Productivity, sedimentation rate, and sedimentary organic matter in the oceans—I. Organic carbon preservation

Müller, Peter; Suess, Erwin

doi:10.1016/0198-0149(79)90003-7

Cited by 966 publications

(417 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In some cases, the SE of those mean values is small (for instance, the percentage of gross primary production respired by autotrophs), but large in some other cases (for instance, the percentage of total grazer respiration represented by the grazers enclosed in incubation chambers for microalgal communities). Moreover, the estimate that decomposition of sedimenting phytoplankton represents on the average 17% of the community net primary production is a vast generalization because this percentage may vary notably among oceanic regions (Muller and Suess 1979;Suess 1980). In addition, the use of plantspecific mean k values in Eq.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability and control of carbon consumption, export, and accumulation in marine communities

Cebrián

2002

Limnology & Oceanography

129

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Elucidating the extent and controls of the routes followed by primary production in marine communities (i.e., consumption by herbivores, decomposition, transportation of plant material beyond the community boundariesreferred to as export-or accumulation as biomass or detritus) is essential to understand how much and why they differ in their capacity to fuel secondary production, both within or out of the community, and in their role as sinks in the oceanic carbon budget. Here, using an extensive compilation of published reports, I compare the magnitude of these routes across and within a wide range of community types, including oceanic and coastal phytoplanktonic communities, benthic microalgal communities, coral reef algal beds, macroalgal beds, seagrass meadows, marshes, and mangroves. Furthermore, I examine whether the variability in the magnitude of these routes among and within types is associated with that in the magnitude of primary production. In general, different community types showed similar levels of consumption by herbivores and export, in spite of substantial within-type variability. On the contrary, substantial differences in detritus decomposition and accumulation were found among types: coral reef algal beds and benthic microalgal communities tended to show the highest and lowest levels of decomposition, respectively, whereas marshes and oceanic phytoplanktonic communities tended to show the largest and smallest levels of detritus accumulation. The results also identify primary production as a robust (i.e., applicable to a wide range of environmental conditions and communities) control of the variability in herbivory and decomposition among marine communities. The role of primary production as a control of export and detritus accumulation is generally minor and only restricted to coastal phytoplanktonic and benthic microalgal communities, for export, and marshes and mangroves for detritus accumulation.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variability and control of carbon consumption, export, and accumulation in marine communities

Cebrián

2002

Limnology & Oceanography

129

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“…[24] Since work by Müller and Suess [1979] various authors have demonstrated that accumulation rates of marine total organic carbon (TOC) and chlorins (pigments from chlorophyll used as a tracer of marine TOC) form reliable records of algal productivity and TOC flux rates in deep sea sediments [De La Rocha, 2007], although in part also controlled by differential rates of siliciclastic sediment input. In contrast, no correlation is seen between TOC burial efficiency and oxygenation.…”

Section: Total Organic Carbon and Chlorin Concentration As Paleoprodumentioning

confidence: 99%

Paleonutrient and productivity records from the subarctic North Pacific for Pleistocene glacial terminations I to V

Gebhardt¹,

Sarnthein²,

et al. 2008

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[1] Our study addresses fundamental questions of the mode and timing of orbital and millennial-scale changes in the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the subarctic North Pacific. Particular concerns are the vertical mixing, the present and past abundance of nutrients in surface waters despite strong stratification, and the North Pacific-North Atlantic seesaw of oscillations in sea surface temperature (SST). We do this by generating and interpreting multiple records for glacial terminations I-V down two long piston cores, one each from the western and eastern subarctic Pacific. Chlorins and biogenic opal are proxies for surface water productivity; d 13 C of epibenthic foraminifera is a record of deepwater ventilation; and the d 13 C of N. pachyderma sin. is a tracer of nutrients in subsurface waters that extend up to the sea surface during times of vertical mixing. The degree of mixing is traced by pairing SST and d 18 O records of planktic surface and subsurface (pycnocline) dwellers. Tight age control is deduced from a suite of age-calibrated 14 C plateau boundaries for Termination I and benthic d 18 O and geomagnetic events for the last 800 ka. Carbon 14 paleoreservoir ages record the ages of surface and deep waters to uncover short-term changes in MOC over Termination I. We have defined a standard sequence of short-term productivity events for Termination I, also evident during terminations II to V and subsequent interglacials over the last 450 ka. The peak glacial regime of stable stratification and low productivity terminated, together with the end of ice rafting and melting, near 17 ka, $2000 years after the onset of Termination I. Pulses of vertical mixing and incursion of warm surface waters from the subtropics followed. Convected young water masses finally penetrated down to 3600-m water depth at 17.0 to less than 14.5 ka, significantly improving bottom water ventilation through the late deglacial and earliest interglacial. Mixing with upwelled nutrients from the pycnocline induced short-term maxima in algal production of chlorins and biogenic opal near 17-15 and 15-12 ka, respectively. Deglacial meltwater incursions in the Aleutian Current and silica input from North American rivers also promoted East Pacific productivity after 15.5 ka. Productivity decreased during the late deglacial and early interglacial, coeval with an exceptional peak in CaCO 3 preservation caused by both low organic flux and well-ventilated deepwater. Subsequently, low salinity and cool surface waters and in turn, stratification were gradually restored. A second, opaldominated productivity maximum marked the ends of interglacials. The deglacial pulses of vertical mixing around 17-11 ka imply an important contribution of the North Pacific to the coeval release of oceanic CO 2 into the atmosphere and support the east-west seesaw model of climate change.Citation: Gebhardt, H., M. Sarnthein, P. M. Grootes, T. Kiefer, H. Kuehn, F. Schmieder, and U. Röhl (2008), Paleonutrient and productivity records from the subarctic North ...

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“…Existing evidence suggests that new production and therefore the concentration of limiting nutrient in the surface ocean exert the dominant control on marine organic carbon burial [Betts and Holland, 1991;Pedersen and Calvert, 1990]. On the basis of data relating primary production to sedimentation rate [Miiller and Suess, 1979] and sedimentation rate to organic carbon burial [Henrichs and Reeburgh, 1987], organic carbon burial is assumed to be a quadratic function of new production, given by (3) and independent of ocean anoxia. The nonlinearity implies that increases in new production occur primarily in the shelf environments where a greater fraction of production is preserved than in the deep ocean [Van Cappellen and Ingall, 1994].…”

Section: Basic Ocean Model (M1)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Redfield revisited: 2. What regulates the oxygen content of the atmosphere?

Lenton¹,

Watson²

2000

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

148

145

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Productivity, sedimentation rate, and sedimentary organic matter in the oceans—I. Organic carbon preservation

Cited by 966 publications

References 17 publications

Variability and control of carbon consumption, export, and accumulation in marine communities

Variability and control of carbon consumption, export, and accumulation in marine communities

Paleonutrient and productivity records from the subarctic North Pacific for Pleistocene glacial terminations I to V

Redfield revisited: 2. What regulates the oxygen content of the atmosphere?

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