Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Progress in Oceanography 133 (2015):6-16, doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2014.12.018.
Description:
Particles determine the residence time of many dissolved elements in seawater. Although
a substantial number of field studies were conducted in the framework of major
oceanographic programs as GEOSECS and JGOFS, knowledge about particle dynamics
is still scarce. Moreover, the particulate trace metal behavior remains largely unknown.
The GEOSECS sampling strategy during the 1970’s focused on large sections across
oceanic basins, where particles were collected by membrane filtration after Niskin bottle
sampling, biasing the sampling towards the small particle pool. Late in this period, the
first in situ pumps allowing large volume sampling were also developed. During the
1990’s, JGOFS focused on the quantification of the “exported carbon flux” and its
seasonal variability in representative biogeochemical provinces of the ocean, mostly
using sediment trap deployments. Although scarce and discrete in time and space, these
pioneering studies allowed an understanding of the basic fate of marine particles. This
understanding improved considerably, especially when the analysis of oceanic tracers
such as natural radionuclides allowed the first quantification of processes such as
dissolved-particle exchange and particle settling velocities. Because the GEOTRACES program emphasizes the importance of collecting, characterizing and 39 analyzing marine
particles, this paper reflects our present understanding of the sources, fate and sinks of
oceanic particles at the early stages of the program.
Description:
This paper arose from a workshop that was co-sponsored by ESF COST Action ES0801,
"The ocean chemistry of bioactive trace elements and paleoproxies". Additional support
for that workshop came from SCOR, through support to SCOR from the U.S. National
Science Foundation (Grant OCE- 0938349 and OCE-1243377). Support for PJL from
U.S. NSF grant OCE-0963026.
Keywords:
Historical review
;
Oceanic Particle distribution sources and sinks
;
GEOSECS
;
JGOFS
;
GEOTRACES
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Preprint
Format:
application/pdf
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