DE is composed of finely ground
Diatoms which are one celled microscopic algae whose walls consist of two parts and contain a mineral called silica.
Not exact matches
Diatomaceous Earth — Diatomaceous earth is a natural material made from ground up fossilized
diatoms,
which were once tiny aquatic organisms.
As an IIE - SRF fellow at the University of Gothenburg, Al - Handal is again able to use his expertise in taxonomy of marine
diatoms, a type of microalgae, with the added advantage of direct access to a scanning electron microscope,
which he didn't have in Iraq.
The nutrients,
which also come up from the deep ocean, were able to be there, available to the
diatoms, because the north - south circulation shutdown failed to carry them away, and that same shutdown also forced the deep ocean to give up its carbon, Meckler said.
Previously, many water managers in the region had believed that the algae blooms of the
diatom Didymosphenia geminata —
which resemble blobs of wet toilet paper or shag rugs — resulted from an invasive species problem starting in the mid-2000s that could be fixed by regular washing of fishing gear and other sanitation measures.
At that time, there were lots of nutrients in the ocean water there, because small organisms called
diatoms,
which have silica shells, were able to thrive.
The researchers also studied variables related to other ocean plant groups, like
diatoms,
which build glass shells that carry carbon to the deep sea, sequestering it from the atmosphere.
The oldest
diatom fossils are about 140 million years old, leading some scientists to speculate that they evolved along with the ascent of terrestrial grasses,
which released silica into the sea after separating it from minerals.
Few
diatoms grew in Smetacek's bloom because he fertilized waters that had low levels of silicon,
which is required for their shells.
They compared isotope measurements on the silica skeletons of
diatoms,
which store environmental signals from the ocean's surface, with isotope signals from radiolarians,
which live in deeper water layers.
Typically the thick, opaque ice prevents the blooms,
which can consist of
diatoms such as these (left).
One key to the whole experiment's success turns out to be the specific
diatoms involved,
which use silicon to make their shells and tend to form long strands of cellular slime after their demise that falls quickly to the seafloor.
According to Ingall, removal of iron by
diatom - dominated phytoplankton communities may dampen the intended outcome of enhanced carbon uptake through iron fertilization by reducing the productivity of other phytoplankton,
which take up carbon dioxide more efficiently.
The researchers propose creating a biological solar panel,
which will contain
diatoms instead of photovoltaic cells.
As he and his collaborators put it, «with at least a boundary layer of water on the
diatoms, secreted oil droplets would separate under gravity, rising to the top of a tilted panel forming an unstable emulsion,
which should progressively separate.
Such geoengineering experiments produce
diatoms,
which pull carbon dioxide out of the air.
A different group of bacteria, also relying on the phytoplankton for food and energy, appear to compete with the
diatoms for the precious vitamin, and all three groups of microbes are competing for iron,
which, due to the extreme remoteness of the Southern Ocean, is a scarce and consequently invaluable resource.
Unlike most regions of the global ocean
which do not contain sufficient nitrogen or phosphorus for sustained phytoplankton growth,
diatoms in the remote waters of McMurdo Sound were starving from lack of iron and deficiency of vitamin B12.
The
diatom Pseudo-nitzschia granii isolated from the North Pacific Ocean that contains the protein proteorhodopsin,
which helps these regulators of climate change survive.
The research team found that another competitor
diatom, Asterionellopsis glacialis,
which frequently co-occurs with Karenia red tides, was partially resistant to red tide, suggesting that co-occurring species may have evolved partial resistance to red tide via robust metabolic pathways.
In 1998, sea lion deaths on the California coast also were associated with domoic acid,
which entered the food chain via toxigenic
diatoms,
which were eaten by anchovies that in turn were eaten by the sea lions.
(Though, since that first episode covered primarily the oxygen cycle,
diatoms and algae blooms were just mentioned as the source of half of the oxygen we breathe, as opposed to rainforests,
which are important for the rain cycle that gets nutrients from the mountains into the oceans but
which are using up all the oxygen they produce.
Psudeo - nitzschia «Pseudo-nitzschia is a marine planktonic
diatom genus containing some species capable of producing the neurotoxin domoic acid (DA),
which is responsible for the neurological disorder known as amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP).»
Moser is an expert in
diatoms,
which are microscopic algae that have cell wall made of opaline silica.
Diatomaceous earth is made up of fossilized
diatoms, a mineral - like, powdery non-toxic substance
which is 90 % silica.
Fertilizing the surface ocean with iron increases biological productivity, but the resulting carbon dioxide removal will be much less than expected due to the increased productivity of
diatoms,
which incorporate and remove the bioavailable iron.
In the linked comment, and its links, there's a discussion of the balance between
diatoms,
which incorporate silica (tes) in their shells, and coccolithophores,
which use calcium carbonate.
Which lead me to this: http://www.npr.org/2012/07/18/156976147/can-adding-iron-to-oceans-slow-global-warming then to this study: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7407/full/nature11229.html Money shot (last line in abstract):» Thus, iron - fertilized
diatom blooms may sequester carbon for timescales of centuries in ocean bottom water and for longer in the sediments.
These tiny green
diatoms generate nearly half of all the planet's primary production − that is, the food on
which all other diners must ultimately depend.
Thus any process
which tends to favor the growth of organisms made from silicate, such as
diatoms, over organisms made from carbonate, such as the coccolithophorids, will tend to lower the atmospheric CO2 concentration — and vice versa — even if the total organic biomass formed in the surface layer and sinking from that layer remains constant.
Between AD 500 and 700 and the Little Ice Age phase 2 (LIA 2 — AD 1630 — 1850), the frequent typhoons were inferred by coarse sediments and planktonic
diatoms,
which represented more dynamical climate conditions than in the LIA 1.
On the basis of pollen and
diatom records, we evaluated past floods, typhoons, and agricultural activities in this area
which are sensitive to the hydrological conditions in the western Pacific.
(Though, since that first episode covered primarily the oxygen cycle,
diatoms and algae blooms were just mentioned as the source of half of the oxygen we breathe, as opposed to rainforests,
which are important for the rain cycle that gets nutrients from the mountains into the oceans but
which are using up all the oxygen they produce.
That creates more acidification,
which kills off more
diatoms?
The Antarctic ice sheet reached the coastline for the first time at ca. 33.6 Ma and became a driver of Antarctic circulation,
which in turn affected global climate, causing increased latitudinal thermal gradients and a «spinning up» of the oceans that resulted in: (1) increased thermohaline circulation and erosional pulses of Northern Component Water and Antarctic Bottom Water; (2) increased deep - basin ventilation,
which caused a decrease in oceanic residence time, a decrease in deep - ocean acidity, and a deepening of the calcite compensation depth (CCD); and (3) increased
diatom diversity due to intensified upwelling.
Declining Arctic sea ice reached a milestone in the summer of 1998 when the ice pulled back completely from the Arctic coasts of Alaska and Canada, opening up the Northwest passage through
which the
diatom may have passed, Reid and colleagues write in their report of the
diatom's return published in the journal Global Change Biology in 2007.
Other proxies include ice cores, tree rings, and sediment cores (
which include
diatoms, foraminifera, microbiota, pollen, and charcoal within the sediment and the sediment itself).
In the final paper of this issue, Tatters et al. [66] study the competitiveness of natural
diatom communities incubated under future environmental conditions for two weeks, after
which the dominant species were isolated and then incubated again for over a year before recombining the now conditioned species to reconstruct the original community.