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The Trustus Plays collects three full-length, award-winning performance texts by American playwright Jon Tuttle. Each play was a winner of the national Trustus Playwrights Festival contest and was then produced by the Trustus Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina. The Hammerstone is a comedy about two professors aging gracelessly, Drift is a dark comedy about marriage and divorce, and Holy Ghost is the story of German POWs held in the camps in the American south. Jon Tuttle provides an introduction to the plays, and Trustus founder and artistic director, Jim Thigpen, offers a preface describing Tuttle's work within the context of the Trustus theatre's dedication to experimental, edgy social drama.

The Trustus Plays collects three full-length, award-winning performance texts by American playwright Jon Tuttle. Each play was a winner of the national Trustus Playwrights Festival contest and was then produced by the Trustus Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina. The Hammerstone is a comedy about two professors aging gracelessly, Drift is a dark comedy about marriage and divorce, and Holy Ghost is the story of German POWs held in the camps in the American south. Jon Tuttle provides an introduction to the plays, and Trustus founder and artistic director, Jim Thigpen, offers a preface describing Tuttle's work within the context of the Trustus theatre's dedication to experimental, edgy social drama.

Independent measurements of dissolved sulfide (DS) production in and release from mesohaline Chesapeake Bay sediments underlying anoxic bottom water were made during summer. DS accumulated under benthic chambers at a rate of 27.3 ± 8.2 mmol m-2 d-1. Rates of DS release ranged from 60 to 80% of depth-integrated (0-12 cm) sulfate reduction (SR) rates (average 39.0 ± 9.0 mol m-2 d-1) determined with35SO 4 2-. The balance between DS production, accumulation in pore waters, and sediment-water exchange was examined by steady state and transient state transport-reaction modeling, with a DS sediment diffusion coefficient derived from that determined for sulfate by the instantaneous source technique. The results indicate that DS transport is influenced by processes other than vertical molecular diffusion, most likely gas bubble ebullition driven by methane production beneath the SR zone. Although such processes may significantly reduce porewater DS accumulation (i.e. promote DS release), the models show that most (65-95%) DS formation during summer is not stored in the DS pool regardless of the transport processes occurring. The observed rates of DS production and release correspond to a potential oxygen demand of 1-2 g O2m-2 d-1, equal to or greater than estimated rates of eddy-diffusive bottom-water reaeration during summer stratification. Thus, sulfur cycling alone can maintain anoxia in these subpycnocline waters during summer under quiescent water conditions.

Tuttle discusses the literary applications of German physicist Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle on the Vietnam War. Among other things, he conveys that the best, most direct application of Heisenberg's principle to telling the war is Amlin Gray's How I Got That Story, a play that employs Brechtian devices toward Brechtian ends: overhead projections of scene titles, photographs, and obviously false stage effects serve to alienate the audience--that is, to remind it of the artificiality of the presentation.

Concentrations of dissolved and solid-phase inorganic sulfur compounds and sulfate reduction (SR) rates were measured in sediments along a lateral transect in the mesohaline region of the Chesapeake Bay estuary (USA). Areal SR rates varied seasonally from 2 to 10, 5 to 60, and 10 to 90 mmol m−2 d−1 in deep channel, channel slope and western flank sediments respectively, and with temperature according to an apparent activation energy of ca 83 kJ mol−1. March through November integrated SR rates were 1.3, 5.3 and 7.3 mol m−2 yr−1 at the 3 locations respectively. Summer SR rates in other mid-bay central channel and lower bay sediments were comparable to the highest rates found along the mid-bay transect. Sulfate reduction was maximal in the top 2 to 4 cm (0.2 to 2 mmol l−1 d−1) of sediment and decreased several-fold with depth to 12 cm in both mid- and lower bay sediments. Mid-bay central channel sediments underlying anoxic bottom water during the summer exhibited high concentrations (1 to 5 mM) of dissolved sulfide (DS), whereas bioturbated flank sediments had 5- to 10-fold lower DS concentrations (0.1 to 1 mM). In lower bay sediments, DS concentrations were < 0.1 mM in the upper 12 cm despite intense SR (25 to 100 mmol m−2 d−1). Solid phase reduced sulfur concentrations in mid- and lower bay sediments were not correlated with SR rates. Comparison of annual SR with reduced sulfur burial indicated that < 30 % of total sulfide production is permanently retained in mid-bay sediments. A similar fraction of sulfide retention is expected to occur in lower bay sediments. Our results indicate that sulfur cycling accounts for a substantial portion of carbon mineralization and oxygen consumption over a large area of the mid- and lower Chesapeake Bay benthos.

Inorganic sulfur turnover was examined in oligohaline (salinity < 2 g kg-1) Chesapeake Bay sediments during the summer. Cores incubated for < 3 hr exhibited higher sulfate reduction (SR) rates (13-58 mmol m-2 d-1) than those incubated for 3-8 hr (3-8 mmol m-2 d-1). SR rates (determined with 35SO42-) increased with depth over the top few cm to a maximum at 5 cm, just beneath the boundary between brown and black sediment. SR rates decreased below 5 cm, probably due to sulfate limitation (sulfate < 25 μM). Kinetic experiments yielded an apparent half-saturating sulfate concentration (Ks) of 34 μM, ≈ 20-fold lower than that determined for sediments from the mesohaline region of the estuary. Sulfate loss from water overlying intact cores, predicted on the basis of measured SR rates, was not observed over a 28-hr incubation period. Reduction of 35SO42- during diffusion experiments with intact core segments from 0-4 and 5-9 cm horizons was less than predicted by non-steady state diagenetic models based on 35SO42- reduction in whole core injection experiments. The results indicate that net sulfate flux into sediments was an order of magnitude lower than the gross sulfur turnover rate. Solid phase reduced inorganic sulfur concentrations were only 2-3 times less than those in sediments from the mesohaline region of the Bay, despite the fact that oligohaline bottom water sulfate concentrations were 10-fold lower. Our results demonstrate the potential for rapid SR in low salinity estuarine sediments, which are inhabited by sulfate-reducing bacteria with a high affinity for sulfate, and in which sulfide oxidation processes replenish the pore water sulfate pool on a time scale of hours.

The effect of thiosulfate on dark assimilation of carbon dioxide in shallow marine environments was investigated in order to explain the recent discovery of bacterial thiosulfate oxidation in aerobic, open ocean seawater. The results demonstrate that the potential exists for microbial thiosulfate oxidation to increase both dark assimilation of carbon dioxide and the utilization of organic compounds in the sea. Thiosulfate-stimulated microbial activity may be caused not only by chemoautotrophic sulfur bacteria, but also by heterotrophic species which oxidize thiosulfate to tetrathionate. Measurements of dark assimilation of carbon dioxide made at different incubation times indicate that great care must be taken both in experimental procedure and in interpretation of results obtained with the dark assimilation technique.

Tuttle reviews a performance of Sarah Hammond's Kudzu, directed by Jim Thigpen at the Trustus Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina.