techniques. Seasonal, vertical and geographical changes in the density of microflagellates were generally not greater than one order of magnitude. Microscopical counts of heterotrophic nanoplankton (presumably microflagellates) typically ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand m1-1 for a variety of planktonic environments. They constituted approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the nanoplankton in the euphotic zone and dominated the nanoplankton in the aphotic zone. Most Probable Number (MPN) estimation of the density of bacterivorous protozoa indicated that microflagellates were, on average, an order of magnitude more abundant than bacterivorous ciliates and amoebae. MPN and direct microscopical counts of microflagellates differed by as much as 104. This discrepancy was smaller in eutrophic environments (e.g. Continental Shelf and Lake Ontario) and on macroscopic detrital aggregates. All microbial populations enumerated were highly concentrated on macroscopic detrital aggregates relative to their abundance in the water surrounding the aggregates. Enrichment factors (the ratio of abundance of a population on a macroaggregate to its abundance in the surrounding water) increased along a eutrophic-to-oligotrophic gradient because of the combined effects of an increased abundance of microorganisms on macroaggregates in oligotrophic environments and a decreased abundance in the surrounding water in these same environments. Average enrichment factors for direct microscopical counts of heterotrophic nanoplankton (range = 17-114) were not as large as enrichment factors observed for MPN estimates of the number of bacterivorous microflagellates (range = 273-18400). Microflagellates numerically dominated the bacterivorous protozoa cultured from macroaggregates by one to two orders of magnitude, but ciliates and amoebae were also highly enriched on macroaggregates. Microenvironments are therefore a potentially important aspect for the ecology of planktonic microorganisms. Observations on the microbial colonization of mucus sloughed by ctenophores and discarded appendicularian houses suggest that these materials may be important sources of macroaggregates. Batch and continuous culture experiments were conducted with clonal cultures of microflagellates to test their ability to grow on various types and densities of bacteria. The doubling time of Monas sp. 1 ranged from 43 hr (when fed the cyanobacterium Synechococcus Strain WH 8101) to 6.9 hr (when fed the heterotrophic bacterium Serratia marinorubra). Cell yields (i.e. the conversion of bacterial biomass into protozoan biomass) of Monas sp. 1 fed two species of heterotrophic bacteria were greater than yields for the microflagellate fed two species chroococcoid cyanobacteria (range = 7-68%). Cell yields of two other species of microflagellates (Monas sp. 2 and Cryptobia maris) were 48% and 61%, respectively, on the bacterium Pseudomonas halodurans. Microflagellates grew in continuous culture at concentrations of bacteria which were lower than bacterial densities required for the growth of ciliates as shown by other investigations. Therefore, microflagellates appear to be well-adapted for grazing bacterioplankton. Microflagellates were also investigated for their ability to graze bacteria attached to particles. Bodo nanorensis and Rhynchomonas nasuta both showed a marked ability to graze attached bacteria and a limited ability to graze unattached cells. These results suggest that microflagellates may also be important consumers of bacteria attached to particles in the plankton and may explain the highly elevated densities of microflagellates on macroaggregates. Grazing experiments performed with the copepod Acartia tonsa indicated that heterotrophic microflagellates were ingested by the copepods at rates comparable to the ingestion of phytoplankton of similar size. The presence of heterotrophic microflagellates did not depress filtration rates of the copepods, and one species (Cryptobia maris) appeared to be selectively grazed. Survival of A. tonsa on a diet of heterotrophic microflagellates was similar to survival on a diet of phytoplankton and was significantly longer than survival of starved Controls or copepods fed only bacteria. Due to their ability to grow at in-situ densities of planktonic bacteria, their relatively high cell yields, and their acceptability as food for zooplankton, it is concluded that bacterivorous microflagellates may constitute an important trophic link between bacteria and zooplankton. This link may provide a mechanism whereby organic material and energy from the detrital food chain can be returned to the classical phytoplankton-copepod-fish food chain.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by National Science Foundation grants OCE80-2444l and OCE82-l4928 and Ocean Industry Program grant 4473 awarded to Dr. Laurence P. Madin, NSF Doctoral Dissertation grant OCE8l-l299l, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Education Program and the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution Biology Department.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2009

