New papers (Elsevier) 2025/2/10–2025/2/16

Global and Planetary Change

1. The Reef Island Geomorphic Activity Assessment: A new approach to quantify cay geomorphic change

Emily Lazarus,  Stephanie Duce,  Stephen Lewis,  Scott Smithers

2. Growth patterns and geochemical characteristics of a colonial scleractinian cold-water coral in the South Chian Sea: A 500-year record of ocean environmental changes

Xuefeng Wang,  Xuefei Chen,  Kaiwen Ta,  Xuna Yin,  Lisheng Wang,  Miaohong He,  Wenfeng Deng,  Gangjian Wei,  Xiaotong Peng,  Xianhua Li

3. Dust emissions in the arid Asian interior and abrupt changes in midlatitude atmospheric circulation during the glacial-Holocene transition

Peixian Shu,  Dongfeng Niu,  Yougui Song,  Yuejun Si,  Shugang Kang,  Baosheng Li,  Weijian Zhou,  Zhisheng An

4. Dynamic interactions between Fe, Mn, S and C cycles in the Okinawa Trough seep sediments

Cuiling Xu,  Qing Li,  Taiheng Lv,  Zhilei Sun,  Ang Li,  Ye Chen,  Xilin Zhang,  Feng Cai,  Nengyou Wu

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

5. Magnetic proxy in the Heqing drill core revealed Indian Summer Monsoon variations linked with AMOC at the orbital -scale during the late Pleistocene

Xinwen Xu,  Xiaoke Qiang,  Xubin Li,  Haijun Qiu,  Hui Zhao,  Chaofeng Fu,  Ziyi Yang

Marine Geology

6. Major Holocene glacio-isostatically-induced earthquakes triggered mass-transport deposits and seabed displacements in Lake Melville

Jaia Syvitski,  Alexandre Normandeau,  Patrick Lajeunesse

7. Rapid, complex back barrier pedestal formation preconditions washover deposition on the southeast Indian coast

Chris Gouramanis,  Seshachalam Srinivasalu,  Andasabari Karthik,  Dat T. Pham,  Stephen Carson,  Adam D. Switzer

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

8. Earthquake-triggered submarine canyon flushing transfers young terrestrial and marine organic carbon into the deep sea

Katherine L Maier,  Catherine E Ginnane,  Sebastian Naeher,  Jocelyn C Turnbull,  Scott D Nodder,  Jamie Howarth,  Sarah J Bury,  Robert G Hilton,  Jess IT Hillman

Quaternary Science Reviews

9. Speleothem evidence of late glacial and Early Holocene Preboreal and Boreal hydro-climate changes in western Mediterranean (Corchia Cave, Italy)

Andrea Columbu,  Ilaria Isola,  Giovanni Zanchetta,  Russell N. Drysdale,  Stefano Natali,  John C. Hellstrom,  Michel Magny,  Anthony E. Fallick

10. 2000 years of climate, environmental, and societal variability in southeastern Norway from the annually laminated sediments of Lake Sagtjernet

Eirik G. Ballo,  William J. D'Andrea,  Helge I. Høeg,  Kjetil Loftsgarden,  Manon Bajard,  Sabine Eckhardt,  Massimo Cassiani,  Nikolaos Evangeliou,  Jostein Bakke,  Kirstin Krüger

New Papers (Elsevier, etc) 2025/1/28-2025/2/3

Chemical Geology

[1] Constraining sulfate sources and its implications on atmospheric pCO2 in Arid Regions: Evidence from the Tarim Basin. 

Jia, G. D., Zhong, J., Li, S. L., Xu, S., Luo, H., & Liu, C. Q.

[2] Seawater temperatures during the early to middle Ediacaran: Phosphate oxygen isotope records

Fan, H., Chen, Z., Zhang, F., Zhu, C., Du, S., Zhang, Y., ... & Algeo, T. J.

[3] Triple oxygen isotopic fractionation in CO2-CaCO3-H2O system during CO2-H2O exchange, carbonate precipitation, and acid digestion

Roy, P., Laskar, A. H., Ghoshmaulik, S., Bhattacharya, S. K., Rangarajan, R., & Liang, M. C. 

