Redox condition during Ediacaran–Cambrian transition in the Lower Yangtze deep water basin,South China: constraints from iron speciation and δ~(13) Corg in the Diben section,Zhejiang

Cherts of the Piyuancun Formation and black mudstones of the Hetang Formation in Diben Town, Kaihua County, Zhejiang were deposited in a deep water basin of the Lower Yangtze area during the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition(E–C transition), offering an opportunity to reconstruct the ancient redox condition of the deep water basin. Total 53 samples were collected and analyzed for iron speciation, including pyrite iron(FePy), carbonate associated iron(FeCarb), iron oxide and hydroxide(FeOx),magnetite iron(FeMag) and total iron(FeT) as well as d13 Corgto gain a deeper understanding of specific redox condition during the period. The results show that(1) most samples have pyrite concentration \1 %, with the FePy/FeHR ratio ranging from \0.01 to 0.81(mostly \0.5), and the FeHR/FeT ratio between 0.39 and 0.93(mostly [0.5).(2) The E–C boundary in the Diben section occurred at the maximum negative excursion of organic carbon isotope within the Piyuancun Formation, which can be correlated with other sections by using d13 Corg. We thus concluded that the relatively high content of highly reactive iron and low content of pyrite iron in the Diben section indicate a minor occurrence of H2 S and a predominance of anoxic and ferruginous environment, which is similar to other reported sections such as the Longbizui and Yanwutan sections, western Hunan. In addition, oxygen concentration in sea water showed an increasing trend in the interval corresponding to the bottom and upper layer of the Hetang Formation as indicated by the FeHR/FeT ratio, which decreased from 0.7 to 0.38, however, it was not great enough to oxidize the whole deep water. Therefore, during the E–C transition deep water basin in South China was most likely an anoxic and ferruginous enrironment, which prevented metazoon from the evolution in the deep water basin. Our work offers an important reference to better understanding of the spatiotemporal occurrence and dynamic processes of the ‘‘Cambrian Explosion'.     

Re-Os isotopic composition of the Dongling ⅢCD iron meteorite

Re, Os concentrations and Os isotopic compositions of the Dongling ⅢCD iron meteorite were determined by N-TIMS technique. The result was compared with that of the other irons and chondrites. The Re and Os concentrations of the Dongling iron meteorite were plotted on the trends of the group ⅢA and ⅣA irons. The Pt-Os relation of the Dongling iron meteorite is similar to that of the group ⅡA irons. That suggests a higher fractionation for the Dongling iron meteorite.     

Identifying the northernmost summer monsoon location in East Asia

An integrated index which can be used to indicate the advance of subtropical summer monsoon in East Asia has been proposed in this paper.The index was comhined by three variables including precipitation,wind and pseudo-equivalent potential tempera- ture.The northernmost summer monsoon location(NSML)was identified by using this index annually.It was found that the NSML ex- perienced an interdecadal shift in the period 1977—1979 based on the annual index analysis from 1961 to 2001.A comparison of the NSML with other four summer monsoon indices has also been made.The result showed that the NSML could well represent the interan- nual and interdecadal variability of summer monsoon precipitation in North China(beyond 35°N),while other four indices could well indi- cate the precipitation anomalies of East Asian summer monsoon along the Yangtze River valley(around 30°N).     

Pyritization in the Gaojiashan Biota

The Late Sinian (Ediacaran) Gaojiashan Biota was a soft-bodied fossil-Lagersttte dominated by sub-stantial pyritized, three-dimensionally preserved tubular and conotubular fossils. Soft-tissue pyritiza-tion is extremely scarce in the fossil records, especially in the Precambrian, therefore it has very im-portant and unique significance for the study of pyritization in the Gaojiashan Biota. Early pyritization played a pivotal role in the fossil preservation and two main factors ensured the successful pyritization of the fossils, namely rapid burial and permineralization. The former was controlled by secular storm deposition, and the latter was achieved by sufficient supply of available iron from sediments. SEM data of Conotubus demonstrate two types of preservation of the tubes (defined as type A and type B, re-spectively). In type A, pyritization took place relatively earlier and completely preserved both tube wall and coelom, but no detailed structure. While in type B, pyritization took place somewhat later and pre-served the integrated tube wall, but partially the coelom. The size frequency distribution of the pyrite framboids suggests that pyritization took place in two different environments with entire different oxygen content.     

