Marine sediments around volcanic islands contain an archive of volcaniclastic deposits, which can be used to reconstruct the volcanic history of an area. Such records hold many advantages over often ...incomplete terrestrial data sets. This includes the potential for precise and continuous dating of intervening sediment packages, which allow a correlatable and temporally constrained stratigraphic framework to be constructed across multiple marine sediment cores. Here we discuss a marine record of eruptive and mass‐wasting events spanning ∼250 ka offshore of Montserrat, using new data from IODP Expedition 340, as well as previously collected cores. By using a combination of high‐resolution oxygen isotope stratigraphy, AMS radiocarbon dating, biostratigraphy of foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils, and clast componentry, we identify five major events at Soufriere Hills volcano since 250 ka. Lateral correlations of these events across sediment cores collected offshore of the south and south west of Montserrat have improved our understanding of the timing, extent and associations between events in this area. Correlations reveal that powerful and potentially erosive density‐currents traveled at least 33 km offshore and demonstrate that marine deposits, produced by eruption‐fed and mass‐wasting events on volcanic islands, are heterogeneous in their spatial distribution. Thus, multiple drilling/coring sites are needed to reconstruct the full chronostratigraphy of volcanic islands. This multidisciplinary study will be vital to interpreting the chaotic records of submarine landslides at other sites drilled during Expedition 340 and provides a framework that can be applied to the stratigraphic analysis of sediments surrounding other volcanic islands.
Key Points
Biostratigraphy, isotope geochemistry, and clast componentry of IODP Site U1396
Deposits are correlated across sites to the south and south west of Montserrat
Results highlight the spatial heterogeneity of deposits around volcanic islands
Bioclastic flow deposits offshore from the Soufrière Hills volcano on Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles were deposited by the largest volume sediment flows near this active volcano in the last 26 ...kyr. The volume of these deposits exceeds that of the largest historic volcanic dome collapse in the world, which occurred on Montserrat in 2003. These flows were most probably generated by a large submarine slope failure of the carbonate shelf comprising the south-west flank of Antigua or the east flank of Redonda; adjacent islands that are not volcanically active. The bioclastic flow deposits are relatively coarse-grained and either ungraded or poorly graded, and were deposited by non-cohesive debris flow and high density turbidity currents. The bioclastic deposit often comprises multiple sub-units that cannot be correlated between core sites; some located just 2 km apart. Multiple sub-units in the bioclastic deposit result from either flow reflection, stacking of multiple debris flow lobes, and/or multi-stage collapse of the initial landslide. This study provides unusually precise constraints on the age of this mass flow event that occurred at ca 14 ka. Few large submarine landslides have been well dated, but the slope failures that have been dated are commonly associated with periods of rapid sea-level change.
The Soufrière Hills Volcano, on the island of Montserrat, has an eruption history spanning over 2 million years. During this time the volcano has undergone multiple eruptions with intervening ...periods of low activity or dormancy. The most recent activity began in 1995 and has seen a series of major eruptive events. One of the most recent of these, and the focus of this study, occurred on the 20th May 2006. This major dome collapse produced 90 million m3 of volcanic material in only 3 hours, propelling ash clouds through the air and pyroclastic flows down the side of the volcano and into the sea. In this study of benthic foraminifera, cores from four sites off-shore Montserrat are analysed, including those collected from a location within the path of the 2006 ash cloud, around 10 km west of the Montserrat coast. In this area, one core contained 6-7 cm of ash overlying hemipelagic sediments. Volcanic ash is present in two distinct layers, one 3 cm layer produced by the 2006 eruption and the other, 3-4 cm layer, from an earlier eruption in 2003. Other cores were collected from areas unaffected by recent ash fall deposits and provide a base line for comparisons within the affected areas. To the east and south-east of Montserrat there is a different situation as this is the direction of travel of massive pyroclastic flows down the Tar Valley and the impact on the sea floor is more dramatic. There are also two extinct volcanic centres that allow the investigation of sea floor re-colonization on different time scales. The sites to the west of Montserrat record rapid colonization by benthic foraminifera of opportunistic taxa, comparable to that seen near Mt Pinatubo in the South China Sea while the sites to the east record a slower pattern of re-colonization by a wider spectrum of taxa, similar to that recorded at Deception Island in the Southern Ocean, with different benthic taxa performing the pioneering role.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Carbon and oxygen isotope data from Cenomanian–Turonian sediments from the southwest of the Crimea are presented. The sediments consist of limestones, marls and organic-rich claystones, the latter ...with total organic carbon values up to 2.6
wt. %, representing Oceanic Anoxic Event 2. A shift to more negative δ
18O values through the uppermost Cenomanian into the lowermost Turonian may be the result of warming; however, petrographic analysis shows that the samples have undergone a degree of diagenetic alteration. The carbon isotope data reveal a positive excursion from ∼2.7‰ to a peak of 4.3‰ at the Cenomanian/Turonian boundary; values then decrease in the early Turonian. This excursion is comparable to those of other Cenomanian–Turonian sections, such as those seen in the Anglo-Paris Basin, and is thought to be due to global changes in the oceanic carbon reservoir. On this curve are a number of negative δ
13C excursions, just below the Cenomanian/Turonian boundary. It is suggested that these negative excursions are associated with the uptake of light carbon derived from the oxidation and deterioration of organic material during localised exposure of the sediments to oxic or meteoric diagenetic conditions, possibly during sea-level fluctuations.
