Calcium carbonate content in surface sediments and benthic fauna on Antarctic shelves

DOI

We analyzed 214 new core-top samples for their CaCO3 content from shelves all around Antarctica in order to understand their distribution and contribution to the marine carbon cycle. The distribution of sedimentary CaCO3 on the Antarctic shelves is connected to environmental parameters where we considered water depth, width of the shelf, sea-ice coverage and primary production. While CaCO3 contents of surface sediments are usually low, high(> 15%) CaCO3 contents occur at shallow water depths (150-200 m) on narrow shelves of the eastern Weddell Sea and at a depth range of 600-900 m on the broader and deeper shelves of the Amundsen, Bellingshausen and western Weddell Seas. Regions with high primary production, such as the Ross Sea and the western Antarctic Peninsula region, have generally low CaCO3 contents in the surface sediments.The predominant mineral phase of CaCO3 on the Antarctic shelves is low-magnesium calcite. With respect to ocean acidification, our findings suggest that dissolution of carbonates in Antarctic shelf sediments may be an important negative feedback only after the onset of calcite undersaturation on the Antarctic shelves.Macrozoobenthic CaCO3 standing stocks do not increase the CaCO3 budget significantly as they are two orders of magnitude lower than the budget of the sediments.This first circumpolar compilation of Antarctic shelf carbonate data does not claim to be complete. Future studies are encouraged and needed to fill data gaps especially in the under-sampled southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean sectors of the Southern Ocean.

Supplement to: Hauck, Judith; Gerdes, Dieter; Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter; Hoppema, Mario; Kuhn, Gerhard; Nehrke, Gernot; Völker, Christoph; Wolf-Gladrow, Dieter A (2012): Distribution and mineralogy of carbonate sediments on Antarctic shelves. Journal of Marine Systems, 90(1), 77-87

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.757933
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmarsys.2011.09.005
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.757933
Provenance
Creator Hauck, Judith ORCID logo; Gerdes, Dieter; Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter ORCID logo; Hoppema, Mario (ORCID: 0000-0002-2326-619X); Kuhn, Gerhard ORCID logo; Nehrke, Gernot ORCID logo; Völker, Christoph (ORCID: 0000-0003-3032-114X); Wolf-Gladrow, Dieter A ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2012
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Supplementary Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 2 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-170.133W, -78.267S, 11.750E, -53.395N); Weddell Sea; Scotia Sea, southwest Atlantic; Drake Passage; South Pacific Ocean; Lazarev Sea; Kapp Norvegia; South Atlantic Ocean; Weddell Sea, Larsen-B; Weddell Sea, Larsen-A
Temporal Coverage Begin 1984-11-21T15:45:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2007-01-22T16:21:00Z