Marine Geoscience Research Articles

Combining remote sensing surveys, digital and in situ field trips in higher education geology classroom

The OceanField project is an integrated field-work and classroom-based course offered to first year Master students in Marine Geosciences (at the European Institute for Marine Studies IUEM – University of Brest), creating a synergy between 1/ geology field class, 2/ photogrammetric data acquisition and 3/ data processing to produce digital terrain models, enabling the immersive experience to be extended in a digital working environment once back in class. In this way, the students experiment different approaches for observing and analysing the structure, geometry and nature of a past oceanic domain in the Alps, and gain an understanding of how it works (from its birth to its disappearance). At the same time, participating in the acquisition and processing of photogrammetric data, students acquire new technical skills. By not only being immersed in the virtual environment, but also contributing to its creation, students are involved in the various stages of the data lifecycle. As a result, they become more aware of multiscale data quality and of the opportunities offered by virtual environment accuracy.

An open secret: Marine geosciences, offshore oil exploration and industrial secrecy in the Mediterranean seafloor

ABSTRACT The oil industry has crucially contributed to advance the geological knowledge of marine regions by employing technological, logistical, and economic resources unattainable in academic research. However, oil exploration projects are framed by confidentiality contracts that hinder the free dissemination of data and results to the geologists’ community: for information to flow, the secrecy regime needs to become permeable. From the onset of the Western Mediterranean’s exploration in the late 1960s, the oil industry encouraged a growing dissemination of information, during which oil experts established formal paths of data diffusion, exchange, and collaboration with academic geologists. What prompted the oil industry’s secrecy regime to become more flexible to data spillovers? As I argue, two scientific events: the acceptance of plate tectonics theory as a new geological framework through which geological evidence needed to be reinterpreted, and the existence of salt domes buried in the deep Mediterranean basin, which indicated the region’s oil potential. The Mediterranean seafloor moved, in little over a decade, from being an overlooked region to emerge (after joint projects, discussions, and exchanges) as a co-construction between academic geologists and oil industry experts.

A submerged Stone Age hunting architecture from the Western Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea basins, some of which only submerged in the mid-Holocene, preserve Stone Age structures that did not survive on land. Yet, the discovery of these features is challenging and requires cross-disciplinary approaches between archeology and marine geosciences. Here, we combine shipborne and autonomousunderwater vehicle hydroacoustic data with up to a centimeter range resolution, sedimentological samples, and optical images to explore a Stone Age megastructure located in 21 m water depth in the Bay of Mecklenburg, Germany. The structure is made of 1,673 individual stones which are usually less than 1 m in height, placed side by side over a distance of 971 m in a way that argues against a natural origin by glacial transport or ice push ridges. Running adjacent to the sunken shoreline of a paleolake (or bog), whose youngest phase was dated to 9,143 ±36 ka B.P., the stonewall was likely used for hunting the Eurasian reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) during the Younger Dryas or early Pre-Boreal. It was built by hunter-gatherer groups that roamed the region after the retreat of the Weichselian Ice Sheet. Comparable Stone Age megastructures have become known worldwide in recent times but are almost unknown in Europe. The site represents one of the oldest documented man-made hunting structures on Earth, and ranges among the largest known Stone Age structure in Europe. It will become important for understanding subsistence strategies, mobility patterns, and inspire discussions concerning the territorial development in the Western Baltic Sea region.

The value of multibeam bathymetry in marine spatial planning in South Africa: A review

