scholarly journals Ancient DNA reveals the Arctic origin of Viking Age cod from Haithabu, Germany

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (34) ◽  
pp. 9152-9157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastiaan Star ◽  
Sanne Boessenkool ◽  
Agata T. Gondek ◽  
Elena A. Nikulina ◽  
Anne Karin Hufthammer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Cod ◽  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Sequence Data ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
Mixed Ancestry ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Biological Origin ◽  
North East ◽  
The North

Knowledge of the range and chronology of historic trade and long-distance transport of natural resources is essential for determining the impacts of past human activities on marine environments. However, the specific biological sources of imported fauna are often difficult to identify, in particular if species have a wide spatial distribution and lack clear osteological or isotopic differentiation between populations. Here, we report that ancient fish-bone remains, despite being porous, brittle, and light, provide an excellent source of endogenous DNA (15–46%) of sufficient quality for whole-genome reconstruction. By comparing ancient sequence data to that of modern specimens, we determine the biological origin of 15 Viking Age (800–1066 CE) and subsequent medieval (1066–1280 CE) Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) specimens from excavation sites in Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Archaeological context indicates that one of these sites was a fishing settlement for the procurement of local catches, whereas the other localities were centers of trade. Fish from the trade sites show a mixed ancestry and are statistically differentiated from local fish populations. Moreover, Viking Age samples from Haithabu, Germany, are traced back to the North East Arctic Atlantic cod population that has supported the Lofoten fisheries of Norway for centuries. Our results resolve a long-standing controversial hypothesis and indicate that the marine resources of the North Atlantic Ocean were used to sustain an international demand for protein as far back as the Viking Age.

scholarly journals A Viking-age inhumation from Crow Taing, Sanday, Orkney

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
Lindsay Dunbar ◽  
Mike Roy
Keyword(s):  
New Record ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
The Body ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
South West ◽  
Surrounding Landscape ◽  
Burial Rite

The islands of Orkney have long been associated with examples of Viking-age activity and often yield unique and well preserved records from the Viking and Late Norse periods. Investigations on the island of Sanday in Orkney, as part of a call off contract for human remains between Historic Environment Scotland and AOC Archaeology Group, have revealed the presence of an inhumation in association with an iron knife. Further investigation reveals that the burial is that of an adolescent skeleton (12–17 years). The north-east/south-west alignment of the body, in a flexed position, and its association with an iron knife indicates a pre-Christian burial rite, in line with a 9th or 10th century AD date, which corresponds with radiocarbon dating carried out on the skeletal remains. This burial contributes a new record to the wealth of evidence from around this period within the surrounding landscape on the island of Sanday.

scholarly journals Export of calcium carbonate corrosive waters from the East Siberian Sea

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leif G. Anderson ◽  
Jörgen Ek ◽  
Ylva Ericson ◽  
Christoph Humborg ◽  
Igor Semiletov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Calcium Carbonate ◽  
Sea Ice ◽  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
High Pco2 ◽  
Low Oxygen ◽  
Saturation State ◽  
Ice Melt ◽  
The North ◽  
Transformation Of Organic Matter

Abstract. The Siberian Shelf Seas are areas of extensive biogeochemical transformation of organic matter, both of marine and terrestrial origin. This in combination with brine production from sea ice formation results in a cold bottom water of relative high salinity and partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2). Data from the SWERUS-C3 expedition compiled on the icebreaker Oden in July to September 2014 show the distribution of such waters at the outer shelf, as well as their export into the deep central Arctic basins. Very high pCO2 water, up to close to 1000 µatm, was observed associated with high nutrients and low oxygen concentrations. Consequently the saturation state of calcium carbonate was low, down to less than 0.8 for calcite and 0.5 for aragonite. Waters undersaturated in aragonite were also observed in the surface in waters at equilibrium with atmospheric CO2, however, at these conditions the cause of under-saturation was low salinity from river runoff and/or sea ice melt. The calcium carbonate corrosive water was observed all along the continental margin and well out into the deep Makarov and Canada Basins at a depth from about 50 m depth in the west to about 150 m in the east. These waters of low aragonite saturation state are traced in historic data to the Canada Basin and in the waters flowing out of the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland and in the western Fram Strait, thus potentially impacting the marine life in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Palaeo-oceanography, margin stratigraphy and palaeophysiography of the Tertiary North Atlantic and Norwegian-Greenland seas