Do multiple cycles of aeolian deposit-pedogenesis exist in the reticulate red clay sections in southern China？

The Xiangyang reticulate red clay section was newly sampled in high-resolution. The viewpoints different from the previous studies^[1-7] are put forward after studying Munsell color values, weathering degrees, magnetic parameters and stable carbon isotopic compositions of the section.They are as follows: (1) The curves of hue, DCB extracted iron (Fed), DCB extracted iron/total iron ratio (Fed/Fet),weathering index (BA) of the section show that the redness is not significantly correlated with the weathering degree of the layers though the uppermost yellow-brown-colored layer is relatively weakly weathered. The variation in hues of the section is possibly attributed to the change of hematite and goethite contents. It is insufficient to determine the existence of the multiple deposit-pedogenesis cycles in the section, like the Ioess-paleosol sequence in Chinese Loess Plateau, only by the color variation. (2) Magnetic susceptibility (X) values in the non-reticulate and weakly reticulate layers are high; but are quite low in the reticulate red clay layer. The former are more than ten times higher than the latter because of the leaching and collapse of superparamagnetic (SP) and stable single domain (SSD) magnetic particles during the plinthitic processes. Hence, X values in the section are not controlled by weathering and pedogenic processes, and no longer have clear paleoclimatic implication. It is not correct to prove the existence of the multiple deposit-pedogenesis cycles in the section using X curves. (3) The organic δ^13C curve of the section illustrates the reduction of forests and increasing of C4 plants in the study area since the late stage of the Quaternary period. It could not prove the existence of the multiple deposit-pedogenesis cycles in the section either. (4) As a matter of fact, it is difficult to prove the existence of the multiple deposit-pedogenesis cycles in the Xiangyang section like the Ioess-paleosol sequence in Chinese Loess Plateau using the evidence available currently.     

Erosion–corrosion behavior of austenitic cast iron in an acidic slurry medium

A series of austenitic cast iron samples with different compositions were cast and a part of nickel in the samples was replaced by manganese for economic reason. Erosion–corrosion tests were conducted under 2wt% sulfuric acid and 15wt% quartz sand. The results show that the matrix of cast irons remains austenite after a portion of nickel is replaced with manganese.(Fe,Cr)3C is a common phase in the cast irons, and nickel is the main alloying element in high-nickel cast iron; whereas,(Fe,Mn)3C is observed with the increased manganese content in low-nickel cast iron. Under erosion–corrosion tests, the weight-loss rates of the cast irons increase with increasing time. Wear plays a more important role than corrosion in determining the weight loss. It is indicated that the processes of weight loss for the cast irons with high and low nickel contents are different. The erosion resistance of the cast iron containing 7.29wt% nickel and 6.94wt% manganese is equivalent to that of the cast iron containing 13.29wt% nickel.     

The occurrence of the genus Marrella(Trilobitoidea) in Asia

An important discovery in the Kaili Biota has been made recently, and many interesting components from ChengjiangBiota and Burgess Shale Biota have been discovered. Among them Marrella, only known from mid-Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale Biotaof British Columbia, Canada, is one of the most important arthropods fossils. Because the Kaili Biota is older than the Burgess Shale Biota,the strange head shield of Marrella occurring in the Kaili Biota outside Laurentia ranges from mid-Middle Cambrian to early Middle Cam-brian and is significant for the reconstruction of palaeogeography and evolutionary study of early metazoa. In the present paper Marrellasp. is reported for the first time in Asia.     