Given a growing global population and shift to embrace the blue economy, a need for marine spatial planning (MSP) has emerged in South Africa to sustainably resolve the rising conflicts over the use of marine and seabed resources and services. A well-developed marine spatial plan yields numerous ecological, social and economic benefits. These are achieved through mediating between spatially conflicting economic drivers’ interests (e.g. commercial fishing, tourism, mining), preventing their activities from compromising thresholds of an environment’s sustainability. Within the MSP framework, high-resolution geospatial datasets are required to document and describe the seabed in the highest possible detail. At any scale, integrated analysis of seabed geomorphology and habitats is anticipated to greatly improve the understanding of ecosystem functioning from a multidisciplinary perspective, whilst improving MSP procedures and management of marine space. South Africa is the first of few African countries to have an approved and implemented MSP framework, but is still somewhat behind globally in implementing large-scale regional hydroacoustic surveys to cover the country’s vast offshore territory. The deficiency of hydroacoustic surveys is perhaps due to a relative lack of funds and poor communication about the value of multibeam echo-sounder (MBES) derived data, whilst marine geoscience remains a scarce skill in the country. This review paper presents a geological perspective of MSP and explores (1) the value that seabed mapping offers MSP specifically and (2) the need to increase seabed mapping with MBES, using a recently initiated project from the South African east coast as a case study. Significance: The collected MBES data (our case study) provides unprecedented seabed detail of the complex reef habitat and adjacent areas within specific management zones of the uThukela Banks Marine Protected Area. We reveal seabed features and their spatial distribution at a scale not possible using earlier (singlebeam) seabed mapping techniques. These high-resolution data will enable a better understanding of east coast marine habitats whilst contributing to improved spatial management of areas within and around the uThukela Banks Marine Protected Area.

Reprocessing of Legacy Seismic Reflection Profile Data and Its Implications for Plate Flexure in the Vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands

AbstractDuring 1975–1988, an academic research ship, R/V Robert D. Conrad, acquired more than 150,000‐line‐km of multichannel seismic reflection profile data from each of the world's main ocean basins and their margins. This extensive legacy seismic data set, which involved both single ship and two‐ship data acquisition, has been widely used by the marine geoscience community. We report on our experience in reprocessing seismic reflection profile data acquired during Conrad cruise RC2308 to the Hawaiian Islands region in August/September 1982. We show that the application of modern, industry standard processing techniques, including filtering, de‐bubble, deconvolution, and migration, can significantly enhance 40+ year old legacy seismic reflection profile data. The reprocessed data reveals more precisely, and with much less scatter, the flexure of Cretaceous Pacific oceanic crust caused by the Pliocene‐Recent volcanic loads that comprise the Hawaiian Islands. A comparison of observed picks of top oceanic crust which has been corrected for the Hawaiian swell and the Molokai Fracture Zone with the calculations of a simple 3‐dimensional elastic plate (flexure) model reveals a best fit elastic plate thickness of the lithosphere, Te, of 26.7 km, an average infill density of 2,701 kg m−3, and a Root Mean Square difference between observations and calculations of 305 m. Tests show these results depend weakly on the load density assumed and that the average infill density is close to what would be predicted from an arithmetic average of the flanking moat infill density and the infill density that immediately underlies the volcanic edifice.

Sea surface height data reconstruction via inter and intra layer features based on dual attention

Understanding of geoscience relies on spatio-temporal continuous fields, such as Sea Surface Height (SSH). Data reconstruction for restoring spatio-temporal continuous and gridded maps from incomplete observations and inaccuracy interpolation products has long been a crucial challenge in the marine geoscience. Despite remarkable progress, most existing learning-based reconstruction methods neglect to fully and discriminatively utilize the inter-layer and intra-layer features. The inter-layer semantics are complementary, and the significance of intra-layer components varies with frequency. To address these issues, we propose a multi-layer Feature Combination Network based on Attention mechanism (FCANet) for SSH data reconstruction. Specifically, a novel trainable Multi-layer Feature Combination Block (MFCB) is developed to enrich the features through inter-layer dependencies. Dual attention mechanism is introduced into the MFCB to enhance saliency of intra-layer features by adaptively rescaling the spatial-wise and channel-wise features. Furthermore, experimental results on SSH variable demonstrate the superiority of our FCANet over state-of-the-art reconstruction methods in the metrics of RMSE and SSIM.

