ALBERT

Description: Cobalt is the scarcest of metallic micronutrients and displays a complex biogeochemical cycle. This study examines the distribution, chemical speciation, and biogeochemistry of dissolved cobalt during the US North Atlantic GEOTRACES transect expeditions (GA03/3_e), which took place in the fall of 2010 and 2011. Two major subsurface sources of cobalt to the North Atlantic were identified. The more prominent of the two was a large plume of cobalt emanating from the African coast off the eastern tropical North Atlantic coincident with the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) likely due to reductive dissolution, biouptake and remineralization, and aeolian dust deposition. The occurrence of this plume in an OMZ with oxygen above suboxic levels implies a high threshold for persistence of dissolved cobalt plumes. The other major subsurface source came from Upper Labrador Seawater, which may carry high cobalt concentrations due to the interaction of this water mass with resuspended sediment at the western margin or from transport further upstream. Minor sources of cobalt came from dust, coastal surface waters and hydrothermal systems along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The full depth section of cobalt chemical speciation revealed near-complete complexation in surface waters, even within regions of high dust deposition. However, labile cobalt observed below the euphotic zone demonstrated that strong cobalt-binding ligands were not present in excess of the total cobalt concentration there, implying that mesopelagic labile cobalt was sourced from the remineralization of sinking organic matter. In the upper water column, correlations were observed between total cobalt and phosphate, and between labile cobalt and phosphate, demonstrating a strong biological influence on cobalt cycling. Along the western margin off the North American coast, this correlation with phosphate was no longer observed and instead a relationship between cobalt and salinity was observed, reflecting the importance of coastal input processes on cobalt distributions. In deep waters, both total and labile cobalt concentrations were lower than in intermediate depth waters, demonstrating that scavenging may remove labile cobalt from the water column. Total and labile cobalt distributions were also compared to a previously published South Atlantic GEOTRACES-compliant zonal transect (CoFeMUG, GAc01) to discern regional biogeochemical differences. Together, these Atlantic sectional studies highlight the dynamic ecological stoichiometry of total and labile cobalt. As increasing anthropogenic use and subsequent release of cobalt poses the potential to overpower natural cobalt signals in the oceans, it is more important than ever to establish a baseline understanding of cobalt distributions in the ocean.

Description: Cobalt is the scarcest of metallic micronutrients and displays a complex biogeochemical cycle. This study examines the distribution, chemical speciation, and biogeochemistry of dissolved cobalt during the U.S. North Atlantic GEOTRACES Transect expeditions (GA03/3_e), which took place in the fall of 2010 and 2011. Two major subsurface sources of cobalt to the North Atlantic were identified by increased abundances of dissolved cobalt relative to surrounding waters. The more prominent of the two was a large plume of cobalt emanating from the African coast off the Eastern Tropical North Atlantic coincident with the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) likely due to a confluence of processes including reductive dissolution, biouptake and remineralization, and aeolian dust deposition. This occurrence of this plume in an OMZ with oxygen above suboxic levels implies a high threshold for persistence of dissolved cobalt plumes. The other major subsurface source came from Upper Labrador Seawater, which may carry higher cobalt concentrations due to the interaction of this water mass with resuspended sediment at the western margin or from transport even further upstream. Minor sources of cobalt came from dust, coastal surface waters and hydrothermal systems along the mid-Atlantic ridge. The full depth section of cobalt chemical speciation revealed near complete complexation in surface waters, even with the regional high dust deposition. However, labile cobalt was found below the euphotic zone, demonstrating that strong cobalt binding ligands were not present in excess of the total cobalt concentration there and implying mesopelagic labile cobalt was sourced from the remineralization of sinking organic matter. Significant correlations were observed in the upper water column between total cobalt and phosphate, and between labile cobalt and phosphate, demonstrating a strong biological influence on cobalt cycling across much of the North Atlantic transect. Along the western margin off the North American coast, this linear relationship with phosphate was no longer observed and instead a relationship between cobalt and salinity was observed, reflecting the importance of coastal input processes on cobalt distributions. In deep waters, both total and labile cobalt were lower in concentration than at intermediate depths, providing evidence that scavenging may remove labile cobalt from the water column. Total and labile cobalt distributions were also compared to a previously published South Atlantic GEOTRACES-compliant zonal transect (CoFeMUG, GAc01) to discern regional biogeochemical differences. Together, these Atlantic sectional studies highlight the dynamic ecological stoichiometry of total and labile cobalt. As increasing anthropogenic use and subsequent release of cobalt poses the potential to overpower natural cobalt signals in the oceans, it is more important than ever to establish a baseline understanding of cobalt distributions in the ocean.

