scholarly journals Critical oxygen levels and metabolic suppression in oceanic oxygen minimum zones

2010 ◽  
Vol 214 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. A. Seibel
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1169-1189 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schönfeld ◽  
W. Kuhnt ◽  
Z. Erdem ◽  
S. Flögel ◽  
N. Glock ◽  
...  

Abstract. Present day oceans are well ventilated, with the exception of mid-depth oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) under high surface water productivity, regions of sluggish circulation, and restricted marginal basins. In the Mesozoic, however, entire oceanic basins transiently became dysoxic or anoxic. The Cretaceous ocean anoxic events (OAEs) were characterised by laminated organic-carbon rich shales and low-oxygen indicating trace fossils preserved in the sedimentary record. Yet assessments of the intensity and extent of Cretaceous near-bottom water oxygenation have been hampered by deep or long-term diagenesis and the evolution of marine biota serving as oxygen indicators in today's ocean. Sedimentary features similar to those found in Cretaceous strata were observed in deposits underlying Recent OMZs, where bottom-water oxygen levels, the flux of organic matter, and benthic life have been studied thoroughly. Their implications for constraining past bottom-water oxygenation are addressed in this review. We compared OMZ sediments from the Peruvian upwelling with deposits of the late Cenomanian OAE 2 from the north-west African shelf. Holocene laminated sediments are encountered at bottom-water oxygen levels of < 7 μmol kg−1 under the Peruvian upwelling and < 5 μmol kg−1 in California Borderland basins and the Pakistan Margin. Seasonal to decadal changes of sediment input are necessary to create laminae of different composition. However, bottom currents may shape similar textures that are difficult to discern from primary seasonal laminae. The millimetre-sized trace fossil Chondrites was commonly found in Cretaceous strata and Recent oxygen-depleted environments where its diameter increased with oxygen levels from 5 to 45 μmol kg−1. Chondrites has not been reported in Peruvian sediments but centimetre-sized crab burrows appeared around 10 μmol kg−1, which may indicate a minimum oxygen value for bioturbated Cretaceous strata. Organic carbon accumulation rates ranged from 0.7 and 2.8 g C cm−2 kyr−1 in laminated OAE 2 sections in Tarfaya Basin, Morocco, matching late Holocene accumulation rates of laminated Peruvian sediments under Recent oxygen levels below 5 μmol kg−1. Sediments deposited at > 10 μmol kg−1 showed an inverse exponential relationship of bottom-water oxygen levels and organic carbon accumulation depicting enhanced bioirrigation and decomposition of organic matter with increased oxygen supply. In the absence of seasonal laminations and under conditions of low burial diagenesis, this relationship may facilitate quantitative estimates of palaeo-oxygenation. Similarities and differences between Cretaceous OAEs and late Quaternary OMZs have to be further explored to improve our understanding of sedimentary systems under hypoxic conditions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 13343-13387 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schönfeld ◽  
W. Kuhnt ◽  
Z. Erdem ◽  
S. Flögel ◽  
N. Glock ◽  
...  

Abstract. Present day oceans are generally well ventilated except mid-depth oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) under high surface water productivity regimes, regions of sluggish circulation, and restricted marginal basins. In the Mesozoic, however, entire oceanic basins transiently became dysoxic or even anoxic. In particular the Cretaceous Ocean Anoxic Events (OAEs) were characterised by laminated organic-carbon rich shales and low-oxygen indicating trace fossil assemblages preserved in the sedimentary record. Yet both, qualitative and quantitative assessments of intensity and extent of Cretaceous near-bottom water oxygenation have been hampered by deep or long-term diagenesis and the evolution of marine biota serving as oxygen indicators in today's ocean. Sedimentary features similar to those found in Cretaceous strata were observed in deposits underlying Recent OMZs, where bottom-water oxygen levels, the flux of organic matter, and benthic life are well known. Their implications for constraining past bottom-water oxygenation are addressed in this review, with emphasis on comparing OMZ sediments from the Peruvian upwelling with deposits of the late Cenomanian OAE 2 from the Atlantic NW African shelf. Holocene laminated sediments were encountered at bottom-water oxygen levels of <7 μmol kg−1 under the Peruvian upwelling and <5 μmol kg−1 in California Borderland basins and the Pakistan Margin. Changes of sediment input on seasonal to decadal time scales are necessary to create laminae of different composition. However, bottom currents may shape similar textures that are difficult to discern from primary seasonal laminae in sediment cores. The millimetre-sized trace fossil Chondrites was commonly found in Cretaceous strata and Recent oxygen-depleted environments where its diameter increased with oxygen levels from 5 to 45 μmol kg−1. This ichnogenus has not been reported from Peruvian sediments but cm-sized crab burrows appeared around 10 μmol kg−1, which may indicate a minimum oxygen value for bioturbated Cretaceous strata. Organic carbon accumulation rates ranged from 0.7 and 2.8 g C cm−2 kyr−1 in laminated sections of OAE 2 in the Tarfaya Basin, Morocco, matching late Holocene accumulation rates of the majority of laminated Peruvian sediment cores under Recent oxygen levels below 5 μmol kg−1. Sediments deposited at >10 μmol kg−1 showed an inverse exponential relationship of bottom-water oxygen levels and organic carbon accumulation depicting enhanced bioirrigation and decomposition of organic matter with increased oxygen supply. In absence of seasonal laminations and under conditions of low burial diagenesis, this relationship may facilitate quantitative estimates of paleo-oxygenation under suboxic conditions. Similarities and differences between Cretaceous OAEs and late Quaternary OMZs have to be further explored to improve our understanding of sedimentary systems under hypoxic conditions.