International Symposium on Eastern Indonesia Marine Ecosystems

Editors Agus Setiawan, Iis Triyulianti, Charlie Ester de Fretes, Muhammad Zain Tuakia, Sem Likumahua, Faisal Hamzah, Corry Yanti Manullang, Dewi Seswita Zilda, Abdul Wahab Radjab, Muhammad Fadli, Rafidha Dh. Ahmad Opier, Ahmad Romdon. Preface The evaluation of the First Symposium on Banda Sea Ecosystem (ISBSE) held by the Research Center for Deep Sea (then under the Indonesian Institute of Sciences-LIPI) in 2017 indicated the need to expand the geographic coverage area of the symposium. As the follow up, in 2022, the Research Center organized the International Symposium on Eastern Indonesia Marine Ecosystems (ISEIME), with the objective is to gather all marine scientists and observers to meet and share their knowledge and recent information regarding marine ecosystems in eastern Indonesia and the country in general. ISEIME is one of various international conferences that organized by the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency-BRIN to focus on topics such as Oceanography and Climate Change; Marine Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Ecology; Marine Monitoring and Management; Marine Pollution; and Marine Geosciences. The event took place on the 24th of November 2022.Human health problems due to the pandemic of COVID-19 in Indonesia has decreased recently, yet in some parts of the country still show slight increase cases. To this end, we decided to conduct the ISEIME 2022 virtually using the zoom platform, which was remotely organized from Ambon, eastern Indonesia. The symposium was commenced by a report from the chairman of ISEIME and subsequently followed by a welcoming-remarks by the Head of Research Center for Deep Sea, Intan Suci Nurhati, Ph.D. In the first session, two keynote speakers (Prof. Ocky Karna Radjasa and Prof. Dwi Listyo Rahayu from BRIN) were given 30-40 minutes to present their talks and followed by a 30 minutes Q&A. Three invited speakers, Prof. Stevan Steinke, Prof. Wiedong Yu and Prof. Madya Dr. Tuan Nurul Sabiqah Tuan Anuar delivered their talks during the second session. In the parallel session, 30 speakers were divided into five different rooms according to the topics and they were given 15 minutes each to deliver their presentations, followed by 5 minutes Q&A.The event has gained a great success due to hard work from the collaboration between the local committee in Ambon, Bali and Jakarta. We would like to thank BRIN International Conference Event Organizer who had taken part in providing time and financial support during the event. Special acknowledgement to all speakers who contribute in the event by imparting their knowledge during the talks and discussions, and also their willingness to participate and contribute in the future marine research in Indonesia. We would also like to extend our sincere thanks to all authors who contribute their findings through their written papers, and for their significant thoughts and ideas in discussions during their presentations. Finally, we give a great appreciation and many thanks to reviewers who have voluntarily participated and contributed not only in judging papers, but also in providing constructive comments and suggestions for authors to improve their manuscripts.ISEIME chairmanSem LikumahuaList of ISEIME Committee is available in this Pdf.

Global research on submarine landslides, 2001–2020

Submarine landslides, one of the hotspots in marine geoscience research, are one of the most harmful marine geological disasters. To understand the research status and further research directions of submarine landslides, this paper analyzed the global submarine landslide-related work during the period from 2001 to 2020. To achieve this objective, Science Citation Index Expand and the Social Sciences Citation Index, belonging to the WoS Core Collection, were the two bibliographic databases selected as a reference. In this study, we focused on document types, publishing languages, subject categories, journals’ productivity, countries and author, and co-occurrence keywords network. Geoscience multidisciplinary, Geochemistry Geophysics, Oceanography, Environmental Sciences, and Materials Science Multidisciplinary have been the most commonly used science categories in the past two decades. Marine Geology, Marine and Petroleum Geology, Journal of Volcanology, and Geothermal Research are the three most productive journals on submarine landslides. Marine Geology is the most active journal among all the journals. The United States, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, and France are the five most productive countries. At the institutional level, the Centre National De la Recherche Scientifique (France) is the most active institution, followed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (China) and Helmholtz Association (Germany). Masson DG and Talling PJ from the United Kingdom contribute to the most high-quality submarine landslide-related publications. Analyzing by CiteSpace, the five largest clusters in the submarine landslide field are “gas hydrate,” “turbidity current,” “thin film,” “debris avalanche,” and “submarine canyon.” Active further research directions of submarine landslides are “south china sea,” “slump,” and “submarine mass failure.”