Great progress in study on aerosol and its impact on the global environment

The transport from atmosphere is a more important pathway than that from rivers for certain elements and compounds in the remote ocean. The desert and those arid/semi-arid areas in the northwest of China and the Loess Plateau are the sources of those aerosols over the Pacific. Atmospheric iron is the limiting factor of the productivity in certain ocean regions. The dust storms must now be seen as repeated sources of pollution elements as well as soil elements to the East China Sea and, farther out, to the North Pacific Ocean and even to the USA. The long-range transport of aerosols, especially the dust storm, from China and the positive feedbacks of iron coupled with sulfur in atmosphere might be one of the important mechanisms that would affect the primary productivity in the Pacific and/or the global climate change and deserve to be further studied. It can be seen clearly that the dust storms would affect not only the health of human beings and the local or regional climate, but also the global climate change that has been the focus of environmental study internationally.     

A novel process for the recovery of iron,titanium, and vanadium from vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite:sodium modification-direct reduction coupled process

A sodium modification-direct reduction coupled process was proposed for the simultaneous extraction of V and Fe from vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite. The sodium oxidation of vanadium oxides to water-soluble sodium vanadate and the transformation of iron oxides to metallic iron were accomplished in a single-step high-temperature process. The increase in roasting temperature favors the reduction of iron oxides but disfavors the oxidation of vanadium oxides. The recoveries of vanadium, iron, and titanium reached 84.52%, 89.37%, and 95.59%, respectively. Moreover, the acid decomposition efficiency of titanium slag reached 96.45%. Compared with traditional processes, the novel process provides several advantages, including a shorter flow, a lower energy consumption, and a higher utilization efficiency of vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite resources.     

Mssbauer Studies of the Atomic Short-Range Order (SRO) and the Electron Transfer in Amorphous TM-M Alloys

The Mossbauer spectra of amorphous alloys Fe_(80)B_(20)-_xM_x (M=P, C, Si, Ge) at room temperature and at 4.2 K have been measured. It is found that the mean values of the hyperfine field and the isomer shift vary linearly when M substitutes for B. According to these results and those of their crystalline counterparts, it is shown that there does not exist a microcrystalline short-range order in the amorphous alloys investigated and that thc 4s electrons of iron take part in lhe charge transfer.     

Coupling and feedback between iron and sulphur in air-sea exchange

Iron in surface seawater has been demonstrated to be the limiting nutrient factor for primary productivity in certain oceanic regions where other major nutrients are abundant[1—5]. The available Fe to the phytoplankton in seawater is related to the uptake of carbon dioxide through the ocean and, in turn, to the global greenhouse effect[6—11]. Recent reports showed that the available Fe in the seawater is closely correlative to nitrogen fixation in the ocean[12—17]. Understanding which Fe s…     

Evidence against dust-mediated control of glacial-interglacial changes in atmospheric CO2

The low concentration of atmospheric CO2 inferred to have been present during glacial periods is thought to have been partly caused by an increased supply of iron-bearing dust to the ocean surface. This is supported by a recent model that attributes half of the CO2 reduction during past glacial stages to iron-stimulated uptake of CO2 by phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean. But atmospheric dust fluxes to the Southern Ocean, even in glacial periods, are thought to be relatively low and therefore it has been proposed that Southern Ocean productivity might be influenced by iron deposited elsewhere-for example, in the Northern Hemisphere-which is then transported south via ocean circulation (similar to the distal supply of iron to the equatorial Pacific Ocean). Here we examine the timing of dust fluxes to the North Atlantic Ocean, in relation to climate records from the Vostok ice core in Antarctica around the time of the penultimate deglaciation (about 130 kyr ago). Two main dust peaks occurred 155 kyr and 130 kyr ago, but neither was associated with the CO2 rise recorded in the Vostok ice core. This mismatch, together with the low dust flux supplied to the Southern Ocean, suggests that dust-mediated iron fertilization of the Southern Ocean did not significantly influence atmospheric CO2 at the termination of the penultimate glaciation.     