Author(s):  
Brad A. Seibel ◽  
Bryan E. Luu ◽  
Shannon N. Tessier ◽  
Trisha Towanda ◽  
Kenneth B. Storey

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 784-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Larsen ◽  
Philipp Lehner ◽  
Sergey M. Borisov ◽  
Ingo Klimant ◽  
Jan P. Fischer ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (12) ◽  
pp. 1532-1546 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Zhou ◽  
E. Thomas ◽  
A. M. E. Winguth ◽  
A. Ridgwell ◽  
H. Scher ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Tetard ◽  
Laetitia Licari ◽  
Kazuyo Tachikawa ◽  
Ekaterina Ovsepyan ◽  
Luc Beaufort

Abstract. Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs) are oceanic areas largely depleted in dissolved oxygen, nowadays considered in expansion in the face of global warming. Their ecological and economic consequences are being debated. The investigation of past OMZ conditions allows us to better understand biological and physical mechanisms responsible for their variability with regards to climate change, carbon pump and carbonate system. To investigate the relationship between OMZ expansion and global climate changes during the late Quaternary, quantitative oxygen reconstructions are needed, but are still in their early development. Here, past bottom water oxygenation (BWO) was quantitatively assessed through a new, fast, semi-automated, and taxonfree morphometric analysis of benthic foraminiferal tests, developed and calibrated using Eastern North Pacific (ENP) and the Eastern South Pacific (ESP) OMZs samples. This new approach is based on an average size and circularity index for each sample. This method, as well as two already published micropalaeontological approaches based on benthic foraminiferal assemblages variability and porosity investigation of a single species, were here calibrated based on availability of new data from 23 core tops recovered along an oxygen gradient (from 0.03 to 1.79 mL.L−1) from the ENP, ESP, AS (Arabian Sea) and WNP (Western North Pacific, including its marginal seas) OMZs. Global calibrated transfer functions are thus herein proposed for each of these methods. These micropalaeontological reconstruction approaches were then applied on a paleorecord from the ENP OMZ to examine the consistency and limits of these methods, as well as the relative influence of bottom and pore waters on these micropalaeontological tools. Both the assemblages and morphometric approaches (that is also ultimately based on the ecological response of the complete assemblage and faunal succession according to BWO) gave similar and consistent past BWO reconstructions, while the porosity approach (based on a single species and its unique response to a mixed signal of bottom and pore waters) shown ambiguous estimations.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marine Bretagnon ◽  
Aurélien Paulmier ◽  
Véronique Garçon ◽  
Boris Dewitte ◽  
Sérena Illig ◽  
...  

Abstract. The fate of the Organic Matter (OM) produced by marine life controls the major biogeochemical cycles of the Earth’s system. The OM produced through photosynthesis is either preserved, exported towards sediments or degraded through remineralisation in the water column. The productive Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems (EBUSs) associated with Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs) should foster OM preservation due to low O2 conditions, but their intense and diverse microbial activity should enhance OM degradation. To investigate this contradiction, sediment traps were deployed near the oxycline and in the OMZ core on an instrumented moored line off Peru, providing high temporal resolution O2 series characterizing two seasonal steady states at the upper trap: suboxic ([O2] 


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 1815-1837 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Azouzi ◽  
R. Gonçalves Ito ◽  
F. Touratier ◽  
C. Goyet

Abstract. We present results from the BIOSOPE cruise in the eastern South Pacific Ocean. In particular, we present estimates of the anthropogenic carbon CantTrOCA distribution in this area using the TrOCA method recently developed by Touratier and Goyet (2004a, b) and Touratier et al. (2007). We study the distribution of this anthropogenic carbon taking into account of the hydrodynamic characteristics of this region. We then compare these results with earlier estimates in nearby areas of the anthropogenic carbon as well as other anthropogenic tracer (CFC-11). The highest concentrations of CantTrOCA are located around 13° S 132° W and 32° S 91° W, and their concentrations are larger than 80 μmol kg−1 and 70 μmol kg−1, respectively. The lowest concentrations were observed below 800 m depths (≤2 μ mol kg−1) and at the Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZ), mainly around 140° W (<11 μmol kg−1). The comparison with earlier work in nearby areas provides a general trend and indicates that the results presented here are in general agreement with previous knowledge. This work further improves our understanding on the penetration of anthropogenic carbon in the eastern Pacific Ocean.


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