The necessary optimization of the data lifecycle: Marine geosciences in the big data era

In the marine geosciences, observations are typically acquired using research vessels to understand a given phenomenon or area of interest. Despite the plateauing of ship time and active research vessels in the last decade, the rate of marine geoscience data production has continued to increase. Simultaneously, there exists large quantities of legacy data aggregated within data repositories; however, these data are rarely curated to be both discoverable and machine-readable (i.e., accessible). This results in inefficient use, or even omission, of high-quality data, that is, both increasingly important to utilize and impractical to recollect. The proliferation of newly acquired data, and increasing importance of legacy data, has only been met with incremental evolution in the methods of data integration. This paper describes some improvements at each stage of the data lifecycle (acquisition, curation, and integration) that could align the marine geosciences better with the “big data” paradigm. We have encountered several major issues coordinating these efforts which we outline here: 1) geologic anomalies are the primary focus of data acquisition and pose difficulty in understanding the dominant (i.e., baseline) marine geology, 2) marine geoscience data are rarely curated to be accessible, and 3) aforementioned issues preclude the use of efficient integration tools that can make optimal use of data. In this paper, we discuss challenges and solutions associated with these issues to overcome these concerns in future decades of marine geoscience. The successful execution of these interconnected steps will optimize the lifecycle of marine geoscience data in the “big data” era.

Gasgeochemical features in the western part of the East Vietnam Sea (Bien Dong Sea)

During the joint Russian-Vietnamese studies in the East Vietnam Sea (known as Bien Dong or the South China Sea), manifestations of new hydrocarbon-accumulating zones were discovered; evidences of the presence of mineral indicators for solid minerals in shelf deposits were obtained; a unique zone, where accumulations of ferromanganese crusts and nodules have been formed, was revealed for the first time; evidence of unique properties of deep-water fine-dispersed carbonate sediments (which makes it possible to attribute them to an independent type of mineral resources of the East Vietnam Sea) were obtained; the ikaite mineral (that serves as an indicator of methane migration zones and cold marine paleo-conditions) was discovered in the Phu Khanh basin; heavy concentrates with indicators of rare forms of ore mineralization were collected; features of methane and mercury fluxes into the atmosphere, cultures of methane-oxidizing, oil-oxidizing and sulfate-reducing bacteria were registered for the first time within the study areas. New data on gravity and magnetic field anomalies along the shelf and slope of Vietnam have been obtained. The article presents the results of coastal geophysical and gasgeochemical research obtained in 2010–2020 within the Joint Russian-Vietnamese Laboratory for Marine Geosciences (POI FEB RAS - IMGG VAST). For the first time, anomalous methane fields (comparable to anomalies on the oil- and gas-bearing shelf and the gas hydrate-bearing slope of Sakhalin Island) were registered in the water column. The gravimagnetic survey was carried out on the central and southern shelf and the continental slope of Vietnam; the executed works supplemented the geophysical data, which had been obtained in the 80s–90s of the preceding century. The paper contributes to the Russia-Vietnamese program within the UN Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development framework.

Reflections on a Career in Marine Geoscience

AbstractI began my career in the late 1960s at a time when some major oceanographic institutions were running upwards of 30 cruises a year. By the early 1980s, changes in funding patterns, satellite remote sensing, and “law of the sea” had started to impact ocean exploration. Nevertheless, technological advances, especially in sonar and seismic systems, have led to new discoveries on seafloor processes and underlying structures. Today, marine geoscience plays a pivotal role in Earth system science through projects such as Seabed 2030, International Ocean Drilling (IODP), and seismic imaging of mantle lithosphere, each of which pose opportunities and new challenges for the next generation.

