The Mediterranean Sea

The use of accurate isotope ratio measurement is exemplified here by a method used to determine the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea 10,000 years ago. It is known that the relative solubility of the two isotopic forms of carbon dioxide COj) in sea water depends on temperature... 

Lateen sailing vessels are established in the Mediterranean Sea, increasing directional sailing ability. 

Although the relationship of sediment adsorption to water concentration appears to be a controlling feature of shallow water systems such as lakes and coastal shelf water, the open ocean is more likely to contain soluble plutonium which seems to be unaffected by particulate matter. This is particularly evident in two oceanographic studies. Bowen et al have discovered a stratum of plutonium in the North Pacific at about 500m that has not changed depth appreciably from 1973 to 1980. How it arrived at this depth is subject to conjecture but it appears to be soluble plutonium which is not settling(17). Fukai et al have delineated plutonium maxima in the Mediterranean Sea which seem to be due to soluble species(18). Comparison of americium to plutonium ratios in this... 

Mean tar concentrations on the Israeli coast of the Mediterranean Sea ranged from 884 to 4388 g m in 1975-76 (27). Chemical analyses indicated that 76% of the tar on Israeli beaches was weathered crude, 96% of it from Middle Eastern sources (28). Concentrations of tar on the beaches of Lebanon and Turkey appeared to be much lower than those at Alexandria, Egypt and Paphos, Cyprus, as a consequence of the orientation of these beaches relative to a site in the eastern Mediterranean Sea where dumping of oily sludge was permitted (27). 

Evaporite deposition is a much more episodic process and thus difficult to quantify. Because seawater is significantly undersaturated with respect to common evaporitic minerals, like gypsum and halite, evaporites are only formed when restricted circulation develops in an ocean basin in which evaporation exceeds precipitation. A geologically recent example is the Mediterranean Sea of 5-6 Myr ago. At this time excess evaporation exceeded the supply of ocean water through shallow inlet(s) from the Atlantic Ocean. As salinity increased, first CaS04, then NaCl precipitated. Over time, salt deposits 2-3 km thick formed. This thickness represents about 40 desiccations of the entire... 

Counterexamples teach a lesson that these exaggerations of aquatic biological activity are highly idiosyncratic and depend on the fluxes of nutrients, the types of phytoplankton ecosystems that are involved, and - most importantly - the local and regional circulations of the aquatic system. For example, the Mediterranean Sea is landlocked and has many large pollution sources, but the large flux of nutrient-poor ("impoverished") water from the Atlantic... 

Ocean prevents eutrophication. Much more water flows into the Mediterranean Sea than is required to replace evaporation from it. The excess, high salinity water exits Gibraltar below the water flowing in af fhe surface. Nufrients that enter the Mediterranean Sea from pollution sources are utilized by marine phytoplankton that sinks and exits with the outflow. Another example is that estuaries often have lower salinity or even freshwater at the surface with a denser saline layer at the bottom. An estuarine circulation occurs with nutrients being trapped in the saline bottom water. 

Though extremes are part of the normal hydrologic behaviour in Mediterranean-type rivers, a consistent trend of water flow decrease has been described in many of these systems. The Ebro is the largest Iberian river flowing into the Mediterranean Sea. The flow records at its mouth (mean annual runoff 13,408 Mm ) show a decrease of nearly 40% in mean annual flow in the last 50 years. The forces behind these flow decreases are multiple. Higher water withdrawal, climate change and... 

Mediterranean climates are found around the world in addition to the region bordering the Mediterranean Sea. More than half of the Mediterranean-climate regions do occur around the Mediterranean Sea. Other regions with Mediterranean... 

Spills may represent the greatest point source release of methyl parathion to groundwater and surface water. An accidental spill caused by a warehouse fire in Nebraska released methyl parathion to a drainage ditch that emptied into the Missouri River (Kawahara et al. 1967). In another incident, 10 tons of methyl parathion spilled in the Mediterranean Sea near Eg q)t as a result of a collision between two ships (Badawy et al. 1984). 

