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- Hilton, Robert G., et al.
(författare)
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Erosion of organic carbon in the Arctic as a geological carbon dioxide sink
- 2015
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 524:7563, s. 84-U162
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Soils of the northern high latitudes store carbon over millennial timescales (thousands of years) and contain approximately double the carbon stock of the atmosphere(1-3). Warming and associated permafrost thaw can expose soil organic carbon and result in mineralization and carbon dioxide (CO2) release(4-6). However, some of this soil organic carbon may be eroded and transferred to rivers(7-9). If it escapes degradation during river transport and is buried in marine sediments, then it can contribute to a longer-term (more than ten thousand years), geological CO2 sink(8-10). Despite this recognition, the erosional flux and fate of particulate organic carbon (POC) in large rivers at high latitudes remains poorly constrained. Here, we quantify the source of POC in the Mackenzie River, the main sediment supplier to the Arctic Ocean(11,12), and assess its flux and fate. We combine measurements of radiocarbon, stable carbon isotopes and element ratios to correct for rock-derived POC10,13,14. Our samples reveal that the eroded biospheric POC has resided in the basin for millennia, with a mean radiocarbon age of 5,800 +/- 800 years, much older than the POC in large tropical rivers(13,14). From the measured biospheric POC content and variability in annual sediment yield(15), we calculate a biospheric POC flux of 2.2(-0.9)(+1.3) teragrams of carbon per year from the Mackenzie River, which is three times the CO2 drawdown by silicate weathering in this basin(16). Offshore, we find evidence for efficient terrestrial organic carbon burial over the Holocene period, suggesting that erosion of organic carbon-rich, high-latitude soils may result in an important geological CO2 sink.
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| 2. |
- Schouten, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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An interlaboratory study of TEX86 and BIT analysis of sediments, extracts, and standard mixtures
- 2013
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Ingår i: Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems. - 1525-2027. ; 14:12, s. 5263-5285
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Two commonly used proxies based on the distribution of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) are the TEX86 (TetraEther indeX of 86 carbon atoms) paleothermometer for sea surface temperature reconstructions and the BIT (Branched Isoprenoid Tetraether) index for reconstructing soil organic matter input to the ocean. An initial round-robin study of two sediment extracts, in which 15 laboratories participated, showed relatively consistent TEX86 values (reproducibility +/- 3-4 degrees C when translated to temperature) but a large spread in BIT measurements (reproducibility +/- 0.41 on a scale of 0-1). Here we report results of a second round-robin study with 35 laboratories in which three sediments, one sediment extract, and two mixtures of pure, isolated GDGTs were analyzed. The results for TEX86 and BIT index showed improvement compared to the previous round-robin study. The reproducibility, indicating interlaboratory variation, of TEX86 values ranged from 1.3 to 3.0 degrees C when translated to temperature. These results are similar to those of other temperature proxies used in paleoceanography. Comparison of the results obtained from one of the three sediments showed that TEX86 and BIT indices are not significantly affected by interlaboratory differences in sediment extraction techniques. BIT values of the sediments and extracts were at the extremes of the index with values close to 0 or 1, and showed good reproducibility (ranging from 0.013 to 0.042). However, the measured BIT values for the two GDGT mixtures, with known molar ratios of crenarchaeol and branched GDGTs, had intermediate BIT values and showed poor reproducibility and a large overestimation of the true (i.e., molar-based) BIT index. The latter is likely due to, among other factors, the higher mass spectrometric response of branched GDGTs compared to crenarchaeol, which also varies among mass spectrometers. Correction for this different mass spectrometric response showed a considerable improvement in the reproducibility of BIT index measurements among laboratories, as well as a substantially improved estimation of molar-based BIT values. This suggests that standard mixtures should be used in order to obtain consistent, and molar-based, BIT values.
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