Faculty Publications

ORCID iD

0000-0002-1004-5048

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The CARIACO Ocean Time Series program has made monthly measurements of oxygen, nutrients, and carbon system parameters (∑CO2, alkalinity, pH) in the Cariaco Basin since 1996. At the same time, sediment traps have collected settling particles at four to five depths ranging from 150 to 1,200 m. The depth of the transition from oxic to anoxic conditions has fluctuated dramatically over the time series due to changes in the occurrence of Caribbean water intrusions into the deep basin. Nutrient concentrations in the deep basin have increased steadily with time in a proportion reflective of the elemental ratios in the settling organic matter, although N:P ratios in the water column (approximately 16:1) differ from ratios in the accumulating nutrients (11:1) and the settling flux (ranging between 5:1 and 12.5:1). This difference is likely due to changes in the source material for remineralization, either because of sizeable ecosystem changes or changes in the relative importance of the terrestrial input of inorganic P or scavenging of P by mineral precipitation near the oxic/anoxic interface. Alternatively, there may have been changes in the degree of preferential remineralization of P.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.5670/oceanog.2014.18

Rights

This article has been published in Oceanography, Volume 27, Number 1, a quarterly journal of The Oceanography Society. Copyright 2014 by The Oceanography Society. All rights reserved.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.

APA Citation

Scranton, M., Taylor, G., Thunell, R., Benitez-Nelson, C., Muller-Karger, F., & Fanning, K. et al. (2014). Interannual and Subdecadal Variability in the Nutrient Geochemistry of the Cariaco Basin. Oceanography, 27(1), 148-159. doi: 10.5670/oceanog.2014.18

Download

Share

COinS