XXIII.—The Expedition to the South Pacific of the S.Y. “St. George.” Marine Ecology and Coral Formations in the Panama Region, the Galapagos and Marquesas Islands, and the Atoll of Napuka

1927 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 531-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril Crossland

Two contrasted oceanographical regions are dealt with in this paper, the fauna of the eastern Pacific being distinct from that of the Marquesas, which are the farthest outliers of the western ocean. In each of these two regions again are two divisions of markedly different ecology, physical conditions in the Galapagos being as great a contrast as could well be to those of the coast of Panama, while the Marquesas Islands differ from their neighbours farther west, which are either atolls, or high islands surrounded by broad reefs, in being without coral deposits of any considerable size, and certainly no true reefs. The corals afford a striking example of the contrast between the two main regions; in Panama the only abundant coral is Pocillopora, in the Marquesas the only “reef” is of Porites, and the other deposits depend upon this genus for their existence. Several species of Pocillopora are abundant in the Marquesas, but are all distinct from those of Panama.

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Raimbault ◽  
N. Garcia

Abstract. One of the major objectives of the BIOSOPE cruise, carried out on the R/V Atalante from October-November 2004 in the South Pacific Ocean, was to establish productivity rates along a zonal section traversing the oligotrophic South Pacific Gyre (SPG). These results were then compared to measurements obtained from the nutrient – replete waters in the Chilean upwelling and around the Marquesas Islands. A dual 13C/15N isotope technique was used to estimate the carbon fixation rates, inorganic nitrogen uptake (including dinitrogen fixation), ammonium (NH4) and nitrate (NO3) regeneration and release of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON). The SPG exhibited the lowest primary production rates (0.15 g C m−2 d−1), while rates were 7 to 20 times higher around the Marquesas Islands and in the Chilean upwelling, respectively. In the very low productive area of the SPG, most of the primary production was sustained by active regeneration processes that fuelled up to 95% of the biological nitrogen demand. Nitrification was active in the surface layer and often balanced the biological demand for nitrate, especially in the SPG. The percentage of nitrogen released as DON represented a large proportion of the inorganic nitrogen uptake (13–15% in average), reaching 26–41% in the SPG, where DON production played a major role in nitrogen cycling. Dinitrogen fixation was detectable over the whole study area; even in the Chilean upwelling, where rates as high as 3 nmoles l−1 d−1 were measured. In these nutrient-replete waters new production was very high (0.69±0.49 g C m−2 d−1) and essentially sustained by nitrate levels. In the SPG, dinitrogen fixation, although occurring at much lower daily rates (≈1–2 nmoles l−1 d−1), sustained up to 100% of the new production (0.008±0.007 g C m−2 d−1) which was two orders of magnitude lower than that measured in the upwelling. The annual N2-fixation of the South Pacific is estimated to 21×1012g, of which 1.34×1012g is for the SPG only. Even if our "snapshot" estimates of N2-fixation rates were lower than that expected from a recent ocean circulation model, these data confirm that the N-deficiency South Pacific Ocean would provide an ideal ecological niche for the proliferation of N2-fixers which are not yet identified.


