A note on the silent decline of the Caspian environment.

The Caspian Sea, the world's largest enclosed water body, experiences significant transformations in its physico-chemical properties and a decline in bioresources due to extensive anthropogenic activities. These activities include the discharge of diverse pollutants and bio-physical alterations such as over-fishing, hunting, and physical alterations to rivers. While acute manifestations such as a fall in the Caspian water levels and wetland desiccation are more overt, the pervasive impact of human activities contributes to a likely irreversible decline in environmental quality that we aim to spotlight in this discussion in order to facilitate its restoration.

Stable isotope evidence for the Bottom Convective Layer homogeneity in the Black Sea.

The Black Sea is the largest euxinic basin on the Earth. The anoxic zone consists of the upper part water mass stratified by density, and the lower water mass homogenized relative to density (depth >1750 m), named the Bottom Convective Layer. To assess homogeneity and possible exchange of matter across the upper and lower boundaries of the Bottom Convective Layer, new data on stable isotope composition of S, O and H were obtained.

PUMP-CTD-System for trace metal sampling with a high vertical resolution. A test in the Gotland Basin, Baltic Sea.

It is a great challenge to sample seawater across interfaces, for example the halocline or the redoxcline, to investigate trace metal distribution. With the use of 10l sampling bottles mounted to a wire or a CTD-Rosette it is possible to obtain a maximum vertical resolution of 5m. For the detection of small vertical structures in the vertical distribution of trace metals across the redoxcline, the CTD-Bottle-Rosette is not sufficient.