CORALBOT project: an initiative to monitor coral reefs

The CORALBOT project was developed in 2019, as part of the Instituto Hondureño de Ciencia, Tecnología y la Innovación (IHCIETI) applied research projects. Images show the robot's first immersion in Punta Sal, Tela, Honduras, the final robot prototype and site´s coral reefs. In the future, the robot may be used to study ecosystems along the Honduran coastal shelf, as proposed by Alegría & Pérez, (2016).

The catastrophic landslide on the Black Sea coast which destroyed the Roman town of Bisonе (south of Kavarna town)

In the second half of the Ist century BC seismogenic landslide/rockfall tore off the front part of the Chirakman Cape in the western part of the Kavarna Bay. The rich quarters of the Roman city of Bisone slid down into the sea. According to data from underwater archaeology artifacts and walls of the settlement are found up to 80 m inside the sea. The paper considers the tectonic conditions, the geological-geomorphological structure of the landslide, the paleogeography of the coastal shelf during the Holocene and the hydrogeological and engineering geological conditions in the area. A reconstruction of the coastline and sea-level position during the catastrophic landslide has been developed. Stability analyses have been performed too.

CHARACTERISING COASTAL SHELF WAVES ALONG THE NSW COAST

New South Wales (NSW) often experiences periods of coastal inundation and estuarine flooding. One of the causal mechanisms of these episodes are coastal shelf waves (CSW), generated by synoptic disturbances (Church et al., 2006). CSWs in Australia often result from wind stress, mostly along mid-latitudes (e.g., the Great Australian Bight) and propagate anticlockwise (Woodham et al., 2013). However, there are no tools available for identifying and characterising CSWs and as such there is very little information on the magnitude, frequency, duration, and spatiotemporal variability. This paper aims to: (1) develop a method to identify and track CSWs using the existing ocean tide gauge network, (2) identify patterns in the frequency, duration, and magnitude of CSW, and (3) assess the factors that affect the frequency, duration, and magnitude of CSWs along the NSW coast.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/oigzYIKFBmA

Hyperiid amphipods from the Gulf of Ulloa and offshore region, Baja California: The possible role of the gelatinous zooplankton as a transport vector into the coastal shelf waters

Hyperiid amphipod species from the Gulf of Ulloa, Baja California, and the adjacent region (from the shelf break to 200 km offshore) were analyzed to evaluate diversity and abundances. This productive area supports small-scale commercial fisheries, including sand bass (Paralabrax nebulifer), California spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus), abalones, clams, and others. Strong coastal upwelling events were observed during summer seasons of the period 2002–2008 between Punta Eugenia and Punta Abreojos. The upwelling plumes at Punta Abreojos are transported southward in slope waters bordering the coastal shelf of the Gulf of Ulloa, contributing to the separation of coastal and oceanic regions, and explain differences in amphipod diversity and abundances between both regions. In the offshore region, the most abundant species were Vibilia armata, Lestrigonus schizogeneios, Primno brevidens, and Eupronoe minuta, similar to previous findings in northern regions of Baja California and southern California. However, abundances of these species were lower (10–30 individuals/1000 m3), only reaching 20–50% of abundance levels reported off northern Baja California. In the coastal shelf of the Gulf of Ulloa, amphipods were virtually absent during 2002, 2003 and 2006. However, during 2004 and 2005, abundances of P. brevidens increased (54 and 20 ind/1000 m3, respectively). Moreover, during the late summer of 2007, abundances of L. schizogeneios, P. brevidens, Lycaea nasuta, Lycaea pulex, and Simorhynchotus antennarius increased considerably (261, 39, 31, 68, 416 ind/1000 m3, respectively), indicating occasional utilization of the coastal shelf by pelagic amphipods. Changes in gelatinous populations (medusae, siphonophores, ctenophores, doliolids, and salps) paralleled changes in hyperiid populations, with highest abundances in 2005–2008 in the coastal shelf. Significant correlations of 17 amphipod species with gelatinous taxa, which are often used as host organisms by hyperiid amphipods, suggest that gelatinous presence enhanced hyperiid abundance and promoted the progression of hyperiid amphipods onto the coastal shelf during parts of the 2002–2008 period.

Absence of ice-bonded permafrost beneath an Arctic lagoon revealed by electrical geophysics

Relict permafrost is ubiquitous throughout the Arctic coastal shelf, but little is known about it near shore. The presence and thawing of subsea permafrost are vital information because permafrost stores an atmosphere’s worth of carbon and protects against coastal erosion. Through electrical resistivity imaging across a lagoon on the Alaska Beaufort Sea coast in summer, we found that the subsurface is not ice-bonded down to ~20 m continually from within the lagoon, across the beach, and underneath an ice-wedge polygon on the tundra. This contrasts with the broadly held idea of a gently sloping ice-bonded permafrost table extending from land to offshore. The extensive unfrozen zone is a marine talik connected to on-land cryopeg. This zone is a potential source and conduit for water and dissolved organic matter, is vulnerable to physical degradation, and is liable to changes in biogeochemical processes that affect carbon cycling and climate feedbacks.