2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Stemmann ◽  
D. Eloire ◽  
A. Sciandra ◽  
G. A. Jackson ◽  
L. Guidi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The French JGOFS BIOSOPE cruise crossed the South Pacific Gyre (SPG) on a transect between the Marquesas Islands and the Chilean coast on a 7500 km transect (8° S–34° S and 8° W–72° W). The number and volume distributions of small (3.5100 μm) were analysed combining two instruments, the HIAC/Royco Counter (for the small particles) and the Underwater Video Profiler (UVP, for the large particles). For the HIAC analysis, samples were collected from 12 L CTD Rosette bottles and immediately analysed on board while the UVP provided an estimate of in situ particle concentrations and size in a continuous profile. Out of 76 continuous UVP and 117 discrete HIAC vertical profiles, 25 had both sets of measurements, mostly at a site close to the Marquesas Islands (site MAR) and one in the center of the gyre (site GYR). At GYR, the particle number spectra from few μm to few mm were fit with power relationships having slopes close to −4. At MAR, the high abundance of large objects, probably living organisms, created a shift in the full size spectra of particles such that a single slope was not appropriate. The small particle pool at both sites showed a diel pattern while the large did not, implying that the movement of mass toward the large particles does not take place at daily scale in the SPG area. Despite the relatively simple nature of the number spectra, the volume spectra were more variable because what were small deviations from the straight line in a log-log plot were large variations in the volume estimates. In addition, the mass estimates from the size spectra are very sensitive to crucial parameters such as the fractal dimension and the POC/Dry Weight ratio. Using consistent values for these parameters, we show that the volume of large particles can equal the volume of the smaller particles. However the proportion of material in large particles decreased from the mesotrophic conditions at the border of the SPG to the ultra-oligotrophy of the center in the upper 200 m depth. We expect large particles to play a major role in the trophic interaction in the upper waters of the South Pacific Gyre.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 319-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
G S Burr ◽  
J W Beck ◽  
Thierry Corrège ◽  
G Cabioch ◽  
F W Taylor ◽  
...  

This paper presents radiocarbon results from modern South Pacific corals from the Marquesas Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea (PNG), and Easter Island. All of the measurements are from pre-bomb Porites corals that lived during the 1940s and 1950s. The data reflect subannual to multiannual surface ocean 14C variability and allow for precise, unambiguous reservoir age determinations. The results are compared with published values from other coral records throughout the South Pacific, with striking consistency. By comparisons with other published values, we identify 3 South Pacific regions with uniform pre-bomb reservoir ages (1945 to 1955). These are 1) the Central Equatorial South Pacific (361.6 − 8.2 14C yr, 2 σ); 2) the Western Equatorial South Pacific (322.1 − 8.6 14C yr, 2 σ); and 3) the subtropical Pacific (266.8 − 13.8 14C yr, 2 σ).


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Weir

In his role as General Secretary of the Australasian Methodist Missionary Society in the 1920s and 1930s, Reverend John W. Burton travelled each winter to one of the ‘mission fields’ in the South Pacific to inspect the mission’s activities, and to encourage and advise. Accompanying him was his camera; Burton had long been an enthusiastic photographer. Following his 1924 visit to Fiji he created two albums of his photographs, one illustrating the indigenous Fijian mission, the other the Indian mission. This article focuses on the ‘social biography’ of the photographs, and examines Burton’s choice and balance of subjects in each album, which cover educational and other mission activities, village and town scenes, landscapes and individual and group portraits. It also considers the placement and message in context of many of the individual photographs when they were later reproduced to illustrate stories in the mission magazine, Missionary Review, of which Burton was the Editor.


Oryx ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gibbons

Two species of iguana inhabit the islands of the Fiji goup: one, the crested iguana, was discovered as recently as 1979 and the other, the banded iguana, once common enough to be an important source of food for humans, is now listed in the IUCN Red Data Book. The author, in his three-year study, discovered that both species still exist in relatively dense populations on a few, small uninhabited islands, although they have disappeared from those that are developed. He discusses the threats to their survival and the conservation efforts being made.


1959 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 662-663 ◽  

The fourth South Pacific Conference was held at Rabaul, New Britain, in the territory of Papua and New Guinea, from April 20 to May 13, 1959. Sixty-five delegates and advisers attended from sixteen Pacific territories and the Kingdom of Tonga. The Conference was divided into two standing committees, one dealing with social and health questions, and the other with matters affecting the economic welfare of the island peoples. For the second time in the history of the conferences, the delegates themselves elected the chairman and vice-chairman of each committee, but for the first time a woman was elected chairman of one of them, i.e., the social committee. The Conference proceedings were governed by a general committee, on which each of the six governments forming the membership of the South Pacific Commission was represented by a member of a territorial delegation; the chairman of the Conference, Mr. J. R. Halligan, Australia's Senior Commissioner on the South Pacific Commission, was the only European member of the general committee.