Beschreibung: Halogenated 1’-methyl-1,2’-bipyrroles (MBPs) are a distinctive class of marine organic compounds. They are naturally produced, they have a unique carbon structure, they are highly halogenated, and they bioaccumulate in upper trophic levels. MBPs share many characteristics with persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and may prove to be useful natural analogues for these anthropogenic compounds. Further, their unique structure suggests that their biosynthetic organism(s) may have new genes to add to current knowledge of biosynthetic chemistry. The objectives of this dissertation were to further clarify the environmental distribution of MBPs, to examine whether MBPs biomagnify, and to investigate possible origins of these compounds through their stable nitrogen isotopic signatures. Results from these investigations have shown that over 40 highly brominated MBP congeners are present in marine mammals, fish, and squid from the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean. The most abundant MBPs do appear to biomagnify through the food web to reach the concentrations observed in marine mammals. This additional evidence affords greater confidence in the use of MBPs as natural analogues for POPs. However, differences in the environmental chemistry of MBPs and anthropogenic compounds are also evident, and may be due to these compounds’ different origins, or to the capacity of degradative enzymes to act upon them. Finally, compound-specific nitrogen isotope analyses on MBPs isolated from dolphin blubber show that these compounds are dramatically enriched in 15N relative to other biosynthetic organic compounds. This enrichment is likely a signal imparted during biosynthesis, and may assist in elucidating the organism(s) and mechanism(s) responsible for the biosynthesis of MBPs.

Beschreibung: This dissertation was made possible with funding provided by the National Science Foundation, through their Graduate Research Fellowship Program and OCE grant number 0550486 (PI: Dr. Christopher M. Reddy), and by The Seaver Institute, the J. Seward Johnson Fund, the Virginia Walker Smith Fund, and the WHOI Ocean Ventures Fund.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution January 1984

Beschreibung: Proximate analysis was carried out on developing Homarus americanus Milne Edwards larvae and eggs. Lipids were further analyzed for class and fatty acid composition. During embryogenesis, triacylglycerol supplied most of the energy and the fatty acid 20:5 was selectively utilized. Absence of prolonged cold incubation temperatures resulted in increased yolk reserves in newly hatched larvae. Weight, ash, protein, carbohydrate and lipid varied in association with the larval molt cycle. Scant metabolic reserves were accumulated in premetamorphic larvae while large triacylglycerol reserves were stored in postmetamorphic (fourth stage) animals. Absolute levels of metabolic reserves limited the extent of their utilization. Triacylglycerol was the preferred (first used) energy substrate but was usually limited in amount; hence protein was the major source of metabolic energy during starvation in premetamorphic larvae. Dietary intake of carbohydrate and possibly protein based gluconeogenesis were responsible for most chitin synthesis as established carbohydrate reserves were not sufficient. Triacylglycerol served mainly as an energy storage form. P. choline appeared to exist in two metabolic pools; one of which could be catabolized without concomitant tissue loss. P. ethanolamine and sterols were primarily associated with cellular membranes. During tissue catabolism (starvation), P. ethanolamine was catabolized but sterol was conserved. On average, P. ethanolamine fatty acids were the most unsaturated, followed by the fatty acids of P. choline and then triacylglycerol. The type of fatty acid may influence food consumption and rates of absorption. Compared to a diet containing 16:0, one containing 20:5 was related to greater consumption and faster lipid absorption. The fatty acid pattern of the larvae was heavily influenced by diet. The fatty acids 16:0, 18:0, 20:4, 20:5, and 22:6 were conserved under starvation. Conservation of the saturated fatty acids was probably related to control of cellular membrane fluidity. 16:0 and 18:0 were probably used to compensate for the increased membrane unsaturation from the conserved, potentially essential 20:4, 20:5, and 22:6 fatty acids.

Beschreibung: This research was supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography, the WHOI Ocean Industry Program, the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management under Contract No. AA551-CT9-5 and the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Sea Grant under Grant No. NA80-AA-D-00077 (R/P-5 and R/P-11).