The Battle of Lepanto Search and Survey Mission (1971–1972) by Throckmorton, Edgerton and Yalouris: Following Their Traces Half a Century Later Using Marine Geophysics

A series of marine remote sensing and ground-truth surveys were carried out at NW Gulf of Patras (W. Greece). The same area was surveyed in 1971 by Throckmorton, Edgerton and Yalouris, who are among the pioneers in the application of remote sensing techniques to underwater archaeology. The researchers conducted a surface reconnaissance survey to locate the site where the Battle of Lepanto took place on 7 October 1571. Their remote sensing surveying resulted in a map of two “target” areas that showed promise as possible remnants of wrecks from that battle and proposed a ground truth survey for their identification and in the detection of two modern shipwrecks. The ground truth survey was never fulfilled. The objectives of our repeat surveys, which were completed 50 years later, were to relocate the findings of this pioneer survey with higher spatial and vertical resolution, to ground-truth the targets, fulfilling their investigation, and to interpret the newly collected data in the light of modern developments in marine geosciences. Our repeat surveys detected mound clusters and individual mounds referred to “target” areas. These mounds could be interpreted as the surface expression of mud and fluid expulsion from the underlying deformed soft sediments. The ground truth survey demonstrated that the tops of mounds represent biogenic mounds. The ROV survey did not show any indication of wreck remnants of the Battle of Lepanto within the two survey areas. The site formation processes of the two modern shipwrecks were also studied in detail. Two noticeable seafloor morphological features were detected around the wreck sites; field of small-sized pockmarks and seafloor depressions. We would like to dedicate this work to the memory of Peter Throckmorton and Harold E. Edgerton, who are among the pioneers in the formative years of underwater archaeology in Greece.

Formation of anomalous gas fields of helium and hydrogen in the Cat Ba, Co To and Bach Long Vi islands, northern Vietnam

Data of methane, helium and hydrogen concentrations in the mineral waters, as well as in the subsurface atmosphere, of the Cat Ba, Co To and Bach Long Vi islands, shows that the regions belong to degassing zones of hydrogen and helium, and points at gas condensate potential of the Bac Bo sedimentary basin. A joint transit of these gases via the fault structures was established. Distribution patterns of hydrogen and helium concentrations from these islands (Tonkin Gulf) were obtained from the gas and water sample data. Thermogenic and metamorphogenic gases detected in hydrogeological wells on Cat Ba island and gas anomalies in subsurface gas indicate natural gas emission through permeability zones.
 The work was carried out within the framework of the joint Russian-Vietnamese Laboratory on Marine Geosciences (V.I.Il`ichev Pacific Oceanological Institute FEB RAS and Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics, VAST). The research involves the staff and scientific equipment of the new innovative Laboratory for Integrated Research of the Environment and Mineral Resources (LIREMR) of the POI FEB RAS, created within the framework of the SCIENCE national project.

Offshore Geological Hazards: Charting the Course of Progress and Future Directions

Offshore geological hazards can occur in any marine domain or environment and represent a serious threat to society, the economy, and the environment. Seismicity, slope sedimentary instabilities, submarine volcanism, fluid flow processes, and bottom currents are considered here because they are the most common hazardous processes; tsunamis are also examined because they are a secondary hazard generated mostly by earthquakes, slope instabilities, or volcanic eruptions. The hazards can co-occur and interact, inducing a cascading sequence of events, especially in certain contexts, such as tectonic indentations, volcanic islands, and canyon heads close to the coast. We analyze the key characteristics and main shortcomings of offshore geological hazards to identify their present and future directions for marine geoscience investigations of their identification and characterization. This review establishes that future research will rely on studies including a high level of multidisciplinarity. This approach, which also involves scientific and technological challenges, will require effective integration and interplay between multiscale analysis, mapping, direct deep-sea observations and testing, modelling, and linking offshore observations with onshore observations.

A review of current and emerging approaches for Quaternary marine sediment dating.

