Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Ocean Biogeochemical Fluxes - New Production And Export Of Organic-Matter From The Upper Ocean, Hw Ducklow

VIMS Articles

Studies of ocean biogeochemical fluxes have been energized in this decade, by the urgency of our need to understand and predict the effects of continued CO₂accumulation in the atmosphere, by the global perspectives offered by satellite views of ocean color and related physical fields (McClain et al. 1991; Yoder et al. 1992; Mitchell 1994), and by the successful implementation of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS; Bowles and Livingston, 1993). In this review, I focus on oceanic new production, originally defined as the fraction of primary production supported by inputs of ‘new’ nitrogen from outside the euphotic …

Calcium Carbonate Sedimentation In The Global Ocean: Linkages Between The Neritic And Pelagic Environments, John D. Milliman, Andre W. Droxler

VIMS Articles

Other than fluvial sediment, calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is the greatest source of sediment in the present-day ocean. Interest in carbonate sedimentation extends beyond geologists because the carbonate system involves biologic and geochemical
processes. Carbonate production, for example, releases CO2 but its accumulation becomes a major sink for inorganic carbon.

Unlike fluvial sediments, modern carbonates accumulate more or less equally in the neritic and pelagic environments. Neritic carbonates (benthic) are characterized by rapid production of (mostly) metastable aragonite and magnesian calcite:pelagic production of (primarily) calcite in the open ocean occurs at much slower rates but overmuch larger areas than does neritic …