Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 20 (2006): GB1006, doi:10.1029/2005GB002557.
Description:
Heightened biological activity was observed in February 1996 in the high-nutrient low-chlorophyll (HNLC) subarctic North Pacific Ocean, a region that is thought to be iron-limited. Here we provide evidence supporting the hypothesis that Ocean Station Papa (OSP) in the subarctic Pacific received a lateral supply of particulate iron from the continental margin off the Aleutian Islands in the winter, coincident with the observed biological bloom. Synchrotron X-ray analysis was used to describe the physical form, chemistry, and depth distributions of iron in size fractionated particulate matter samples. The analysis reveals that discrete micron-sized iron-rich hot spots are ubiquitous in the upper 200 m at OSP, more than 900 km from the closest coast. The specifics of the chemistry and depth profiles of the Fe hot spots trace them to the continental margins. We thus hypothesize that iron hot spots are a marker for the delivery of iron from the continental margin. We confirm the delivery of continental margin iron to the open ocean using an ocean general circulation model with an iron-like tracer source at the continental margin. We suggest that iron from the continental margin stimulated a wintertime phytoplankton bloom, partially relieving the HNLC condition.
Description:
This work was
supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of
Biological and Environmental Research (KP1202030) to J. K. B and by
NSFATM-9987457 to I. F. The Advanced Light Source is supported by the
Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of
Materials Sciences and Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and
Biosciences of the U.S. Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory under contract DE-AC03-76SF00098.
Keywords:
Iron
;
Continental margin
;
HNLC
;
Subarctic Pacific
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
application/pdf
Format:
image/tiff
Format:
text/plain
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