Cellular senescence has been associated with the structural and functional decline observed during physiological lung aging and in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Airway epithelial ...cells are the first line of defense in the lungs and are important to COPD pathogenesis. However, the mechanisms underlying airway epithelial cell senescence, and particularly the role of telomere dysfunction in this process, are poorly understood. We aimed to investigate telomere dysfunction in airway epithelial cells from patients with COPD, in the aging murine lung and following cigarette smoke exposure. We evaluated colocalization of γ-histone protein 2A.X and telomeres and telomere length in small airway epithelial cells from patients with COPD, during murine lung aging, and following cigarette smoke exposure in vivo and in vitro. We found that telomere-associated DNA damage foci increase in small airway epithelial cells from patients with COPD, without significant telomere shortening detected. With age, telomere-associated foci increase in small airway epithelial cells of the murine lung, which is accelerated by cigarette smoke exposure. Moreover, telomere-associated foci predict age-dependent emphysema, and late-generation Terc null mice, which harbor dysfunctional telomeres, show early-onset emphysema. We found that cigarette smoke accelerates telomere dysfunction via reactive oxygen species in vitro and may be associated with ataxia telangiectasia mutated-dependent secretion of inflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and -8. We propose that telomeres are highly sensitive to cigarette smoke-induced damage, and telomere dysfunction may underlie decline of lung function observed during aging and in COPD.
So far, two genes associated with familial melanoma have been identified, accounting for a minority of genetic risk in families. Mutations in CDKN2A account for approximately 40% of familial cases, ...and predisposing mutations in CDK4 have been reported in a very small number of melanoma kindreds. Here we report the whole-genome sequencing of probands from several melanoma families, which we performed in order to identify other genes associated with familial melanoma. We identify one individual carrying a novel germline variant (coding DNA sequence c.G1075A; protein sequence p.E318K; rs149617956) in the melanoma-lineage-specific oncogene microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF). Although the variant co-segregated with melanoma in some but not all cases in the family, linkage analysis of 31 families subsequently identified to carry the variant generated a log of odds (lod) score of 2.7 under a dominant model, indicating E318K as a possible intermediate risk variant. Consistent with this, the E318K variant was significantly associated with melanoma in a large Australian case-control sample. Likewise, it was similarly associated in an independent case-control sample from the United Kingdom. In the Australian sample, the variant allele was significantly over-represented in cases with a family history of melanoma, multiple primary melanomas, or both. The variant allele was also associated with increased naevus count and non-blue eye colour. Functional analysis of E318K showed that MITF encoded by the variant allele had impaired sumoylation and differentially regulated several MITF targets. These data indicate that MITF is a melanoma-predisposition gene and highlight the utility of whole-genome sequencing to identify novel rare variants associated with disease susceptibility.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
Structural brain changes along the lineage leading to modern Homo sapiens contributed to our distinctive cognitive and social abilities. However, the evolutionarily relevant molecular ...variants impacting key aspects of neuroanatomy are largely unknown. Here, we integrate evolutionary annotations of the genome at diverse timescales with common variant associations from large-scale neuroimaging genetic screens. We find that alleles with evidence of recent positive polygenic selection over the past 2000–3000 years are associated with increased surface area (SA) of the entire cortex, as well as specific regions, including those involved in spoken language and visual processing. Therefore, polygenic selective pressures impact the structure of specific cortical areas even over relatively recent timescales. Moreover, common sequence variation within human gained enhancers active in the prenatal cortex is associated with postnatal global SA. We show that such variation modulates the function of a regulatory element of the developmentally relevant transcription factor HEY2 in human neural progenitor cells and is associated with structural changes in the inferior frontal cortex. These results indicate that non-coding genomic regions active during prenatal cortical development are involved in the evolution of human brain structure and identify novel regulatory elements and genes impacting modern human brain structure.
The locus coeruleus (LC), the origin of noradrenergic modulation of cognitive and behavioral function, may play an important role healthy ageing and in neurodegenerative conditions. We investigated ...the functional significance of age-related differences in mean normalized LC signal intensity values (LC-CR) in magnetization-transfer (MT) images from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) cohort - an open-access, population-based dataset. Using structural equation modelling, we tested the pre-registered hypothesis that putatively noradrenergic (NA)-dependent functions would be more strongly associated with LC-CR in older versus younger adults. A unidimensional model (within which LC-CR related to a single factor representing all cognitive and behavioral measures) was a better fit with the data than the a priori two-factor model (within which LC-CR related to separate NA-dependent and NA-independent factors). Our findings support the concept that age-related reduction of LC structural integrity is associated with impaired cognitive and behavioral function.
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