1952 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-482

From April 28 to May 7, 1952 the ninth session of the South Pacific Commission was held in Noumea, New Caledonia.1 The session, which was primarily concerned with administrative matters, was under the chairmanship of N. A. J. de Voogd (Netherlands). As a result of agreement by member governments at the eighth session to include Guam and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands within the scope of the Commission, at the ninth session it was agreed unanimously to extend Commission activities to embrace these territories. Assurances of cooperation in Commission activities were given on behalf of both territories by the Acting Senior Commissioner for the United States (Leebrick) and the Secretary of Guam (Herman). Special aspects of its work program were reviewed by the Commission. The printing of two project reports dealing with the area was authorized: one, on economic development of coral atolls covered a survey made for the Commission in 1951 in the Gilbert Islands and the other was concerned with the possibilities of expanding the cacao industry in the area.


Author(s):  
Rotem Kowner

At the end of the war, Imperial Japan’s vast armies stretched from Manchuria to Korea, from the Aleutian Islands to the South Pacific. Surrender was not an end in itself. It was for 3.5 million soldiers only a beginning. In this chapter Rotem Kowner examines the repatriation of demobilized Japanese soldiers in a transnational key, focusing on how the process of soldiers return became enmeshed in the wars of decolonization, restoration of imperial power, and the early Cold War. From Java to French Indochine, Kowner examines how Japanese soldiers, once the frontlines of an ideology of pan-Asianism, became auxiliaries in the restoration of European imperial control. In the Dutch East Indies he shows how Japanese soldiers both aided the return of the Dutch forces; and on the other armed anticolonial nationalists. How did the men who fought for the creation of a New Order greet the wars end? By connecting the experience of repatriation to the wars of decolonization and hardening Cold War divisions, Kowner sheds light on an important part of the unwinding of Japan’s wartime imperium.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 3377-3407 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Stemmann ◽  
D. Eloire ◽  
A. Sciandra ◽  
G. A. Jackson ◽  
L. Guidi ◽  
...  

Abstract. The French JGOFS BIOSOPE cruise crossed the South Pacific Gyre (SPG) on a transect between the Marquesas Islands and the Chilean coast on a 7500 km transect (8° S–34° S and 8° W–72° W). The number and volume distributions of small (3.5100 μm) were analysed combining two instruments, the HIAC/Royco Counter (for the small particles) and the Underwater Video Profiler (UVP, for the large particles). For the HIAC analysis, samples were collected from 12 L CTD Rosette bottles and immediately analysed on board while the UVP provided an estimate of in situ particle concentrations and size in a continuous profile. Out of 76 continuous UVP and 117 discrete HIAC vertical profiles, 25 had both sets of measurements, mostly at a site close to the Marquesas Islands (site MAR) and one in the center of the gyre (site GYR). At GYR, the particle number spectra from few μm to few mm were fit with power relationships having slopes close to −4. At MAR, the high abundance of large objects, probably living organisms, created a shift in the full size spectra of particles such as a single slope was not appropriate. The small particle pool at both sites showed a diel pattern while the large did not, implying that the movement of mass toward the large particles does not take place at daily scale in the SPG area. Despite the relatively simple nature of the number spectra, the volume spectra was more variable because what were small deviations from the straight line in a log-log plot were large variations in the volume estimates. Results showed that the volume of large particles can equal the volume of the smaller particles. However the proportion of material in large particles decreased from the mesotrophic conditions at the border of the SPG to the ultra-oligotrophy of the center in the upper 200 m depth. We expect large particles to play a major role in the trophic interaction in the upper waters of the South Pacific Gyre.


2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Bebbington ◽  
Jeffrey Bury ◽  
Nicholas Cuba ◽  
John Rogan

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