Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

About: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a nonprofit organization based out in Falmouth, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Mantle (geology). The organization has 5685 authors who have published 18396 publications receiving 1202050 citations. The organization is also known as: WHOI.

Life histories and elasticity patterns: perturbation analysis for species with minimal demographic data

Abstract: Elasticity analysis is a useful tool in conservation biology. The relative impacts of proportional changes in fertility, juvenile survival, and adult survival on asymptotic population growth λ (where ln(λ) = r, the intrinsic rate of increase) are determined by vital rates (survival, growth, and fertility), which also define the life history characteristics of a species or population. Because we do not have good demographic information for most threatened populations, it is useful to categorize species according to their life history characteristics and related elasticity patterns. To do this, we compared the elasticity patterns generated by the life tables of 50 mammal populations. In age-classified models, the sum of the fertility elasticities and the survival elasticity for each juvenile age-class are equal; thus, age at maturity has a large impact on the contribution of juvenile survival to λ. Mammals that mature early and have large litters (“fast” mammals, such as rodents and smaller carnivores) also...

Genesis of high Mg# andesites and the continental crust

Abstract: The continental crust has an andesitic composition with high Mg/(Mg+Fe) and Ni contents which may be too high to have formed by differentiation of basaltic magmas. Instead, mantle-derived, high Mg# andesites (HMA) may form a substantial component of the crust. HMA may be produced by partial melting of previously depleted, subsequently metasomatised mantle peridotite. However, they are more likely produced by reaction between ascending melts and mantle peridotite. HMA are less common than basalts among lavas in modern island arcs, but may have been more common in the past, may be produced in specific environments (such as “ridge subduction”), may be more common among plutonic rocks in the lower and middle crust than among lavas at the surface, and may be selectively preserved during later erosion and subduction processes.

Sudden changes in North Atlantic circulation during the last deglaciation

Abstract: Sudden changes in the flow of warm Atlantic surface waters into the Norwegian Sea occurred frequently during the last deglaciation, typically involving shifts in sea surface temperature of ⩾5 °C in fewer than 40 years. These led to equally large and rapid changes in atmospheric temperatures, and to shifts in Atlantic deep thermo-haline circulation and ice-sheet melting rates.