Graduation date: 1973

Bering Sea pollock fishing is characterized by high levels of physical risk, uncertainties in wages and schedule, close and extensive interdependence on other workers, and long absences from home. This occupation leads to a way of life which is full of extremes and has unusually strong effects on the family. This study examines the effects of the occupation on the quality of family life and working life through a teamwork perspective. It is a study of the slow breakdown in cooperation among families and the enhancement of cooperation in the work setting. The breakdown in family cooperation reduces the family’s ability to respond to its members’ needs for love, inclusion, and intimacy, and has important consequences for the quality of family life. The enhancement of cooperation in the work setting contributes to the creation of important social benefits such as trust, agreement, and a sense of inclusion. These social outcomes, and improved task performance, positively influence the quality of working life. Major themes include anthropology at home and among peers, family adaptations to occupational influences, the role of story-telling in building cooperation and commitment in teams, generosity and relaxed social accounting strategies in adult socialization, and the importance of extremes in evaluating the quality of working life.

A model has been developed and run with sufficiently high resolution (~9 km and 45 levels) and a large enough spatial domain to allow for realistic representation of flow through the narrow and shallow straits in the Bering Sea region. This is potentially important for quantification of long-term mean and time-dependent ocean circulation, and water mass and property exchanges between the Pacific and Arctic oceans. The mean modeled circulation in the Bering Sea is found to be in good agreement with the limited observational data. The Bering Sea Basin, Bering Slope Current, and straits on the northern shelf are identified as highly energetic regions based on eddy kinetic energy fields. Some high biological productivity regions of the northern Bering Sea identified in observational studies are coincident with regions of persistently high energy (up to 2600 cm2 s-2 at mid-depth) throughout the annual cycle. Over a twentythree year interval (1979-2001), mean transport through Bering Strait is estimated to be 0.65 Sv. Comparison of model results with published observations indicates that ocean circulation is not only variable at seasonal to interdecadal scales, but it is also responsive to short-term atmospheric forcing. Comparison with observations of nearbottom salinity indicates that the model is reasonably representing the major water mass properties. The long-term model results for the Bering Sea provide important insights into the ocean circulation and fluxes and they are a useful frame of reference for limited observations that are short-term and/or cover only a small geographic region.

Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) is an important species, both economically and ecologically in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands (BSAI). However, little is known about its spawning dynamics. To address this knowledge gap, I developed a gross anatomical maturity key for Pacific cod to assess temporal and spatial patterns of reproductive maturity. Gross anatomical maturity keys estimate reproductive maturity by categorizing changes that occur in appearance of ovaries during maturation. Because maturity keys are based on characteristics that change on a continuum, stage assignment can be subjective particularly for ovaries in transition (displaying characteristics of more than one stage). Histological processing is often used to verify maturity key staging by estimating the maturity of individual oocytes from within assessed ovaries. I compared individual oocyte development through histological processing with gross anatomical stage assignments to evaluate the accuracy of Pacific cod maturity key using two approaches. First, assumptions made in delineating advancing characteristics between stages during the development of the key were analyzed by comparing oocyte development from ovaries assigned to key maturity stages by the researchers who designed the key. Secondly, the consistency in the use of the maturity key was addressed by comparing stage assignments to oocyte development for multiple data collectors employing the maturity key in the field. Misclassification rates for the key designers were 22% and field samplers using the key resulted in misclassification rates of 43%. While the misclassification rates are high, the mismatch between histological assessments and gross maturity was very narrow and most often assigned correctly to an adjacent stage. Misclassifications occur most often in the vitellogenin stages where criteria for delineating between stages both histologically and through the use maturity key are based on relative changes in size and color of the ovaries. By using morphological changes to track ovarian maturation, gross anatomical maturity keys provide an easily applied and inexpensive method for the collection of large quantities of data. Maturity data collected by observers aboard commercial fishing vessels in the BSAI were used to construct maps showing spawning sites along the continental shelves of the BSAI between the 100 and 200m isobaths. Spawning stage data for days where a high percentage of spawning was observed ("hot days") were mapped to show areas of high intensity spawning ("hot spots"). Hot spots were identified north of Unimak Island, in the vicinity of the Pribilof Islands, at the shelf break near Zhemchug Canyon, and adjacent to the central and western Aleutian Islands. Further analysis of spawning and spent stage data suggests spawning phenology was consistent during the three study years with varying climate conditions, though variation was seen in the duration of the spawning season among years and regions within years. While the processes determining the timing and location of spawning are poorly understood, knowledge of the above patterns allows further examination of how Pacific cod spawning correspond with environmental conditions throughout the season and between years of varying climate patterns. This work provides an initial description of the distribution and phenology of Pacific cod spawning along with a generalized description of oceanographic features observed at hot spot locations during the spawning season. / Graduation date: 2013

Thesis (M.S. in Physical Oceanography)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Wieslaw Maslowski, Stephen Okkonen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-93). Also available online.

