Search results for "Thermocline"
showing 10 items of 24 documents
The response of calcareous nannoplankton to sea surface variability at Ceara Rise during the early Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles
2019
The Ceara Rise lies just beyond the edge of the Amazon River Fan and sediments from this site may record the complex interplay of different climatic systems and processes, including past changes in southern America monsoon activity, Intertropical Convergence Zone setting, different Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) strength and phytoplankton blooming triggered by Amazon River plumes. Here we investigate early Pleistocene calcareous nannoplankton at Ceara Rise, between about 1150 and 850 kiloyears ago. Our investigation shows abrupt variations in water column dynamics across glacial/interglacial cycles or, even better, linked with different AMOC modes. Dominant placoliths in…
A European Multi Lake Survey dataset of environmental variables, phytoplankton pigments and cyanotoxins
2018
Under ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic activity, which continuously challenge ecosystem resilience, an in-depth understanding of ecological processes is urgently needed. Lakes, as providers of numerous ecosystem services, face multiple stressors that threaten their functioning. Harmful cyanobacterial blooms are a persistent problem resulting from nutrient pollution and climate-change induced stressors, like poor transparency, increased water temperature and enhanced stratification. Consistency in data collection and analysis methods is necessary to achieve fully comparable datasets and for statistical validity, avoiding issues linked to disparate data sources. The Europea…
Copepod limnocalanus macrurus mating in relation to vertical migrations and aspects of feeding rates in the Bothnian Sea (Baltic Sea)
2006
The studies of calanoid copepod Limnocalanus macrurus feeding rates and mating related to vertical migration were conducted in October 2005 in the Bothnian Sea. The monocyclic copepod Limnocalanus macrurus develops mostly to adult and larger copepodites stages in autumn and these stages were investigated. Bothnian Sea is a brackish-water basin in Baltic Sea with comparatively big depth therefore Limnocalanus macrurus which prefer to live in deep and cold water is more abundant in this Baltic Sea part. Recent observations in the Bothnian Sea showed that Limnocalanus macrurus performs diel vertical migrations and adults approve stricter tendency to stay under thermocline layer at night than c…
Sclerochronological evidence of pronounced seasonality from the late Pliocene of the southern North Sea basin and its implications
2022
Oxygen isotope (δ18O) sclerochronology of benthic marine molluscs provides a means of reconstructing the seasonal range in seafloor temperature, subject to use of an appropriate equation relating shell δ18O to temperature and water δ18O, a reasonably accurate estimation of water δ18O, and due consideration of growth-rate effects. Taking these factors into account, δ18O data from late Pliocene bivalves of the southern North Sea basin (Belgium and the Netherlands) indicate a seasonal seafloor range a little smaller than now in the area. Microgrowth-increment data from Aequipecten opercularis, together with the species composition of the bivalve assemblage and aspects of preservation, suggest …
Man-made lakes in Mediterranean semi-arid climate: the strange case of Dr Deep Lake and Mr Shallow Lake
2003
The lack of any protection against eutrophication is progressively compromising the water quality of Sicilian reservoirs. These water bodies provide the population with an adequate supply of drinking water and support most of the irrigation requirements of local agriculture. Moreover, they respond to the Mediterranean climate, with sequential, seasonally predictable events of flooding and drying and whose intensity varies markedly between years. As a consequence of summer drought and the policy to meet water demand throughout the season, the reservoirs experience massive dewatering, resulting in a reduction in the spring storage volume of 90%. Thus, they start the hydrological season as wat…
Variability in the vertical structure of the water column and paleoproductivity reconstruction in the central-western Mediterranean during the Late P…
2008
Abstract A sedimentary sequence spanning Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 to MIS 2 in core LC07, recovered in the central Mediterranean, has been investigated in order to produce a high-resolution paleoceanographic reconstruction. The changes in productivity deduced from calcareous plankton relative abundances and independently confirmed by the Ba XS fluctuations are linked to the stability of the water column which is mainly controlled by the water mass temperature. During glacial intervals, productivity was generally enhanced. Oligotrophic and warmer water masses with a deepened seasonal thermocline can be inferred for most of MIS5. The magnetic properties of the sediment show increased occur…
Steady-state assemblages in a Mediterranean hypertrophic reservoir. The role of Microcystis ecomorphological variability in maintaining an apparent e…
2003
Lake Arancio is a hypertrophic Mediterranean man-made lake, located on the southern coast of Sicily. Its artificial origin and the climate make it a very dynamic environment, strongly characterised by very wide water-level fluctuations. These vertical water movements interfere with the thermal stability of the water body often causing the breaking of the thermocline in mid-summer. In addition, the summer level-decrease influences the nutrient dynamics and modifies the zmix/zeu ratio. All these modifications were observed to support a high environmental variability, which was reflected by the richness of its phytoplankton composition and by its dynamics. Nevertheless, an investigation carrie…
Holocene millennial-scale productivity variations in the Sicily Channel (Mediterranean Sea)
2008
[1] The calcareous nannofossil assemblages of Ocean Drilling Program Hole 963D from the central Mediterranean Sea have been investigated to document oceanographic changes in surface waters. The studied site is located in an area sensitive to large-scale atmospheric and climatic systems and to high- and low-latitude climate connection. It is characterized by a high sedimentation rate (the achieved mean sampling resolution is <70 years) that allowed the Sicily Channel environmental changes to be examined in great detail over the last 12 ka BP. We focused on the species Florisphaera profunda that lives in the lower photic zone. Its distribution pattern shows repeated abundance fluctuations of …
Pseudo-diel vertical migration in zooplankton: a whole-lake 15N tracer experiment
2012
Diel vertical migration (DVM) of zooplankton is commonly considered an adaptation for feeding in food-rich and warm surface waters at night and avoiding visual predators during the day. However, the critical assessment of migration patterns frequently suggests that: (i) zooplankton may leave deeper waters with rich, deepchlorophyll layers and move into the epilimnion where food resources are lower and/or (ii) the night-time increase in epilimnetic plankton abundance is not matched by a density decrease in deeper strata. To study these discrepancies, we measured DVM of zooplankton in a 1.3-ha Spanish karst lake (Laguna del Tejo) where the phytoplankton in the deep chlorophyll layer had been …
Stable isotope (δ18O and δ13C) sclerochronology of Callovian (Middle Jurassic) bivalves (Gryphaea (Bilobissa) dilobotes) and belemnites (Cylindroteut…
2014
Abstract Incremental δ 18 O and δ 13 C signals were obtained from three well-preserved specimens of Cylindroteuthis puzosiana and from three well-preserved specimens of Gryphaea ( Bilobissa ) dilobotes from the Peterborough Member of the Oxford Clay Formation (Cambridgeshire, England). Through-ontogeny (sclerochronological) δ 18 O data from G. ( B. ) dilobotes appear to faithfully record seasonal temperature variations in benthic Callovian waters of the study area, which range from c . 14 °C to c . 17 °C (arithmetic mean temperature c . 15 °C). Water depth is estimated to have been in the region of c . 50 m, based upon comparisons between these data, previously published non-incremental sea…