[4] Comparisons of pretreatment extraction methods for tree-ring radiocarbon analysis

Qin, J., Niu, Z., Zhou, W., Huang, Y., Feng, X., Liang, D., ... & Wang, H. 

[5] Predominant biogenic contribution of dissolved inorganic carbon in karst rivers, Southwest China

Zheng, Y., Ding, H., Zhong, J., Lang, Y., Li, S. L., Xu, S., & Liu, C. Q.

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

[6] Decreased marine organic carbon burial during the Hirnantian glaciation

Yang, S., & Fan, J.

[7] Phosphorus-to-calcium ratios in benthic foraminiferal shells as a proxy for coastal seawater phosphate concentrations

Zhang, H., Xu, B., Lai, Z., Paytan, A., Burnett, W. C., Guo, X., ... & Yu, Z.

[8] Earthquake-triggered submarine canyon flushing transfers young terrestrial and marine organic carbon into the deep sea

Maier, K. L., Ginnane, C. E., Naeher, S., Turnbull, J. C., Nodder, S. D., Howarth, J., ... & Hillman, J. I.

Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta

N/A

Global and Planetary Change

[9] Using seasonal palaeo-flow reconstructions and artificial neural networks for daily water balance modelling: A case study from Tasmania, Australia

Verdon-Kidd, D. C., Allen, K. J., Kidd, L. J., Maxwell, C., Willis, M., & Baker, P.

[10] Coral-derived seasonal seawater δ18O records from the Northern South China Sea: Hydroclimatic insights into the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age

Guo, H., Chen, X., Guo, Y., Zhao, J. X., Wei, G., & Deng, W.

[11] Sea surface water isotope changes recorded by alkenone δ2H from the northern South China Sea over the last 260 kyrs

He, J., Sessions, A. L., Li, L., & Jia, G.

[12] Obtaining refined Euro-Mediterranean rainfall projections through regional assessment of CMIP6 General Circulation Models

Ferreiro-Lera, G. B., Penas, Á., & del Río, S. 

[13] Impact of upstream westerly jet stream on tropospheric dust over the Tibetan Plateau in boreal spring

Feng, X., Mao, R., Gong, D. Y., Shi, C., & Wu, G.

Marine Geology

[14] Development shifts on the emerging Järve coast (Estonia) in Late Holocene

Luik, K., Tõnisson, H., Rivis, R., Vilumaa, K., Vaasma, T., Vandel, E., ... & Suursaar, Ü. 

[15] Influence of the density stratification on the vertical distribution of suspended sediment in a partially mixed estuary

Wang, Y., Jiang, C., Cheng, H., Cai, H., Li, W., & Teng, L.

[16] Major Holocene glacio-isostatically-induced earthquakes triggered mass-transport deposits and seabed displacements in Lake Melville

Syvitski, J., Normandeau, A., & Lajeunesse, P.

[17] High-precision estimation of a paleo-tsunami inundation area by identifying tsunami traces beyond sandy tsunami deposits: A case study of the 869 CE Jogan tsunami in Fukushima, northeastern Japan

Komeiji, K., Shinozaki, T., Sugawara, D., Ishizawa, T., Ikehara, M., & Fujino, S.

Palaeogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology

[18] Snapshots of mid-to-late Holocene sea-surface temperature variability from a subtropical western Atlantic coral reef

Jacobs, J. A., Richey, J. N., Flannery, J. A., Thirumalai, K., & Toth, L. T. 

Quaternary Geochronology

N/A

Quaternary International

[19] Late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental and palaeogeographic evolution in the Fuego river valley, central Tierra del Fuego, southern South America

Alli, P., Montes, A., Candel, S., Borromei, A. M., Rodríguez, S., Coronato, A., & López, R. 

Quaternary Research

[20] Pedogenic carbonate as a transient soil component in a humid, temperate forest (Michigan, USA)

Kelson, J. R., Huth, T. E., Andrews, K., Bartleson, M. N., Cerling, T. E., Jin, L., ... & Levin, N. E. 

Better Late Than Never: A Throwback to the R/V Mirai MR24-02 Research Cruise (March 2024)

哈咯～ D1のMiyaです！It’s February 2025, and I’m finally writing about a cruise that happened in March 2024. Why now? Because I’m heading on another one next week and, and instead of packing, I’m reminiscing. Call it procrastination or call it "mentally getting into the ocean zone"—either way, here we are.

