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Effects Of Physical Fragmentation On Remineralization Of Marine Snow, Sa Goldthwait, Ca Carlson, Gk Henderson, Al Alldredge

VIMS Articles

The vast majority of carbon lost from ocean surface waters sinks as large, relatively rare, marine snow and fecal pellets. Fragmentation of these particles into more slowly sinking daughter particles has been proposed previously to partly explain the rapid loss of sinking carbon below the mixed layer. In this study we investigated 2 other less obvious potential consequences of aggregate disruption, namely the release of dissolved interstitial compounds upon fragmentation and accelerated degradation due to increased particle surface area. We found that upon fragmentation natural marine aggregates, ranging in size from 3 to 6 mm diameter, released dissolved organic carbon …