Eastern Mediterranean area

SmoKk, J., Zdrmal, V., Schwarz, J., Lazarldis, M., Havranek, V., Eleftheriadis, K., Mihalopoulos, N., Bryant, C., and Colbeck, I., (2003). Size resolved mass concentration and elemental composition of atmospheric aerosols over the Eastern Mediterranean area. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 3,2207-2216. 

Derivation Ores and deposits in Stassfurt (Germany), Carlsbad (New Mexico), Saskatchewan (Canada), Searles Lake (California), Great Salt Lake (Utah), Yorkshire (England), Ural Mountains (the former U.S.S.R.), Israel, and eastern Mediterranean area. The most important ores are camallite, sylvite, and polyhalite. Thermochemical distillation of potassium chloride with sodium is the chief U.S. method of production. 

Kritikos PG, Papadaki SP (1967) The history of the poppy and of opium and their expansion in antiquity in the eastern Mediterranean area. Bull Narcot 19(3) 17-38, (4) 5-10 Lambert JJ, Durant NN, Henderson EG (1983) Drug-induced modification of ionic conductance at the neuromuscular junction. Annu Rev Pharmacol Physiol 23 505-539 Lieb WA, Scherf HJ (1956) Papaveraceae alkaloids and eye pressure. Klin Monatsbl Augenheilkd 128 686-705. Cited from Chem Abstr 54 11271 (1960)... 

FIGURE 22 Obsidian in the eastern Mediterranean Sea area. Studying the relative concentration of trace elements in obsidian makes it possible to identify the obsidian and to determine its provenance. Determining the relative amounts of barium and zirconium in ancient obsidian tools and in samples from different sources of the natural glass, for example, made it possible to identify the provenance of obsidian used in eastern Mediterranean Sea area sites (Renfrew and Dixon 1976). 

For the reasons outlined above, outcrops of workable obsidian are relatively few in number and are restricted to areas of geologically recent lava flows. Most sources are therefore reasonably well known, and, because of these constraints, identification of new sources in the eastern Mediterranean region becomes ever more unlikely. This makes the exercise of characterizing archaeological obsidians an attractive proposition, since, unlike potential clay sources for pottery provenance, the existence of completely unknown sources can be (cautiously) ignored. This is, of course, subject to the requirement noted above for more detailed geochemical characterization of existing sources. 

The most intense NAA study of archaeological ceramics has been focused on the Bronze Age Mycenaean and Minoan pottery of Greece and Crete, and related areas around the eastern Mediterranean (Mommsen et al. 2002). This work began in Berkeley, California, in the 1960s with the work of Perlman and Asaro (1969), who went on to analyze 878 shards of pottery. The results were never fully published according to Asaro and Perlman (1973, 213), the question of provenience of the vast quantities of Mycenaean wares has... 

A. Metaxatos and L. Ignatiades, Seasonality of algal pigments in the sea water and interstitial water/sediment system of an Eastern Mediterranean coastal area. list. Coast. Shelf Sci. 55... 

The Middle Eastern traditions stem from the ancient civilizations of the area known as the Fertile Crescent. This area stretches from the eastern Mediterranean coast that is now part of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, to the fertile lands that exist between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as they flow to the Persian Gulf. To the ancient Greeks this eastern end was known as Mesopotamia and it is now part of Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Unlike Egypt, with its insular and stable culture, the Fertile Crescent was inhabited by several cultures, which migrated, conquered, and merged over the centuries. 

Morphine is the principal alkaloid obtained from opium. Opium is the resinous latex that exudes from the seed pod of the opium poppy, Papver somneferum, when it is lacerated. Alkaloids account for approximately 25% of opium, and of this 25% about 60% is morphine. Remains of poppy seeds and pods have been found in Neolithic caves, indicating that the use of opium predates written history. The opium poppy is native to the eastern Mediterranean, but today it is chiefly cultivated from the Middle East through southern Asia and into China and Southeast Asia. The first civilization known to use opium was the Sumerians, who inhabited Mesopotamia in present-day western Iraq, around 3500 B.c.E. Sumerians traded opium with other civilizations, and this led to the cultivation of opium poppies and the production of opium in many geographic areas including Egypt, India, Persia (Iran), Southeast Asia, and China. 

The olive tree Olea europaea) is the only species of the Oleacea family that produces an edible fruit. The origins of cultivation of this plant are thought to have started about 5,000-6,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean and adjacent zones [1]. Olive tree cultivation has now spread throughout many regimis of the world with Mediterranean-like climates such as South Africa, Chile, Australia, and California, and in areas with temperate climates such as New Zealand and Cordoba Province in Argentina. There are approximately 850 million productive olive trees worldwide, covering an area of more than ten million hectares [2,3]. Nevertheless, approximately 98% of the total surface area of oUve tree culture and total productive trees are provided by the Mediterranean area. Annual worldwide olive production is estimated to be more than 18 million tons [2]. 

The Mediterranean Sea is an ocean basin that is gradually closing as the African Plate moves north and collides with Europe. It is the remains of the far larger and more extensive Tethys ocean. In the comparatively recent geological past (Late Miocene, 7.5-5 million years ago), there were periods when the basin was completely dried out. This has resulted in the extensive deposits of salt that underlie much of the sea-bed (and surrounding areas) of the present-day Mediterranean. It is the source of the salt found in the several small saline pools (e.g. Bannock Basin) which are found within the Eastern Mediterranean basin. 

An important characteristic of the phytoplankton of the Eastern Mediterranean is their small size. Most of the chlorophyll (>60 to >98%, depending on the study) is associated with particles smaller than 10 pm, or even 3 pm (Li etal, 1993 Zohary etal, 1998 Psarra etal., 2000 Vidussi etal., 2001). This abundance in the smaller size range is typical of oligotrophic seas and is thought to be due to the greater ability of small phytoplankton to harvest the very low levels of nutrients available in such systems due to their higher surface area to volume ratio. 

As has been noted above, the Eastern Mediterranean is characterised by many eddies and jets (POEM, 1992). Indeed there are almost no areas of the basin which are not part of some mesoscale feature or other (Fig. 4.3). Yet the nutrient distribution (Kress Herat, 2001) and many of the plankton features such as bacterial abundance and activity and chlorophyll content (Yacobi etal., 1995) seem to be nearly constant across large parts of the basin except for those locations where they intersect major and persistent mesoscale features (Fig. 4.5). Under those circumstances major changes in nutrient distribution and productivity can be seen. The Rhodes Gyre and the Cyprus Eddy (aka Shikmona Gyre) are permanent features which always have an effect on the local biogeochemistry and have been studied in some detail. 

However, it is clear that the Eastern Mediterranean is not iron limited. Those areas of the ocean which are iron limited are characterised by high nitrate and phosphate remaining in the surface water when there is sufficient light to allow phytoplankton growth and yet productivity has stopped. Both the East Central Pacific and the Southern Ocean are thousands of kilometres downwind of the nearest source of atmospheric dust and far away from any land source of iron. Recent results of the IRONEX and SOIREE lagrangian... 

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