Description: The biological production of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), a process termed calcification, is a key term in the marine carbon cycle. A major planktonic group responsible for such pelagic CaCO3 production (CP) are the coccolithophores, single-celled haptophytes that inhabit the euphotic zone of the ocean. Satellite-based estimates of areal CP are limited to open-ocean waters, with current algorithms utilising the unique optical properties of the cosmopolitan bloom-forming species Emiliania huxleyi, whereas little understanding of the optical properties and environmental responses by species other than E. huxleyi are currently available to parameterise algorithms or models. To aid future areal estimations and validate future modelling efforts we have constructed a database of 2765 CP measurements, the majority of which were measured using 12 to 24h incorporation of radioactive carbon (14C) into acid-labile inorganic carbon (CaCO3). We present data collated from over 30 studies covering the period from 1991 to 2015, sampling the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Southern oceans. Globally, CP in surface waters (

Description: The biological production of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), a process termed calcification, is a key term in the marine carbon cycle. A major planktonic group responsible for such pelagic CaCO3 production (CP) is the coccolithophores, single-celled haptophytes that inhabit the euphotic zone of the ocean. Satellite-based estimates of areal CP are limited to surface waters and open-ocean areas, with current algorithms utilising the unique optical properties of the cosmopolitan bloom-forming species Emiliania huxleyi, whereas little understanding of deep-water ecology, optical properties or environmental responses by species other than E. huxleyi is currently available to parameterise algorithms or models. To aid future areal estimations and validate future modelling efforts we have constructed a database of 2765 CP measurements, the majority of which were measured using 12 to 24 h incorporation of radioactive carbon (14C) into acid-labile inorganic carbon (CaCO3). We present data collated from over 30 studies covering the period from 1991 to 2015, sampling the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Southern oceans. Globally, CP in surface waters ( 

Description: © The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Amaral, V., Lam, P., Marchal, O., Roca-Martí, M., Fox, J., & Nelson, N. Particle cycling rates at Station P as estimated from the inversion of POC concentration data. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 10(1), (2022): 00018, https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00018.

Description: Particle cycling rates in marine systems are difficult to measure directly, but of great interest in understanding how carbon and other elements are distributed throughout the ocean. Here, rates of particle production, aggregation, disaggregation, sinking, remineralization, and transport mediated by zooplankton diel vertical migration were estimated from size-fractionated measurements of particulate organic carbon (POC) concentration collected during the NASA EXport Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing (EXPORTS) cruise at Station P in summer 2018. POC data were combined with a particle cycling model using an inverse method. Our estimates of the total POC settling flux throughout the water column are consistent with those derived from thorium-234 disequilibrium and sediment traps. A budget for POC in two size fractions, small (1–51 µm) and large (〉 51 µm), was produced for both the euphotic zone (0–100 m) and the upper mesopelagic zone (100–500 m). We estimated that POC export at the base of the euphotic zone was 2.2 ± 0.8 mmol m−2 d−1, and that both small and large particles contributed considerably to the total export flux along the water column. The model results indicated that throughout the upper 500 m, remineralization leads to a larger loss of small POC than does aggregation, whereas disaggregation results in a larger loss of large POC than does remineralization. Of the processes explicitly represented in the model, zooplankton diel vertical migration is a larger source of large POC to the upper mesopelagic zone than the convergence of large POC due to particle sinking. Positive model residuals reveal an even larger unidentified source of large POC in the upper mesopelagic zone. Overall, our posterior estimates of particle cycling rate constants do not deviate much from values reported in the literature, i.e., size-fractionated POC concentration data collected at Station P are largely consistent with prior estimates given their uncertainties. Our budget estimates should provide a useful framework for the interpretation of process-specific observations obtained by various research groups in EXPORTS. Applying our inverse method to other systems could provide insight into how different biogeochemical processes affect the cycling of POC in the upper water column.

Description: This study was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) program award 80NSSC17K0555, NSF-OCE 1829614 to PJL, and NSF-OCE-1829790 to OM. VJA was supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the UC Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. MRM was supported by the Ocean Frontier Institute International Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Ocean Twilight Zone study.