Badawy MI, El-Dib MA, Aly OA. 1984. Spill of methyl parathion in the Mediterranean Sea A case study at Port-Said, Egypt. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 32 469-477. 

Sprovieri F, Pirrone N, Gardfeldt K, Sommar J. 2003. Atmospheric mercury speciation in the marine boundary layer along 6000 km cruise path over the Mediterranean Sea. Atmos Environ 37(S1) 63-72. 

Antonioli F, Oliverio M (1996) Holocene sea-level rise recorded by a radiocaibon-dated mussel in a submerged speleothem beneath the Mediterranean Sea. Quat Res 45 241-244 Antonioli F, Silenzi S, Frisia S, (2001) Tyrrhenian Holocene palaeoclimate trends from spelean serpulids Fabrizio. (Juat Sci Rev 20 1661-1670... 

Saliot A, Andril C, Ho R, et al. 1985. Hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean Sea Their occurrence and fate in the sediment and in the water column, as dissolved and associated with small and large size particulates. Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemical 22 25-46. 

In the Mediterranean Sea and Middle East area, for example, there are obsidian outflows only in Italy, in some islands in the Aegean Sea, and in Turkey. Artifacts made of obsidian, however, are widely distributed over much of this vast area. Chemical analysis of many of these artifacts has shown that most of the obsidian used to make them originated in one or another of the outflows mentioned, but also in far-distant places such as Armenia and Iran. Plotting on a graph the concentration of selected elements in samples from obsidian sources against that in samples from sites where it was used, enables the identification of the source of the samples (see Fig. 22). Moreover, this type of analysis also makes it possible to trace the routes through which obsidian (and most probably other goods) were traded in antiquity (Renfrew and Dixon 1976). 

Also in the Mediterranean Sea region, obsidian artifacts are frequently found at prehistoric sites in northern Italy and southern France. Most of the... 

FIGURE 55 Earthenware. Large earthenware vessels from the sixth-fourth centuries B.C.E., recovered from under the Mediterranean Sea, at Caesarea Maritima, Israel. Earthenware one of the simplest types of ceramic material, is highly porous and permeable. It is made from clay and a variety of additives fired at about 950°C. Iron oxides impurities in the clay usually make earthenware buff, red, or brown. Most earthenware, like the vessels shown, was not glazed but, if required, sometimes was waterproofed or decorated with a layer of glaze. 

Mineral tanning was probably first practiced in ancient Mesopotamia and then spread to Egypt, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean Sea area (Levey 1958). Mineral-tanned leather is soft to handle, has a velvety texture, and is almost white, a color practically impossible to achieve by other tanning processes. It is, however, very sensitive to humidity and water under wet conditions the alum in the leather is hydrolyzed (decomposed by water), forming sulfuric acid, a very strong acid that attacks the leather and causes its rapid decay. Mineral-tanned leather that has been humid or wet for a more or less extended period of time loses some of its characteristic properties, such as softness, pliability, and strength, and becomes hard, horny, and brittle. 

The Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees in the North, the Iberian System in the South-East, and the Coastal Catalan mountains in the East are the natural limits of the Ebro River basin. Traditionally, the river source was supposed to be at Fontibre (name derived from Forties Iberis in latin, Springs of Iberia ) at 880 m.a.s.l., near Reinosa in Cantabria. Nowadays, the river source is placed at 1,980 m.a.s.l., the water coming from a source in Penalara (27 km upstream from Reinosa). The main river channel is 910 km in length, flows NW-SE, from the Cantabrian Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea, where it forms a delta. 

The river downstream the reservoirs is about 120 km length, forms canyon meanders, and is very deep. The river widens up again at Mora d Ebre, and after crossing the littoral Catalan mountains reaches the city of Tortosa and flows to the Mediterranean Sea in the Ebro Delta (30 km). 

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