Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Çesme, Izmir, Turkey, October 23-27, 1989

This book provides information on the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to modern environmental problems associated with ocean pollution with a particular focus on the Back Sea. The oceans are a vast but fragile complex. In recent decades, it has become especially manifest when ocean pollution has reached an unparalleled situation. Meanwhile, not only the well-being of ecosystems depends on the state of ocean waters, but human civilization largely depends on the oceans as a consequence of environmental dependence. This book examines the consequences of pollutants such as oil and hydrocarbon products (including plastics and microplastics), water acidification, sewage, wastewaters discharge into the ocean, thermal pollution, nuclear pollution, and biological pollution. Beyond the types of pollutants and their consequences, this book outlines the state of the art of the legal situation internationally regarding ocean pollution. The authors also show the current pollution of the inland seas, taking as an example of the Black Sea (anthropogenic and natural sources of pollution, its shelf, and shallow waters as well as international legislation). A part of the book analyzes the main types of environmental monitoring of the oceans and their role in solving ocean pollution problems with a particular interest in the Black Sea. The book is of interest to specialists in ocean pollution, ecologists, oceanologists, students, and graduate students studying oceanography, marine ecology, current methods of environmental monitoring, and legal problems related to the oceans and seas pollution, as well as to anyone interested in modern problems of the oceans.

This book brings together eastern and western scholarship on a controversial subject: a catastrophic inundation of the Pontic basin which might have inspired the biblical story of Noah’s flood. In 35 papers, many previously unavailable in English, experts in oceanography, marine geology, paleoclimate, paleoenvironment, archaeology, and linguistic spread offer data and arguments for or against the flood hypothesis. Appendices include 600 radiocarbon dates from the region, obtained by USSR and western labs.

Suppose one were given the task of mapping the general circulation in an unfamiliar ocean. The ocean, like our own, is subdivided into basins and marginal seas interconnected by sea straits. Assuming a limited budget for this undertaking, one would do well to choose the straits as observational starting points. To begin with, the currents flowing from one basin to the next, over possibly wide and time-varying paths, are confined to narrow and stable routes within the straits. Mass, heat and chemical budgets for individual basins can be formulated in terms of the fluxes measured across the straits using a relatively small number of instruments. The confinement of the flow by a strait can also give rise to profound dynamical conse quences including choking or hydraulic control, a process similar to that by which a dam regulates the flow from a reservoir. The funneling geometry can lead to enhanced tidal modulation and increased velocities, giving rise to local instabilities, mixing, internal bores, jumps, and other striking hydraulic and fine scale phenomena. In short, sea straits repre sent choke points which are observationally and dynamically strategic and which contain a full range of fascinating physical processes.

Quaternary Paleoenvironments examines the drowned landscapes exposed as extensive and attractive territory for prehistoric human settlement during the Ice Ages of the Pleistocene, when sea levels dropped to 120m-135m below their current levels. This volume provides an overview of the geological, geomorphological, climatic and sea-level history of the European continental shelf as a whole, as well as a series of detailed regional reviews for each of the major sea basins. The nature and variable attractions of the landscapes and resources available for human exploitation are examined, as are the conditions under which archaeological sites and landscape features are likely to have been preserved, destroyed or buried by sediment during sea-level rise. The authors also discuss the extent to which we can predict where to look for drowned landscapes with the greatest chance of success, with frequent reference to examples of preserved prehistoric sites in different submerged environments. Quaternary Paleoenvironments will be of interest to archaeologists, geologists, marine scientists, palaeoanthropologists, cultural heritage managers, geographers, and all those with an interest in the drowned landscapes of the continental shelf.

This book integrates a wide range of subjects into a coherent purview of the status of coastal marine science. Designed for the professional or specialist in coastal science, oceanography, and related disciplines, this work will appeal to workers in multidisciplinary fields that strive for practical solutions to environmental problems in coastal marine settings around the world. Examples are drawn from many different geographic areas, including the Black Sea region. Subject areas covered include aspects of coastal marine geology, physics, chemistry, biology, and history. These subject areas were selected because they form the basis for integrative investigation of salient environmental problems or perspective solutions or interpretation of historical context.