Description: © The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Siegel, D. A., Cetinic, I., Graff, J. R., Lee, C. M., Nelson, N., Perry, M. J., Ramos, I. S., Steinberg, D. K., Buesseler, K., Hamme, R., Fassbender, A. J., Nicholson, D., Omand, M. M., Robert, M., Thompson, A., Amaral, V., Behrenfeld, M., Benitez-Nelson, C., Bisson, K., Boss, E., Boyd, P. W., Brzezinski, M., Buck, K., Burd, A., Burns, S., Caprara, S., Carlson, C., Cassar, N., Close, H. H., D’Asaro, E., Durkin, C., Erickson, Z., Estapa, M. L., Fields, E., Fox, J., Freeman, S., Gifford, S., Gong, W., Gray, D., Guidi, L., Haëntjens, N., Halsey, K., Huot, Y., Hansell, D., Jenkins, B., Karp-Boss, L., Kramer, S., Lam, P., Lee, J-M., Maas, A., Marchal, O., Marchetti, A., McDonnell, A., McNair, H., Menden-Deuer, S., Morison, F., Niebergall, A. K., Passow, U., Popp, B., Potvin, G., Resplandy, L., Roca-Martí, M., Roesler, C., Rynearson, T., Traylor, S., Santoro, A., Seraphin, K. D., Sosik, H. M., Stamieszkin, K., Stephens, B., Tang, W., Van Mooy, B., Xiong, Y., Zhang, X. An operational overview of the EXport Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing (EXPORTS) Northeast Pacific field deployment. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 9(1), (2021): 1, https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2020.00107.

Description: The goal of the EXport Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing (EXPORTS) field campaign is to develop a predictive understanding of the export, fate, and carbon cycle impacts of global ocean net primary production. To accomplish this goal, observations of export flux pathways, plankton community composition, food web processes, and optical, physical, and biogeochemical (BGC) properties are needed over a range of ecosystem states. Here we introduce the first EXPORTS field deployment to Ocean Station Papa in the Northeast Pacific Ocean during summer of 2018, providing context for other papers in this special collection. The experiment was conducted with two ships: a Process Ship, focused on ecological rates, BGC fluxes, temporal changes in food web, and BGC and optical properties, that followed an instrumented Lagrangian float; and a Survey Ship that sampled BGC and optical properties in spatial patterns around the Process Ship. An array of autonomous underwater assets provided measurements over a range of spatial and temporal scales, and partnering programs and remote sensing observations provided additional observational context. The oceanographic setting was typical of late-summer conditions at Ocean Station Papa: a shallow mixed layer, strong vertical and weak horizontal gradients in hydrographic properties, sluggish sub-inertial currents, elevated macronutrient concentrations and low phytoplankton abundances. Although nutrient concentrations were consistent with previous observations, mixed layer chlorophyll was lower than typically observed, resulting in a deeper euphotic zone. Analyses of surface layer temperature and salinity found three distinct surface water types, allowing for diagnosis of whether observed changes were spatial or temporal. The 2018 EXPORTS field deployment is among the most comprehensive biological pump studies ever conducted. A second deployment to the North Atlantic Ocean occurred in spring 2021, which will be followed by focused work on data synthesis and modeling using the entire EXPORTS data set.

Description: DAS, NN, KB, EF, SK, AB, AM, UP: NASA 80NSSC17K0692. MJB, EB, JG, LG, KH, LKB, JF, NH: NASA 80NSSC17K0568. KB, CBN, LR, MRM: NASA 80NSSC17K0555. CC, DH, BS: NASA 80NSSC18K0437. HC: NSF 1830016. BP, KDS: NSF 1829425. ME, KB, CD, MO: NASA 80NSSC17K0662. AF: NSF 1756932. BJ, KB, MB, SB, SC: NSF 1756442. PH, OM, JML: NSF 1829614. CL, ED, DN, MO, MJP, AT, ZN, ST: NASA 80NSSC17K0663. AM, NC, SG, WT, AN, WG: NASA 80NSSC17K0552. SMD, TR, HM, FM: NASA 80NSSC17K0716. CR, HS: NASA 80NSSC17K0700. AS, PB: NASA 80NSSC18K1431. DS, AM, KS NASA 80NSSC17K0654. BVM: NSF 1756254. XZ, DG, LG, YH: NASA 80NSSC17K0656 and 80NSSC20K0350.