Dating methodologies for Quaternary marine sediments play increasingly important roles in the reconstruction of paleoenvironments and paleoclimate in (paleo)oceanography. Previous reviews or studies have focused mainly on one or two methodologies, and their applications in one specific environment. With the continuing technological and methodological advances in different methods over the past few decades, an up-to-date comparison of the pros and cons of each dating methodology is needed to clearly understand their applications in marine geoscience research. In this review, we first briefly summarized the common methods of absolute dating and relative dating. These are (1) radioisotope dating with different half-lives using natural nuclides of 234Th, 210Pb, 230Th, and 226Ra, cosmogenic nuclides of 7Be, 14C, 10Be, 32Si, 26Al, 36Cl and 21Ne, and the artificial radionuclides of 137Cs, 239, 240Pu, 241Am and 129I that have been induced by atmospheric nuclear tests, accidents in nuclear plants, and discharges of radioactive wastes; (2) radiation exposure dating of luminescence and electron paramagnetic resonance (ESR) dating; and (3) stratigraphic dating of δ18O and paleomagnetic sequence. Applications and limitations from the marine terraces, estuaries, to hadal trenches have been summarized to each technique in the study of Quaternary marine geoscience extending from the Anthropocene through the Pleistocene. Finally, we introduced some emerging event dating methods, namely the arrivals of microplastics, mercury isotopes, and organic pollutant deposition that all appeared after the industrial resolution in our now changing ocean influenced by acidification, global warming, and anthropogenic activities. We ended by discussing future perspectives for reliable and high-resolution chronology by interdisciplinary methods including computer programming to better understand the natural geological evolution and predict the future changes in earth science.

A review of 20 years (1999–2019) of Turkish–French collaboration in marine geoscience research in the Sea of Marmara

This paper retraces the history and main achievements of the ongoing Turkish–French collaboration in marine geoscience research in the Sea of Marmara, which was initiated in the aftermath of the 1999, Izmit and Duzce earthquakes. The collaboration resulted in nine large oceanographic cruises along with six recovery operations involving diverse vessels, and in the participation in two major EU-funded programmes (ESONET-NoE and MARSITE) and to one bilateral project, e.g. the MAREGAMI Project, co-funded by TUBITAK and ANR (the Turkish and French national funding agencies for research, respectively). In this paper, we review the major scientific contributions on the tectonic evolution of the North-Anatolian Fault in the Marmara Region; on the relationships between faulting, seismicity, fluids and ecosystems; and on paleo-seismology and paleo-oceanography in the Sea of Marmara.

2019-333-FA_sol: Digital Chirp Subbottom Profile Start of Line Data Collected During USGS Field Activity Number 2019-333-FA Offshore of the Rockaway Peninsula, New York, September–October 2019

From September 27 through October 5, 2019, researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted a geophysical survey to investigate shoreface morphology and geology near the Rockaway Peninsula, New York. The Coastal Sediment Availability and Flux project objectives include understanding the morphologic evolution of the barrier island system on a variety of time scales (months to centuries) and resolving storm-related impacts, post-storm beach response, and recovery. This publication serves as an archive of high-resolution chirp subbottom trace data, survey trackline map, navigation files, geographic information system (GIS) data, and formal Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM). Processed subbottom profile images are also provided. The archived trace data are in standard Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) SEG-Y revision 0 format (Barry and others, 1975). In addition to this data release, the SEG-Y files can be downloaded from the USGS Coastal and Marine Geoscience Data System (CMGDS) at, https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov. Bathymetry and backscatter data were also collected during this survey and are available in Stalk and others (2020).

