Pockmarks, a paleo fluid efflux event, glacial meltwater channels, sponge colonies, and trawling impacts in Emerald Basin, Scotian Shelf: autonomous underwater vehicle surveys, William Kennedy 2022001 cruise report
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A short but productive cruise aboard RV William Kennedy tested various new field equipment near Halifax (port of departure and return) but also in areas that could also benefit science understanding. The GSC-A Gavia Autonomous Underwater Vehicle equipped with bathymetric, sidescan and sub-bottom profiler was successfully deployed for the first time on Scotian Shelf science targets. It surveyed three small areas: two across known benthic sponge, Vazella (Russian Hat) within a DFO-directed trawling closure area on the SE flank of Sambro Bank, bordering Emerald Basin, and one across known pockmarks, eroded cone-shaped depression in soft mud due to fluid efflux. The sponge study sites (~ 150 - 170 m water depth) were known to lie in an area of till (subglacial diamict) exposure at the seabed. The AUV data identified gravel and cobble-rich seabed, registering individual clasts at 35 cm gridded resolution. A subtle variation in seabed texture is recognized in sidescan images, from cobble-rich on ridge crests and flanks, to limited mud-rich sediment in intervening troughs. Correlation between seabed topography and texture with the (previously collected) Vazella distribution along two transects is not straightforward. However there may be a preference for the sponge in the depressions, some of which have a thin but possibly ephemeral sediment cover. Both sponge study sites depict a hereto unknown morphology, carved in glacial deposits, consisting of a series of discontinuous ridges interpreted to be generated by erosion in multiple, continuous, meandering and cross-cutting channels. The morphology is identical to glacial Nye, or "N-"channels, cut by sub-glacial meltwater. However their scale (10 to 100 times "typical" N-channels) and the unique eroded medium, (till rather than bedrock), presents a rare or unknown size and medium and suggests a continuum in sub-glacial meltwater channels between much larger tunnel valleys, common to the eastward, and the bedrock forms. A comparison is made with coastal Nova Scotia forms in bedrock. The Emerald Basin AUV site, targeting pockmarks was in ~260 to 270 m water depth and imaged eight large and one small pockmark. The main aim was to investigate possible recent or continuous fluid flux activity in light of ocean acidification or greenhouse gas contribution; most accounts to date suggested inactivity. While a lack of common attributes marking activity is confirmed, creep or rotational flank failure is recognized, as is a depletion of buried diffuse methane immediately below the seabed features. Discovery of a second, buried, pockmark horizon, with smaller but more numerous erosive cones and no spatial correlation to the buried diffuse gas or the seabed pockmarks, indicates a paleo-event of fluid or gas efflux; general timing and possible mechanisms are suggested. The basinal survey also registered numerous otter board trawl marks cutting the surficial mud from past fishing activity. The AUV data present a unique dataset for follow-up quantification of the disturbance. Recent realization that this may play a significant role in ocean acidification on a global scale can benefit from such disturbance quantification. The new pole-mounted sub-bottom profiler collected high quality data, enabling correlation of recently recognized till ridges exposed at the seabed as they become buried across the flank and base of the basin. These, along with the Nye channels, will help reconstruct glacial behavior and flow patterns which to date are only vaguely documented. Several cores provide the potential for stratigraphic dating of key horizons and will augment Holocene environmental history investigations by a Dalhousie University student. In summary, several unique features have been identified, providing sufficient field data for further compilation, analysis and follow-up publications.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".