Welcome to the Rhubarb talks website

The 'Rhubarb Talks' are a series of seminars by PhD students for PhD students at NOCS.



Upcoming seminars are posted below and cover a whole range of scientific exploits. Talks are held every other Monday afternoon at 4.30pm in the postgrad lounge (node 086) and are accompanied by nibbles and refreshments.



For more info or to volunteer for a talk, please contact The Rhubarb Team: Liz (E.Sargent@noc.soton.ac.uk),
Rosanna (R.Greenop@noc.soton.ac.uk), Maike (mjsp106@soton.ac.uk) or Sara (Sara.Cregeen@noc.soton.ac.uk)



Wednesday, May 4, 2011

May 2011

On Monday 9th May....

Tommy Ryan-Keogh will present:

Title:
High Spatial Resolution Iron-Addition Incubation Experiments: Mapping Seasonal Iron Stress in the High Latitude North Atlantic

Abstract:

The Irminger and Iceland basins of the High Latitude North Atlantic (HLNA) are areas characterised by incomplete nitrate depletion in the summer and relatively low chlorophyll concentrations. The annual cycle of chlorophyll demonstrates a peak in the spring in proximity to shallow bathymetry, one of the possible major iron sources to the HLNA. It has been proposed therefore that a lack of iron sources to the HLNA may lead to the development of a High-Nitrate Low-Chlorophyll (HNLC) region in the late summer. Long-term (>24 h) and rapid (24 h) incubations, at a high spatial resolution, examined the response of the phytoplankton physiology to iron addition, enabling the detection of mesoscale variability in Fe limitation. The proxy ΔFv/Fm was calculated from the 24 h incubations, and is defined as the difference in the maximal photochemical efficiency of photosystem II (PSII) (Fv/Fm) between a nutrient addition treatment and the control treatment after 24 h of incubation. The greatest increases in ΔFv/Fm were found in the centre of the basins with less of a response over the Iceland shelf and Reykjanes ridge, which may be acting as a source of iron. These results confirm and map the extent of the development of an iron-limited HNLC ecosystem in the Irminger basin, with a seasonal development of iron and nitrate co-limitation in the Iceland basin. This is the first seasonal study of the HLNA and allows the definition of two contrasting 'biomes' within the HLNA based upon the differential responses to iron addition.

March 2011

On Monday 28th of March......

Morelia Urlaub presented:


"Using Finite Element Modelling to Assess Submarine Slope Stability"

Abstract:
Submarine landslides are not only a hazard for the offshore oil and gas industry or telecommunication cables at continental shelves, slopes or deeper water, but also have the potential to trigger tsunamis. They are much larger than their counterparts on land and occur on extremely low slope angles (typically 1-2 degrees). Initiation mechanisms for these slides are vital for their prediction but are poorly understood, and in-situ investigations are restricted by a hundreds of meters thick water column. One idea is that rapid asymmetric deposition of sediment on the sea floor causes high rates of overpressure in a low permeability and low stiffness material as typical for marine sediments. We use transient, coupled Finite Element analysis to predict how the stress state of a submerged finite 2 degree slope that is subjected to slow continuous, asymmetric loading, changes over time as well as to assess the stability of the slope. The model is used to investigate the emergence of slope instability for different permeabilities, giving insights into the field conditions necessary for the development of submarine slope failure by overpressure alone.

On Monday 21th of March......

Anya Crocker presented:


"Palaeoceanography and Gas Hydrate Stability along the West Spitsbergen Continental Margin"