ALBERT

Description: Expanding hypoxia in the Baltic Sea over the past century has led to anoxic and sulfidic (euxinic) deep basins that are only periodically ventilated by inflows of oxygenated waters from the North Sea. In this study, we investigate the consequences of the expanding hypoxia for manganese (Mn) burial in the Baltic Sea using a combination of pore water and sediment analyses of well-dated sediment cores from 8 locations. Diffusive fluxes of dissolved Mn from sediments to overlying waters at oxic and hypoxic sites are in line with an active release of Mn from these areas. However, this flux of Mn is only small when compared to the large pool of Mn already present in the hypoxic and anoxic water column. Our results highlight two modes of Mn carbonate formation in sediments of the deep basins. In the Gotland Deep area, Mn carbonates likely form from Mn oxides that are precipitated from the water column directly following North Sea inflows. In the Landsort Deep, in contrast, Mn carbonate and Mn sulfide layers form independent of inflow events, with pore water Mn produced in deeper layers of the sediment acting as a key Mn source. While formation of Mn enrichments in the Landsort Deep continues to the present, this does not hold for the Gotland Deep area. Here, increased euxinia, as evident from measured bottom water sulfide concentrations and elevated sediment molybdenum (Mo), goes hand in hand with a decline in sediment Mn and recent inflows of oxygenated water (since ca. 1995) are no longer consistently recorded as Mn carbonate layers. We postulate that the reduction of Mn oxides by hydrogen sulfide following inflows has become so rapid that Mn2+ is released to the water column before Mn carbonates can form. Our results have important implications for the use of Mn carbonate enrichments as a redox proxy in marine systems.