The Upihoi find: Wrecked wooden Bevaia (Lagatoi) hulls of Epemeavo Village, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea

On 20 August 2007, Epemeavo and Kea Kea villagers from the eastern end of the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea reported finding two lagatoi hulls deeply buried in beach sands at Upihoi, near Epemeavo village, parts of a trading vessel associated with the renowned Motu hiri trade of former times. This paper presents results of an emergency investigation of these finds by staff of the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery and Monash University, describing the find, its environmental, cultural and social settings and contexts of discovery, radiocarbon dating, historical assessments, and significance.

Microstructural differences between naturally-deposited and laboratory beach sands

The orientation of, and contacts between, grains of sand reflect the processes that deposit the sands. Grain orientation and contact geometry also influence mechanical properties. Quantifying and understanding sand microstructure thus provide an opportunity to understand depositional processes better and connect microstructure and macroscopic properties. Using x-ray computed microtomography, we compare the microstructure of naturally-deposited beach sands and laboratory sands created by air pluviation in which samples are formed by raining sand grains into a container. We find that naturally-deposited sands have a narrower distribution of coordination number (i.e., the number of grains in contact) and a broader distribution of grain orientations than pluviated sands. The naturally-deposited sand grains orient inclined to the horizontal, and the pluviated sand grains orient horizontally. We explain the microstructural differences between the two different depositional methods by flowing water at beaches that re-positions and reorients grains initially deposited in unstable grain configurations.

Beach sands deposite identification using very low frequency method in the Benteng Lubuk, Krueng Raya coastal area

The 2D subsurface identification work of iron sands in Benteng Lubuk, Krueng Raya was successfully studied using the very low frequency method based on resistivity mode (VLF-R). This study aims to identify iron sand deposits in coastal areas using electromagnetic inversion. The inversion process shows a conductivity zone of iron sand area, where the resistive layer is strongly covered by a conductive layer above it. High resistivity values were found at 80-100 m stations. This layer has a resistivity value between 20000 – 40000 m and the conductivity value tend to be low. It is estimated that at this point there will only be manifestations of iron sand or sea water intrusion, due to the location of the track close to the coastline.

Mineralogy, Geochemistry and Provenance of Coastal Sands from Greece: New Insights on the REE Content of Black Coastal Sands from Aggelochori Area, N.-Greece

Beach sands from Aggelochori coast line are investigated for their geochemistry and REE content, mineralogy and their provenance. These fluvial sands bear heavy minerals enriched horizons (containing minerals such as magnetite, zircon, ilmenite, hematite, rutile and titanite) that can be distinguished due to their black color and are formed usually due to the action of sea waves that deposit the heavy minerals and remove the lighter ones. After a suitable processing (washing, sieving, drying and magnetic separation) of the samples, the mineral constituents and their presence (wt.%) were estimated by XRD. Among the samples, the one being simultaneously the more fine grained and the more zircon-enriched (as suggested by XRPD data and optical microscopy analysis) has been selected for further geochemical analyses. The major and trace elements contents were compared to previously studied REE enriched beach sands from Kavala and Sithonia. Beach sands from Aggelochori area appear to have relatively low REE contents. Considering the provenance of these sediments, we suggest that these sands, are a product of the erosion of multi-sources, including the near-by Monopigado granite, as well as metamorphic rocks, as indicated by the presence of rutile and both ilmenite and magnetite in some samples. Therefore, there are indications of a complex flow pattern that existed at the paleo-catchment area of the deposition.

Beach sand oil spills select for generalist microbial populations

The specialization-disturbance hypothesis predicts that, in the event of a disturbance, generalists are favored, while specialists are selected against. This hypothesis has not been rigorously tested in microbial systems and it remains unclear to what extent it could explain microbial community succession patterns following perturbations. Previous field observations of Pensacola Beach sands that were impacted by the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill provided evidence in support of the specialization-disturbance hypothesis. However, ecological drift as well as uncounted environmental fluctuations (e.g., storms) could not be ruled out as confounding factors driving these field results. In this study, the specialization-disturbance hypothesis was tested on beach sands, disturbed by DWH crude oil, ex situ in closed laboratory advective-flow chambers that mimic in situ conditions in saturated beach sediments. The chambers were inoculated with weathered DWH oil and unamended chambers served as controls. The time series of shotgun metagenomic and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequence data from a two-month long incubation showed that functional diversity significantly increased while taxonomic diversity significantly declined, indicating a decrease in specialist taxa. Thus, results from this laboratory study corroborate field observations, providing verification that the specialization-disturbance hypothesis can explain microbial succession patterns in crude oil impacted beach sands.