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1984

Beschreibung: This thesis addresses several aspects of the problem of determining the effect of the low-frequency eddy variability on the mean circulation of the Western North Atlantic. A framework for this study is first established by scale analysis of the eddy and mean terms in the mean momentum, vorticity, and heat balances in three regions of the Western North Atlantic -- the northern recirculation, the southern recirculation, and the mid-ocean. The data from the last decade of field experiments suggest somewhat different conclusions from the earlier analysis of Harrison (1980). In the momentum balance we confirm that the eddy terms are negligible compared to the lowest order mean geostrophic balance. The eddy term may be an 0(1) term in the vorticity balance only in the northern recirculation region where the mean flow is anisotropic. In the mean heat balance, if the mean temperature advection is scaled using the thermal wind relation, then the eddy heat flux is negligible in the mid-ocean, but it may be important in the recirculation areas. For all the balances the eddy terms are comparable to or an order of magnitude larger than the mean advective terms. We conclude from the scale analysis that the eddy field is most likely to be important in the Gulf Stream recirculation region. These balances are subsequently examined in more detail using data from the Local Dynamics Experiment (LDE). Several inconsistencies are first shown in McWilliams' (1983) model for the mean dynamical balances in the LDE. The sampling uncertainties do not allow us to draw conclusions about the long-term dynamical balances. However, it is shown that if we assume that the linear vorticity balance holds between the surface and the thermocline for a finite record, then the vertical velocity induced by the eddy heat flux divergence is non-zero. The local effect of the mesoscale eddy field on the mean potential vorticity distribution of the Gulf Stream recirculation region is determined from the quasigeostrophic eddy potential vorticity flux. This flux is calculated by finite difference of current and temperature time series from the Local Dynamics Experiment. This long-term array of moorings is the only experimental data from which the complete eddy flux can be calculated. The total eddy flux is dominated by the term due to the time variation in the thickness of isopycnal layers. This thickness flux is an order of magnitude larger than the relative vorticity flux. The total flux is statistically significant and directed 217° T to the southwest with a magnitude of 1.57 x 10 -5 cm/2s. The direction of the eddy flux with respect to the mean large scale potential vorticity gradient from hydrographic data indicates that eddies in this region tend to reduce the mean potential vorticity gradient. The results are qualitatively consistent with numerical model results and with other data from the Gulf Stream recirculation region. We find that the strength of the eddy transfer in the enstrophy cascade is comparable to the source terms in the mean enstrophy balance. The Austauch coefficient for potential vorticity mixing is estimated to be 0(107cm2/sec). An order of magnitude estimate of the enstrophy dissipation due only to the internal wave field shows that other processes must be important in enstrophy dissipation. The measured eddy potential vorticity fluxes are compared to the linear stability model of Gill, Green, and Simmons (1974). An earlier study (Hogg, 1984) has shown agreement between the empirical orthogonal modes of the data and the predicted wavenumbers, growth rates, and phase speeds of the most unstable waves. However, we show substantial disagreement in a comparison of the higher moments the eddy heat and potential vorticity fluxes. Because the critical layer of the model is located near the surface, the model predicts that most of the eddy potential vorticity and eddy heat flux should occur within about 300 meters of the surface. The data show much greater deep eddy heat flux than predicted by the model. It is suggested that the unstable modes in the ocean have a longer vertical scale because of the reduction in the buoyancy frequency near the surface. The evidence for in situ instability is also examined in the decay region of the Gulf Stream from an array of current and temperature recorders. Although there is vertical phase propagation in the empirical orthogonal modes for some of the variables at some of the moorings, there is not much evidence for a strong ongoing process of wave generation.

Beschreibung: This research has been conducted under NSF contract numbers OCE 77-19403, ATM 79-21431, and OCE 82-00154.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution August 1987