The Struggle is Real (But Temporary)

Last March, I boarded JAMSTEC’s R/V Mirai (未来, "future" in Japanese) for my second-ever research cruise. We set off from Mutsu, Aomori, drilled 6-meter piston cores from the Chishima Trench (~6000m deep) near the Kuril Strait, and ended in Shimizu Port, Shizuoka, next to the legendary Chikyu (地球, “Earth”)—IODP’s deep-sea drilling vessel.

The first five days? Rough. Literally. I had just said my last goodbye to my grandmother in Beijing, was running hourly water sampling solo, and was severely sleep-deprived while trying to instruct others on something I was still figuring out myself. Large waves, constant motion, and self-doubt hit all at once. But as the days passed, I found my rhythm.

Finding Joy in the Deep

The moment I started getting along with everyone, and leaning on my shipmates for support, things shifted. I wasn’t just surviving—I was enjoying it. The student-led workout sessions every night became a mental health lifesaver (even some professors joined in!). Watching "Deep Blue" while the ship rocked in a storm was surreal. The footage of penguins stumbling on land after returning from sea had me laughing way too hard—because honestly, I could relate.

Watching documentary among the waves~ (I feel lucky that I didn't get seasick)

There was also a magic show performed by a fellow student (who happens to be a semi-professional magician), spontaneous chats with professors, students, and the crew from マリンワーク and 日本海洋事業, and deep-dive lectures on turbidites and contourites that rekindled my love for sediments. (I had drifted away from sedimentology after working on Antarctic sediments for my bachelor's thesis, shifting to seawater and then abalone shells—but this cruise reminded me why I loved it in the first place.)

Another super fun thing is I experienced using mouth to suck out some water in from the top of the pilot core to let the flow begin. I tried it once and accidentally drank a little bit of seawater from >5000m! How amazing!!! 

Oh one more thing, the first split of the piston core is like teppanyaki (if you know what I mean)

Water Sampling as Main Job, Sediment Subsampling as Side Job

This time I am in charge of water sampling. We only collected pumped up water of surface ocean with no CTD. Surface seawater is pumped into the vessel from the bow and can be collected from a faucet in the laboratory. Water sampling and discharging from the stern is done constantly so that local seawater can be sampled in real time. We sampled samples for dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) at 72 sites and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC) at 14 sites. 

During my free time, I helped with core splitting. Playing with mud is so much more fun than staying up all night for water sampling! Not that I don't enjoy water sampling at all :p Or maybe, it's because there were so many people helping with sediment core splitting and chatting with them was fun.

Captain’s View & Learning to Lead

Since I was the only person doing water sampling, I had to track the ship’s location, speed, and direction to decide my sampling frequency. That meant I had the privilege of visiting the captain’s room multiple times—easily the best view on the ship.

Most importantly, I grew a lot on this journey. I learned that asking for help isn’t a weakness—it’s a skill. Learning when to take responsibility on myself and when to delegate tasks is a skill I still have to polish. 

Group photo at the beginning of the cruise (when I didn't know anybody on board)

Group photos at the end of the cruise (when I knew almost everyone on board). I was late for the first one where more people were in :p

What’s Next?

I once dreamed of working on Chikyu and even got accepted for a part-time job last year with マリンワーク, but then could not end up going since my residency in Japan caps work at 28 hours/week. Boarding Chikyu also requires helicopter evacuation training, where they drop a full-scale helicopter into a pool, flip it upside down, and make you escape. For several times in various scenarios! Sounds wild, but I still want to try someday.

Despite the struggles, the exhaustion, and questioning my life choices mid-waves, ocean science keeps pulling me back. The adventure, the unknown, and the deep-sea secrets make it all worth it. For now, I’m gearing up for my next cruise—hopefully with a little more sleep, a little more balance, and just as much excitement. I will bring ukulele this time heehee 🌺

Until next time—
Bon voyage! 🚢💙🌊

Jumping again!

P.S. Here are more information if you wish to learn more about this cruise~

If you want to see interesting stories of what happened on board, please check out my Instagram story archive.

If you want to learn more about the science on board, please check out the cruise report.