region. A total survey of the Gozhanskoye field was carried out, which revealed that the most dangerous processes of transformation and accumulation of pollutants are concentrated in the zone of influence of the primary oil treatment units (rus. UPPN, see the map). The other seven areas of the UPPNs were also surveyed. In total, 303 soil samples were taken as part of the study. The analysis determined such characteristics of oil samples as acidity, the content of humus, hydrocarbons, benzo[a]pyrene and chlorides. Measurements of oil content in the soil were carried out by the IR-spectrometry method. Benzo[a]pyrene was extracted from soil following the standard procedure and analyzed through gas chromatography testing. The physico-chemical analysis allowed to find out the concentrations of the main pollutants, as well as to design maps of land degradation and pollution. Another important finding is that the oil fields exploitation has the most essential impact on primary degradation of floodplain and upland soils as a result of salinization and benzo[a]pyrene pollution.

Byrd, A.L., Vlahos, P., Whitney, M.M., Menniti, C., Warren, J.K., 2020. Tidally resolved observations of organic carbon exchange through Eastern Long Island Sound. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 232, 106463.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771419302902 Long Island Sound (LIS), is an urban estuary on the US east coast that undergoes seasonal hypoxia in its western and central regions. Approximately 90% of the water exchange between LIS and the adjacent continental shelf, the Mid Atlantic Bight, occurs through its eastern boundary. Recent estimates of organic carbon (OC) export from LIS have shown that this value varies appreciably, both seasonally and inter-annually. In this study, the spatial, tidal, and seasonal variability were resolved by measuring dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC) concentrations and currents at a cross-section in eastern LIS near the estuary mouth. Fluxes were extrapolated from these high-resolution observations collected in May, August, and 6 - 1 November 2016, and Augu st 2017. In August of 2016 (a low flow year), an OC flux of 41 × 10 kg C month resulted from a net import of DOC and an export of POC. In August of 2017 (an average flow year), there was 6 - 1 an OC flux of 30 × 10 kg C month due to both DOC and POC export, indicating significant seasonal and 6 - 1 inter-annual variability. The seasonally weighted- average total OC flux for 2016 was -41 × 10 ± 9 kg C yr (net import). Results show that spot sampling in tidal estuaries can lead to spatial and tidal bias in concentrations of DOC (6 - 15%) and POC (31 - 18%) under high and low river flow conditions, respectively. This uncertainty is recommended for spot sampling in future OC studies and flux estimates in LIS.

Callaway, E., 2020. Supercomputer scours fossil record for Earth's hidden extinctions. Nature 577, 458 -459.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00117-1 Palaeontologists have charted 300 million years of Earth's history in breathtaking detail. Palaeontologists have a fuzzy view of Earth's history. An incomplete fossil record and imprecise dating techniques make it hard to pinpoint events that happened within geological eras spanning millions of years. Now, a period that saw a boom in animal comp lexity and one of Earth's greatest mass extinctions is coming into sharp focus. Using the world's fourth most powerful supercomputer, Tianhe II, a team of scientists based mostly in China mined a database of more than 11,000 fossil species that lived from around 540 million to 250 million years ago. The result is a history of life during this period, the early Palaeozoic era, that can pinpoint the rise and fall of species during diversifications and mass extinctions to within about 26,000 years. It is published on 16 1 Science January in . 'It is kind of amazing,' says Peter Wagner, a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, who was not involved in the work. Being able to look at species diversity on this scale is like going from a system where 'peopl e who lived in the same century are considered to be contemporaries, to one in which only people who lived during the same 6- month period are deemed to be contemporaries', he 2 writes in an essay accompanying the study .