Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Springtime Benthic Fluxes In The Salish Sea: Environmental Parameters Driving Spatial Variation In The Exchange Of Dissolved Oxygen, Inorganic Carbon, Nutrients, And Alkalinity Between The Sediments And Overlying Water, Emma I. Rigby

WWU Graduate School Collection

Recent decades have seen changes to biogeochemical cycles in the Salish Sea, including alterations in water column nutrients, an expansion of hypoxic zones, and bottom water acidification. Marine sediments can be a major contributor to these biogeochemical cycles by exchanging solutes with bottom water. In an effort to understand the sediment biogeochemistry of the Salish Sea further, benthic fluxes of dissolved oxygen (DO), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), pH, total alkalinity (TA), and nutrients (ammonium, nitrate+nitrite, phosphate, silicate) between the sediment and the overlying water were directly measured using incubated flux cores at 42 sites in April and early May 2018. …