Signal propagations and linkages of subsurface temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean

The propagation characteristics of signals along different zonal-time profiles are analyzed using surface and subsurface temperature anomalies over the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans. Analyses show that there are intrinsic relationships between El Nio events in the eastern equatorial Pacific and dipole events in the equatorial Indian Ocean. In the region of tropical North Pacific between the equator and 16°N, there is a circle of propagation of subsurface temperature anomalies. El Nio events only happen when the warm subsurface signals reach the eastern equatorial Pacific. Dipole events are characterized when a warm subsurface signal travels along off-equatorial Indian Ocean to the western boundary. From these analyses, we believe that subsurface temperature anomalies can be considered to be the oceanographic early signal to forecast El Nio events in Pacific Ocean and dipole events in Indian Ocean, respectively.     

Spatial coupling of nitrogen inputs and losses in the ocean

Nitrogen fixation is crucial for maintaining biological productivity in the oceans, because it replaces the biologically available nitrogen that is lost through denitrification. But, owing to its temporal and spatial variability, the global distribution of marine nitrogen fixation is difficult to determine from direct shipboard measurements. This uncertainty limits our understanding of the factors that influence nitrogen fixation, which may include iron, nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratios, and physical conditions such as temperature. Here we determine nitrogen fixation rates in the world's oceans through their impact on nitrate and phosphate concentrations in surface waters, using an ocean circulation model. Our results indicate that nitrogen fixation rates are highest in the Pacific Ocean, where water column denitrification rates are high but the rate of atmospheric iron deposition is low. We conclude that oceanic nitrogen fixation is closely tied to the generation of nitrogen-deficient waters in denitrification zones, supporting the view that nitrogen fixation stabilizes the oceanic inventory of fixed nitrogen over time.     

Reduced nitrogen fixation in the glacial ocean inferred from changes in marine nitrogen and phosphorus inventories.

To explain the lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations during glacial periods, it has been suggested that the productivity of marine phytoplankton was stimulated by an increased flux of iron-bearing dust to the oceans. One component of this theory is that iron-an essential element/nutrient for nitrogen-fixing organisms-will increase the rate of marine nitrogen fixation, fuelling the growth of other marine phytoplankton and increasing CO2 uptake. Here we present data that questions this hypothesis. From a sediment core off the northwestern continental margin of Mexico, we show that denitrification and phosphorite formation-processes that occur in oxygen-deficient upwelling regions, removing respectively nitrogen and phosphorus from the ocean-declined in glacial periods, thus increasing marine inventories of nitrogen and phosphorus. But increases in phosphorus were smaller and less rapid, leading to increased N/P ratios in the oceans. Acknowledging that phytoplankton require nitrogen and phosphorus in constant proportions, the Redfield ratio, and that N/P ratios greater than the Redfield ratio are likely to suppress nitrogen fixation, we suggest therefore that marine productivity did not increase in glacial periods in response to either increased nutrient inventories or greater iron supply.     

Effect of iron supply on Southern Ocean CO2 uptake and implications for glacial atmospheric CO2

Photosynthesis by marine phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, and the associated uptake of carbon, is thought to be currently limited by the availability of iron. One implication of this limitation is that a larger iron supply to the region in glacial times could have stimulated algal photosynthesis, leading to lower concentrations of atmospheric CO2. Similarly, it has been proposed that artificial iron fertilization of the oceans might increase future carbon sequestration. Here we report data from a whole-ecosystem test of the iron-limitation hypothesis in the Southern Ocean, which show that surface uptake of atmospheric CO2 and uptake ratios of silica to carbon by phytoplankton were strongly influenced by nanomolar increases of iron concentration. We use these results to inform a model of global carbon and ocean nutrients, forced with atmospheric iron fluxes to the region derived from the Vostok ice-core dust record. During glacial periods, predicted magnitudes and timings of atmospheric CO2 changes match ice-core records well. At glacial terminations, the model suggests that forcing of Southern Ocean biota by iron caused the initial approximately 40 p.p.m. of glacial-interglacial CO2 change, but other mechanisms must have accounted for the remaining 40 p.p.m. increase. The experiment also confirms that modest sequestration of atmospheric CO2 by artificial additions of iron to the Southern Ocean is in principle possible, although the period and geographical extent over which sequestration would be effective remain poorly known.     