1980 ◽  
Vol 294 (1409) ◽  
pp. 177-185 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Circulation Pattern ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Continental Margins ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Sea Level Fluctuations ◽  
The North ◽  
Border Zones

The Tertiary was a period of dramatic changes of the palaeo-oceanography of the world’s oceans in general and of the North Atlantic in particular. These changes were caused by (1) the bathymetric evolution of ocean basins and intrabasin pathways (opening of the Norwegian-Greenland Seas and of the pathway to the Arctic Ocean, interruption of the circumglobal equatorial seaway); (2) the geographical development of the oceans and adjacent marginal basins in the context of rapid and intensive eustatic sea level fluctuations; and (3) the deterioration of the global climate throughout the Tertiary (change from a non-glacial to a glacial world, causing major changes in circulation of the surface and deep water). A biostratigraphy of Tertiary sediments deposited close to the continental margins has been developed by using remains of planktonic floras and faunas. Their presence in these sediments and their usefulness for long distance correlations of margin sediments, depend upon the circulation pattern and hydrographic gradients of the oceanic surface and deep water masses, the climatic regime over the continental border zones, and the probability of their post-depositional preservation.

scholarly journals Cooling down the world oceans and the earth by enhancing the North Atlantic Ocean current

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian David Hunt ◽  
Andreas Nascimento ◽  
Fabio A. Diuana ◽  
Natália de Assis Brasil Weber ◽  
Gabriel Malta Castro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Ocean Current ◽  
The North ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
Albedo Effect ◽  
Arctic Atmosphere

AbstractThe world is going through intensive changes due to global warming. It is well known that the reduction in ice cover in the Arctic Ocean further contributes to increasing the atmospheric Arctic temperature due to the reduction of the albedo effect and increase in heat absorbed by the ocean’s surface. The Arctic ice cover also works like an insulation sheet, keeping the heat in the ocean from dissipating into the cold Arctic atmosphere. Increasing the salinity of the Arctic Ocean surface would allow the warmer and less salty North Atlantic Ocean current to flow on the surface of the Arctic Ocean considerably increasing the temperature of the Arctic atmosphere and release the ocean heat trapped under the ice. This paper argues that if the North Atlantic Ocean current could maintain the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the winter, the longwave radiation heat loss into space would be larger than the increase in heat absorption due to the albedo effect. This paper presents details of the fundamentals of the Arctic Ocean circulation and presents three possible approaches for increasing the salinity of the surface water of the Arctic Ocean. It then discusses that increasing the salinity of the Arctic Ocean would warm the atmosphere of the Arctic region, but cool down the oceans and possibly the Earth. However, it might take thousands of years for the effects of cooling the oceans to cool the global average atmospheric temperature.

Hydrogenetic Fe-Mn crusts from European seas: source of potentially economic cobalt mining.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Egidio Marino ◽  
Javier González ◽  
Teresa Medialdea ◽  
Luis Somoza ◽  
Rosario Lunar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lithium Ion ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
World Production ◽  
Critical Metals ◽  
North West ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
The World

