Mass loss from the Antarctic ice sheet, Earth’s largest freshwater reservoir, results directly in global sea-level rise and Southern Ocean freshening. Observational and modeling studies have demonstrated that ice shelf basal melting, resulting from the inflow of warm water onto the Antarctic continental shelf, plays a key role in the ice sheet’s mass balance. In recent decades, warm ocean-cryosphere interaction in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas has received a great deal of attention. However, except for Totten Ice Shelf, East Antarctic ice shelves typically have cold ice cavities with low basal melt rates. Here we present direct observational evidence of high basal melt rates (7–16 m yr −1 ) beneath an East Antarctic ice shelf, Shirase Glacier Tongue, driven by southward-flowing warm water guided by a deep continuous trough extending to the continental slope. The strength of the alongshore wind controls the thickness of the inflowing warm water layer and the rate of basal melting.

Abstract-Colors of objects observed in underwater environments are different from those in air. This is because the light intensity decreases with the distance from objects in water by light attenuation. Robots on the ground or in air usually recognize surrounding environments by using images acquired with cameras. The same is / will be true of underwater robots. However, recognition methods in air based on image processing techniques may become invalid in water because of light attenuation. Therefore, we propose a color registration method of underwater images. The proposed method estimates underwater environments where images are acquired, in other words, parameters essential to color registration, by using more than two images. After estimating parameters, color registration is executed with consideration of light attenuation. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through experiments.

We evaluated the discriminability of color distributions in square-element textures. Each texture contained 225 colors, represented by a distribution of color vectors in color space defined by the L-M and S-(L+M) axes. Each color distribution was systematically manipulated by modulating the distribution of the vector lengths sinusoidally as a function of the direction in the color space. The results showed that it is difficult to resolve a color distribution modulated in more than three cycles per 360 degrees in the chromatic direction. The difference in components along the cardinal axes is not a critical factor in the discrimination of the color distribution. An analysis using a line-element model suggested that the discrimination of the color distribution is mediated by multiple chromatic channels that are tuned to a variety of directions in the color space with a half-height-half-bandwidth of about 40 degrees in the chromatic direction.

Oceanic core complexes (OCCs) represent tectonic windows into the oceanic lower crust and mantle; they are key structures in understanding the tectono-magmatic processes shaping the oceanic lithosphere. We present a petrological and geochemical study of gabbros collected at the Mado Megamullion, a recently discovered OCC located in the extinct Shikoku back-arc basin. Bathymetry of the Mado Megamullion reveals spreading-parallel corrugations extending 25 km from the breakaway to the termination. Samples from several locations include peridotites, gabbros, dolerite, and rare pillow basalts. Gabbros range from granular to varitextured olivine gabbros and oxide gabbros. The emplacement of these gabbroic rocks within the oceanic lithosphere was followed by a multiphase tectono-metamorphic evolution including (i) dynamic recrystallization within shear zones, developed under granulite-to upper-amphibolite-facies conditions, and (ii) intrusion of highly evolved melts forming felsic segregations. This tectono-metamorphic evolution recalls that of the lower crust from other OCCs worldwide, demonstrating that this OCC exposes deep-seated intrusions progressively exhumed by detachment faulting. Nonetheless, the Mado Megamullion lower crustal gabbros show an unusual crystal line of descent, different from what is reported from mid-ocean ridge lower crustal rocks. We infer that the water-bearing character of the primary melts in this back-arc basin triggered the early precipitation of clinopyroxene, soon followed by amphibole and Fe-Ti oxides. Such modifications in phase saturation are likely to be directly related to the back-arc setting of the Mado Megamullion. If so, the phase assemblages of oceanic gabbros may be a diagnostic for the tectonic setting of lower crustal rocks in ophiolites.