Sedimentary characteristics and organic carbon flux in Nansha Sea area based on 210Pb dating method

Author(s):  
Shuang Deng ◽  
Anguo Peng ◽  
Jing Liu ◽  
Min Liu ◽  
Guangshan Liu ◽  
...  
2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Fischer ◽  
G. Karakaş

Abstract. The flux of materials to the deep sea is dominated by larger, organic-rich particles with sinking rates varying between a few meters and several hundred meters per day. Mineral ballast may regulate the transfer of organic matter and other components by determining the sinking rates, e.g. via particle density. We calculated particle sinking rates from mass flux patterns and alkenone measurements applying the results of sediment trap experiments from the Atlantic Ocean. We have indication for higher particle sinking rates in carbonate-dominated production systems when considering both regional and seasonal data. During a summer coccolithophorid bloom in the Cape Blanc coastal upwelling off Mauritania, particle sinking rates reached almost 570 m per day, most probably due the fast sedimentation of densely packed zooplankton fecal pellets, which transport high amounts of organic carbon associated with coccoliths to the deep ocean despite rather low production. During the recurring winter-spring blooms off NW Africa and in opal-rich production systems of the Southern Ocean, sinking rates of larger particles, most probably diatom aggregates, showed a tendency to lower values. However, there is no straightforward relationship between carbonate content and particle sinking rates. This could be due to the unknown composition of carbonate and/or the influence of particle size and shape on sinking rates. It also remains noticeable that the highest sinking rates occurred in dust-rich ocean regions off NW Africa, but this issue deserves further detailed field and laboratory investigations. We obtained increasing sinking rates with depth. By using a seven-compartment biogeochemical model, it was shown that the deep ocean organic carbon flux at a mesotrophic sediment trap site off Cape Blanc can be captured fairly well using seasonal variable particle sinking rates. Our model provides a total organic carbon flux of 0.29 Tg per year down to 3000 m off the NW African upwelling region between 5 and 35° N. Simple parameterisations of remineralisation and sinking rates in such models, however, limit their capability in reproducing the flux variation in the water column.


1978 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Farmer

The 210Pb dating method has been applied successfully to the determination of recent sedimentation rates at four sites distributed among the three major sedimentary basins (Niagara, Mississauga and Rochester) of Lake Ontario. Following correction for effects due to compaction of the sediments, mean sedimentation rates ranging from 0.02 cm/year at the periphery of the Mississauga basin to 0.11 cm/year in the Niagara and Rochester basins were determined. Allowance for compaction reduced the non-compaction-corrected sedimentation rates by 20–35%. Neither 210Pb nor fallout 137Cs profiles indicated surface mixing of sediment sufficient to noticeably affect the calculated sedimentation rates. At all four sites, the sedimentation rate seems to have remained constant during the last 100–150 years.


1995 ◽  
Vol 348 (1324) ◽  
pp. 221-227 ◽  

This study centered around a transect of high-resolution (multi) cores from the 20° W meridian, 60-18° N in the northeast Atlantic. It spans a range of primary productivity zones, and was used to quantify and examine the vertical flux of organic carbon from the euphotic zone (50 m deep) to the sediment—water interface, through the sediment mixed layer, to burial in late Holocene sediment. The disequilibrium between members of the natural uranium decay series ( 226 Ra, 210 Pb and 210 Po) - which track the biogenic flux through scavenging of the particle-reactive nuclides —was employed. Together with experimentally and observationally derived factors, these data were used to convert nuclide flux to organic carbon flux resulting in an estimate of the water column flux of organic carbon. At the sediment-water interface micro-oxygen electrodes were used to quantify the consumption of organic carbon by aerobic respiration. It was noted that the estimated organic carbon flux is strongly dependent on the intensity of bioturbation. The late Holocene organic carbon burial flux was calculated for selected cores from measured organic carbon profiles and sediment accumulation rates over approximately the last 10000 years. This combined approach reveals a strong spatial and temporal signal in the flux of organic carbon through the deep sea in the northeast Atlantic, and provides additional insight into the fate of carbon in this area of the ocean.


2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 625-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Pawson ◽  
D. R. Lord ◽  
M. G. Evans ◽  
T. E. H. Allott

Abstract. This study investigates for the first time the relative importance of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and particulate organic carbon (POC) in the fluvial carbon flux from an actively eroding peatland catchment in the southern Pennines, UK. Event scale variability in DOC and POC was examined and the annual flux of fluvial organic carbon was estimated for the catchment. At the event scale, both DOC and POC were found to increase with discharge, with event based POC export accounting for 95% of flux in only 8% of the time. On an annual cycle, exports of 35.14 t organic carbon (OC) are estimated from the catchment, which represents an areal value of 92.47 g C m−2 a−1. POC was the most significant form of organic carbon export, accounting for 80% of the estimated flux. This suggests that more research is required on both the fate of POC and the rates of POC export in eroding peatland catchments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 485-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rixen ◽  
Birgit Gaye ◽  
Kay-Christian Emeis ◽  
Venkitasubramani Ramaswamy

Abstract. Data obtained from long-term sediment trap experiments in the Indian Ocean in conjunction with satellite observations illustrate the influence of primary production and the ballast effect on organic carbon flux into the deep sea. They suggest that primary production is the main control on the spatial variability of organic carbon fluxes at most of our study sites in the Indian Ocean, except at sites influenced by river discharges. At these sites the spatial variability of organic carbon flux is influenced by lithogenic matter content. To quantify the impact of lithogenic matter on the organic carbon flux, the densities of the main ballast minerals, their flux rates and seawater properties were used to calculate sinking speeds of material intercepted by sediment traps. Sinking speeds in combination with satellite-derived export production rates allowed us to compute organic carbon fluxes. Flux calculations imply that lithogenic matter ballast increases organic carbon fluxes at all sampling sites in the Indian Ocean by enhancing sinking speeds and reducing the time of organic matter respiration in the water column. We calculated that lithogenic matter content in aggregates and pellets enhances organic carbon flux rates on average by 45 % and by up to 62 % at trap locations in the river-influenced regions of the Indian Ocean. Such a strong lithogenic matter ballast effect explains the fact that organic carbon fluxes are higher in the low-productive southern Java Sea compared to the high-productive western Arabian Sea. It also implies that land use changes and the associated enhanced transport of lithogenic matter from land into the ocean may significantly affect the CO2 uptake of the organic carbon pump in the receiving ocean areas.


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