Dust storms and loess accumulation on the Tibetan Plateau：A case study of dust event on 4 March 2003 in Lhasa

Whether the Tibetan Plateau is a significant dust source area is of great importance, because this is related to the understanding of sources, accumulation and environmental effects of dusts on the Tibetan Plateau and inthe Far East-Pacific Ocean regions as well as to the evointion of coupling of the Tibetan Plateau and atmaspbere-oeean-continent exchange. Synoptic dynamics and remote sensing tracing of a dust storm on 3 to 5 March, 2003 in Lhasa onSouth Tibet demonstrate that the Tibetan Plateau possessesall factors and conditions of generating dust storms. Accompanied with this dust storm is a strong ascending stream onthe Plateau which has raised various sizes of durst particlesinto different levels. The lifted coarse particles were largelyfallen down and accumulated as loess on the eastern TibetanPlateau, and the fine particles were translated by the westerly jet and subsided in the northern Pacific Ocean. The spa-tial-temporal distribution of dust-storms between years 1961and 2000 ou the Plateau shows that duststorms mainly occurin winter and early spring with high frequency, and tile pathof dust storm moves gradually from south to north, which isclosely coupled with the northward moving of the westerlyjet from winter to spring over the Tibetan Plateau. Com-pared with other twelve dust source areas in China. the Ti-betan Plateau is one of the key dust souree areas for thelong-distance transport because its high occurring frequencyand elevation cause fine particles easily to be lifted into thezone of the westerly jet.     

Marine control of biological production in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean

The eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean is the site of approximately 20-50% of new biological production in the global oceans. This region is also responsible for the greatest efflux of CO2 from oceans to the atmosphere. New production, which fixes carbon in response to external inputs of nutrients as opposed to supply from local nutrient recycling, is thought to modulate the CO2 release. But what controls new production in this region is less clear. Here we present a quantitative reconstruction of biological production in the surface ocean for this region over the past 130,000 years, which shows that the equatorial Pacific Ocean exhibits higher-frequency variations than the South Equatorial Current. Comparison of these records with palaeotemperature reconstructions indicates that atmospherically driven mechanisms--such as aeolian flux of iron or wind-driven changes in upwelling rate of nutrient-rich waters--are unlikely to have influenced longer-term rates of production in this region. Instead, biological production appears to be governed by changes in ocean circulation and the chemical composition of upwelled water.     

Study and case simulation of a regional dust model coupled with a nonhydrostatic dynamics model

A new regional dust model suitable for simulation and forecasting of dust storms over northern China was described. The dust model was developed by coupling the mesoscale dynamics model MM5 (the Fifth-Generation NCAR/Penn State Mesoscale Model) with a set of mass conservation equations for the particles. The model includes all the atmospheric physical processes of dust storms including occurrence, lifting, transport, and dry and wet deposition. It considers the parameterization of dry and wet deposition, the dust size distribution and microphysical processes in detail. The dust flux from the surface is parameterized based on the friction velocity, which is provided by the mesoscale nonhydrostatic dynamics model, which takes account of the vegetation coverage, land use, soil category, and soil moisture. This new dust model is used to simulate the dust storm that occurred on 19--21 March, 2002 in North China. The results show that there is high dust concentration and its movement is consistent with the surface weather record and satellite monitoring images of the observed dust storm. The simulated dust concentration coincides with the observation data of the particulate concentration of PM10 (dust particles smallerthan 10 μm in diameter). The new numerical model also successfully simulates the formation and migration of the dust storm of 6-8 April, 2002 in North China.