<p>The world increasing demand of electric vehicles (EVs) that use lithium-ion batteries (LIB), in which cobalt is one of the essential elements, focused the attention on its demand that is calculated will increase of 7-13% annually until 2030. The actual production of cobalt, usually extract as by-product of nickel and copper mine, is reduced to almost 20 countries between which the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the bigger producer with 55% of the world production. In Europe cobalt is produced only in Finland that actually provides 2.300 tonnes, the 2% of the world production. In this way several projects have been promoted by European Union, with the Raw Material Initiative, in order to find and evaluate the sustainable production of important materials in Europe.</p><p>MINDeSEA[1] project is part of the GeoERA and represent the collaboration of 12 national geological institution partners, to characterize marine deposits and their contents in Critical Raw Materials (CRM) and to generate a comprehensive cartography and metallogenic models of them. The first preliminary map produced in 2019 represents the localization and evaluation of cobalt rich deposits in the oceans within the EEZ and ECS of the European countries.  Cobalt deposits are represented essentially by hydrogenetic Fe-Mn crusts located essentially in the Macaronesian area of the north east Atlantic Ocean (in the Portugal and Spain), submarine plateaus, as the Galicia Bank (in the north west Spanish) and in the Arctic Ocean ridges (Norway and Iceland). The report differentiates between occurrences (<0.05 wt. %) and deposits (>0.05 wt. %), with the possibility of more than 200 Mt resources per potential deposit.</p><p>Detailed mineralogical, geochemical and metallogenic studies are being developed in crusts from the Macaronesia. Fe-Mn crusts absorb dissolved elements in seawaters on the surface of the fresh precipitated oxy-hydroxides during their slow growth through millions of years. Several elements are concentrated in Fe-Mn crusts and between them cobalt is one of the most enriched trace metals (average 0.6 wt. %) accompanied by other strategic and critical metals such as nickel, copper, tellurium, molybdenum and rare earth elements plus yttrium (REY) (respectively 3000, 500, 150, 500 and 3500 µg/g). Micro Raman and micro X-Ray diffraction can be used to differentiate the mineralogy in laminae of less than 20 microns. On the other hand, electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA) and Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), are useful in order to quantify contents of CRM in the different mineral phases. These are innovative techniques in order to identify critical-elements bearing minerals and thus choose the metallurgic method for a more efficient and sustainable extraction of the interesting elements.</p><p>The evaluation of a seamount as a future mine site has to take into account all these mineralogical and chemical features as well as a proper knowledge of the seamount (morpho-structure, geology, oceanography, ecosystems) and the Fe-Mn crust thickness and extension</p><div><br><div> <p>[1] This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 731166</p> </div> </div>

scholarly journals Switching on the light: using metagenomic shotgun sequencing to characterize the intestinal microbiome of Atlantic cod

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Even Sannes Riiser ◽  
Thomas H.A. Haverkamp ◽  
Srinidhi Varadharajan ◽  
Ørnulf Borgan ◽  
Kjetill S. Jakobsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gadus Morhua ◽  
Atlantic Cod ◽  
North Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Bacterial Species ◽  
Abundant Species ◽  
Shotgun Sequencing ◽  
Intestinal Microbiome ◽  
Geographical Differences ◽  
Important Species ◽  
The North

AbstractThe biological roles of the intestinal microbiome and how it is impacted by environmental factors are yet to be determined in wild marine fish species. Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) is an ecologically important species with a wide-spread distribution in the North Atlantic Ocean. 16S rRNA-based amplicon analyses found no geographical differentiation between the intestinal microbiome of Atlantic cod from different locations. Nevertheless, it is unclear if this lack of differentiation results from an insufficient resolution of this method to resolve fine-scaled biological complexity. Here, we take advantage of the increased resolution provided by metagenomic shotgun sequencing to investigate the intestinal microbiome of 19 adult Atlantic cod individuals from two coastal populations in Norway – located 470 km apart. Our results show that the intestinal microbiome is dominated by theVibrionalesorder, consisting of varying abundances ofPhotobacterium, AliivibrioandVibriospecies. Moreover, resolving the species community to unprecedented resolution, we identify two abundant species,P. iliopiscariumandP. kishitanii,which comprise over 50% of the classified reads. Interestingly, genomic data shows that the intestinalP. kishitaniistrains have functionally intactluxgenes, and its high abundance suggests that fish intestines form an important part of its ecological niche. These observations support a hypothesis that bioluminescence plays an ecological role in the marine food web. Despite our improved taxonomical resolution, we identify no geographical differences in bacterial community structure, indicating that the intestinal microbiome of these coastal cod is colonized by a limited number of closely related bacterial species with a broad geographical distribution that are well suited to thrive in this host-associated environment.

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