Sea level regression during the Last Glacial Maximum exposed the Bering Land Bridge, and cut off the connection between the North Pacific and Arctic Ocean, ending the exchange of North Pacific Water through the Bering Strait. Exchange of North Pacific Water comprises a major portion of fresh water input to the Arctic Ocean, and is of vital importance to North Atlantic Deep Water formation, a vital component of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Bering Strait throughflow thus plays an integral role in global climate stability. A suite of four cores was selected, three in the Bering Sea and one in the Chukchi Sea, to bracket the Bering Strait in order to elucidate changes in sediment delivery, productivity and regional oceanography as the Bering Land Bridge flooded and modern ocean circulation was established during the last deglaciation. The arrival of nutrient rich North Pacific Water in the Chukchi Sea is recorded around 8 ka by organic carbon isotope depletion and an increase in total organic carbon and organic nitrogen, reflecting an increasingly marine isotopic signal and increased productivity. In the Bering Sea, the early deglaciation is marked by depleted organic carbon isotopes that indicate increasing terrestrial input, and increased total organic carbon. Principal component analysis of sedimentologic, geochemical and isotopic data clearly captures discrete sediment populations that correspond to key climatic intervals, representing changes in sediment delivery, productivity and circulation during the last deglaciation. In the Bering Sea we observe that deglaciation began in earnest around 18–17 ka, but lack of confidence in our age control does not allow for a precise date. Our results suggest that modern circulation through the Bering Strait, and thus for the Bering and Chukchi Seas, was established ~8 ka. Prior to 8 ka there is an interval of sediment that appears record a possible reversal of flow through the Bering Strait corresponding to the 8.2 ka event.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Joint Program in Oceanography (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), 2006. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-126). / In this thesis, I present high-resolution stable-isotope and planktonic-fauna records from Bering Sea sediment cores, spanning the time period from 50,000 years ago to the present. During Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3) at 30-20 ky BP (kiloyears before present) in a core from 1467m water depth near Umnak Plateau, there were episodic occurrences of diagenetic carbonate minerals with very low 13C (-22.4%), high 18O (6.5%), and high [Mg]/[Ca], which seem associated with sulfate reduction of organic matter and possibly anaerobic oxidation of methane. The episodes lasted less than 1000 years and were spaced about 1000 years apart. During MIS3 at 55-20 ky BP in a core from 2209m water depth on Bowers Ridge, N. pachyderma (s.) and Uvigerina 18O and 13C show no coherent variability on millennial time scales. Bering Sea sediments are dysoxic or laminated during the deglaciation. A high sedimentationrate core (200 cm/ky) from 1132m on the Bering Slope is laminated during the Blling warm phase, Allerd warm phase, and early Holocene, where the ages of lithological transitions agree with the ages of those climate events in Greenland (GISP2) to well within the uncertainty of the age models. The subsurface distribution of radiocarbon was estimated from a compilation of published and unpublished North Pacic benthic-planktonic 14C measurements (475{2700 m water depth). There was no consistent change in 14C probles between the present and the Last Glacial Maximum, Blling-Allerd, or the Younger Dryas cold phase. N. pachyderma (s.) 18O in the Bering Slope core decreases rapidly (in less than 220 y) by 0.7-0.8h at the onset of the Blling and the end of the Younger Dryas. These isotopic shifts are accompanied by transient decreases in the relative abundance of N. pachyderma (s.), suggesting that the isotopic events are transient warnings and sustained freshenings. / by Mea S. Cook. / Ph.D.

The recent, rapid decline in Arctic summer sea ice extent has prompted questions as to the rates and magnitude of previous sea ice decline and the affect of this physical change on icerelated ecosystems. However, satellite data of sea ice only extends back to 1978, and mapped observations of sea ice prior to the 1970s are sparse at best. Inventories of boreal ecosystems are likewise hampered by a paucity of investigations spanning more than the past few decades. Paleoclimate records of sea ice and related primary productivity are thus integral to understanding how sea ice responds to a changing climate. Here I examine modern sedimentation, decadal-scale climate change in the recent past, and centennial- to millennial-scale changes of the past 400 ka using both qualitative and quantitative diatom data in concert with sedimentology and organic geochemistry. Diatom taxonomy and corresponding ecological affinities are compiled in this study and updated for the Bering Sea region and then used as recorders of past climate changes. In recent decades, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the strength of the Aleutian Low are reflected by subtle changes in sediment diatom assemblages at the Bering Sea shelf-slope break. Farther back in time, the super-interglacial, marine isotope stage (MIS) 11 (428-390ka), began in Beringia with extreme productivity due to flooding of the Bering Land Bridge. A moisture-driven advance of Beringian glaciers occurred while eustatic sea level was high, and insolation and seasonality both decreased at the global peak of MIS 11. Atlantic/Pacific teleconnections during MIS 11 include a reversal in Bering Strait throughflow at 410 ka and a relationship between North Atlantic Deep Water Formation and Bering Sea productivity. Finally, concentrations of the biomarker-based sea ice proxy, IP25, are compared to sea ice concentration across the Bering and Chukchi seas. Changes in the concentration of IP25 in the sediments may be driven by the length of time that the epontic diatom bloom lasts. When combined with a sediment-based proxy for sea surface temperatures, IP25 can be used to reconstruct spring ice concentration.

No description available.

No description available.