Global experience in locating submerged prehistoric sites and their relevance to research on the American continental shelves

Over 3000 seabed prehistoric sites globally have been discovered by archaeologists. Sites submerged by deglaciating rise of the sea and showing hominin remains of various dates have been found off the coasts of China, Japan, South Africa, throughout the Mediterranean, off the coasts of all European countries, and off American coasts. The age range is from 5000 years to over 300,000 years. Most sites date from the post-glacial 20,000 years. The majority of submerged sites were found by chance and then studied by academic researchers. The archaeology of finds and stratified deposits has been integrated into geophysical and sedimentary mapping of the shelf, including paleo-environmental landscapes. The development of marine-based diets and exploitation of coastal marine resources at dates earlier than 5000 BP can only be studied at submerged prehistoric sites. Seabed sites can preserve organics such as wood, bone, and textiles. The evidence for coastwise migration or diffusion of populations has been considered on submerged shelves such as the southern Red Sea, SE Asia, and Beringia. Most known deposits, especially stratified deposits, are on broad low gradient continental shelves, usually where the terrain is undulating, or in large coastal inlets, marginal seas, ria valleys, and in the shelter of islands or archipelagos. No sites have been found in the global tropical zone. Research in some countries has been promoted by collaboration between marine geoscience institutions and archaeological institutes and university departments. Priorities of research targets in Europe are human response to sea level change, origins of marine resource exploitation, migration routes on the continental shelf, early seafaring, earliest phases of coastal sedentism, and paleo-landscapes. Research on the seabed has proved that a wide range of fundamental questions related to archaeology and paleo-anthropology can already be studied efficiently underwater with valuable academic results.

Comparing the post-WWII publication histories of oceanography and marine geoscience

Oceanography and marine geosciences are closely related subjects, though they have had differing influences. The UK, which has experienced the financial benefits of North Sea oil and gas, while also having an extensive fishing industry and a science base linked to other English-speaking countries and European countries, potentially illustrates some changing influences and collaborative tendencies well. In this article, differences in article publication rates and collaborative tendencies, both globally and for the UK, are examined using the Web of Science™, Scopus™ and Georef™ for the period 1946–2018. The results show that publication rates of global oceanography articles rose exponentially faster than all global scientific publishing from the mid-1960s to 1980. Subsequently, the exponential rate of increase slowed though has remained faster than global science publishing. Global Marine Geoscience publication rates increased into the late 1980s, but have since declined. UK oceanography has roughly followed global trends, though its share of global oceanographic publishing declined from 28% in the 1950s to 8% in 2018. UK Marine Geoscience publishing has also generally followed global trends for that field. However, its share of global publications abruptly increased from 4.9% (average 1960–1980) to 13.2% by 1990, largely due to articles arising from UK participation in the Deep-Sea Drilling Project and Ocean Drilling Program. Oceanography and marine geoscience have also experienced strongly differing histories of collaborative articles over the last four decades. While oceanographic articles co-authored with researchers in other countries have been steadily increasing as a share of total UK Oceanography articles, those of marine geoscience peaked in 1990 and have since declined, though remained at high levels similar to those experienced by 2018 in Oceanography. Comparing global publication rates in both fields with measures of data and sample collection at sea suggests fundamental changes occurred in the way research was carried out. For example, Marine Geoscience publication rates were strongly correlated with geophysical track-line distances for the decade until ~1970, but were inversely correlated for the decade after then. This reflects, for example, the development of plate tectonics, which partly involved analysis of existing marine geophysical data, improved equipment capabilities and the increased role of scientific drilling.

Features of the distribution of abnormal gas geochemical fields in the Red River rift (Gulf of Tonkin, South China Sea)

This paper reports the results of the third Russian–Vietnamese expedition (POI FEB RAS and the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology) in the Gulf of Tonkin, South China Sea (April 2016) and field work outcomes from 2016-2017. The studies revealed new specific features of the distribution and origin of gas-geochemical fields in sediments within the rift zone of the Red River along a 150-km profile. Four zones with high amplitude anomalies of hydrocarbon gases, helium, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide were revealed. The distribution of the anomalies reflects the tectonic structure of the area and points to the presence of several lithospheric sources of gases including gases of deep origin. The studies were carried out within the scope of the Joint Vietnamese–Russian Laboratory for Marine Geosciences (POI FEB RAS and the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology). The article is dedicated to the year of friendship between Russia and Vietnam.