Beschreibung: Several problems connected by the theme of thermal forcing are addressed herein. The main topic is the stratification and flow field resulting from imposing a specified heat flux on a fluid that is otherwise confined to a rigid insulating basin. In addition to the traditional eddy viscosity and diffusivity, turbulent processes are also included by a convective overturning adjustment at locations where the local density field is unstable. Two classes of problems are treated. The first is the large scale meridional pattern of a fluid in an annulus. The detailed treatment is carried out in two steps. In the beginning (chapter 2) it is assumed that the fluid is very diffusive, hence, to first approximation no flow field is present. It is found that the convective overturning adjustment changes the character of the stratification in all the regions that are cooled from the top, resulting in a temperature field that is nearly depth independent in the northernmost latitudes. The response to a seasonal cycle in the forcing, and the differences between averaging the results from the end of each season compared to driving the fluid by a mean forcing are analyzed. In particular, the resulting sea surface temperature is warmer in the former procedure. This observation is important in models where the heat flux is sensitive to the gradient of air to sea surface temperatures. The analysis of the problem continues in chapter 5 where the contribution of the flow field is included in the same configuration. The dimensionless parameter controlling the circulation is now the Rayleigh number, which is a measure of the relative importance of gravitational and viscous forces. The effects of the convective overturning adjustment is investigated at different Rayleigh numbers. It is shown that not only is the stratification now always stable, but also that the vigorous vertical mixing reduces the effective Rayleigh number; thereby the flow field is more moderate, the thermocline deepens, and the horizontal surface temperature gradients are weaker. The interior of the fluid is colder compared to cases without convective overturning, and, because the amount of heat in the system is assumed to be fixed, the surface temperature is warmer. The fluid is not only forced by a mean heat flux, or a seasonally varying one, but its behavior under permanent winter and summer conditions is also investigated. A steady state for the experiments where the net heat flux does not vanish is defined as that state where the flow field and temperature structure are not changing with time except for an almost uniform temperature decrease or increase everywhere. It is found that when winter conditions prevail the circulation is very strong, while it is rather weak for continuous summer forcing. In contrast to those results, if a yearly cycle is imposed, the circulation tends to reach a minimum in the winter time and a maximum in the summer. This suggests that, depending on the Rayleigh number, there is a phase leg of several months between the response of the ocean and the imposed forcing. Differences between the two averaging procedures mentioned before are also observed when the flow field is present, especially for large Rayleigh numbers. The circulation is found to be weaker and the sea surface temperature colder in the mean of the seasonal realizations compared to the steady state derived by the mean forcing. As an extension to the numerical results, an analytic model is presented in chapter 4 for a similar annular configuration. The assumed dynamics is a bit different, with a mixed layer on top of a potential vorticity conserving interior. It is demonstrated that the addition of the thermal wind balance to the conservation of potential vorticity in the axially symmetric problem leads to the result that typical fluid trajectories in the interior are straight lines pointing downward going north to south. The passage of information in the system is surprisingly in the opposite sense to the clockwise direction of the flow. A model for water mass formation by buoyancy loss in the absence of a flow field is introduced in chapter 3. The idea behind it is to use the turbulent mixing parameterization to generate chimney-like structures in open water, followed by along-isopycnal advection and diffusion. This model can be applied to many observations of mode water. In particular, in this work it is related to the chimneys observed by the MEDOC Group (1970), and the Levantine Intermediate Water in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin. An analytic prediction of the depth of the water mass is derived and depends on the forcing and initial stratification. It suggests that the depth of shallow mode water like the 18°C water or the Levantine Intermediate Water would not be very sensitive to reasonable changes in atmospheric forcing. Similar conclusions were also reached by Warren (1972) by assuming that the temperature in the thermocline decreases linearly with depth, and by approximating the energy balance in a water column by a Newtonian cooling law.

Beschreibung: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution October 1985

Beschreibung: The outer continental margin of Nova Scotia is divided by a diapir province, 40-110 km wide and ~1000km long, that trends subparallel to the shelf edge along the upper continental rise and slope. The growth pattern for a small region of this margin (61°-64°W) during the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic was studied using seismic stratigraphy and well data. Structure maps show that a steep continental slope existed landward of the diapir province (~2200-3800 m water depth) from Early Cretaceous until Miocene time when onlapping upper rise sediments reduced the gradient. Shelf edge canyons were cut during the late Maestrichtian-early Paleocene, Eocene-Oligocene, and Pleistocene. Extensions of Tertiary canyons onto the slope are poorly defined, but small Paleocene fans of interbedded chalk and mudstone on the upper rise indicate that slope canyons existed at that time. Abyssal currents eroded the upper rise and smoothed relief on the continental slope in the Oligocene and middle(?) Miocene. In the Miocene, turbidites may have ponded on the upper rise landward of seafloor highs uplifted by salt ridges or pillows. Pliocene-Pleistocene sediments drape over pre-existing topography. At the beginning and end of the Pleistocene, turbidity currents, caused by delivery of large sediment loads to the shelf edge by glaciers, eroded the present canyon morphology. The late Cenozoic section of the lower continental rise thins seaward from ~2 km near the diapir province and rests on Horizon Au, a prominent unconformity eroded during the Oligocene by abyssal currents. The morphology of the lower rise is largely due to construction by down-slope deposits shed in the Miocene-Pliocene from uplift of the diapir province. Abyssal currents episodically eroded sediment, but current controlled deposition formed only a thin (〈300 m) deposit in the Pliocene(?). Uplift in the diapir province accelerated during the Pleistocene and olistostromes up to 300 m thick were shed onto the lower rise. In the latest Pleistocene, sediments transported down-slope by near-bottom processes accumulated west of a sharp boundary running near 62°30'W from 500 m seaward to the abyssal plain. To the east, hemipelagic sediments accumulated above 4300 m, while turbidity currents, originating in deep canyons to the east, and abyssal currents reworked sediments below 4300 m. A glacial sediment source and relict shelf morphology controlled sedimentation processes and, thus, the location of depocenters on the slope and rise.