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Carbon cycle

Feedbacks from the sea floor

Nature volume 391, pages 536–537 (1998)Cite this article

The Earth's sedimentary rocks hold more than 107 gigatonnes of organic carbon of marine origin1. Scientists see this as evidence that oxygen, produced by photosynthesis, was added to the ocean and the atmosphere in varying degrees, and at the expense of carbon dioxide, over geological time. Scientists also agree that feedback mechanisms have come to limit the accumulation of excess organic carbon in marine sediments worldwide. So what are the feedbacks that operate within the ocean, or between the ocean, land and atmosphere, to limit carbon burial?

On page 572 of this issue2, Hartnett et al. present correlative evidence that the time organic materials are exposed to dissolved oxygen after incorporation into sediments is one of the crucial controls. What is attractive about this seemingly simple observation is that it unites two variables: carbon ‘rain’ rate through the water column, and bottom-water oxygen content, each of which has had its advocates as the main influence on the fraction of the total flux of organic carbon to the sea floor that is buried or, conversely, oxidized3,4. A rise in carbon rain rate (or concomitant sedimentation rate3) decreases the oxygen exposure time by depositing greater amounts of reactive organic matter. This fuels a higher rate of benthic oxygen consumption, which in turn steepens and shoals the profiles of dissolved oxygen concentration in sediment pore water.

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References

  1. MacKenzie, F. T., Ver, L. M., Sabine, C., Lane, M. & Lerman, A. in Interactions of C, N, P and S Biogeochemical Cycles and Global Change (eds Wollast, R., MacKenzie, F. T. & Chou, L.) 1-61 (Springer, Berlin, 1993).

  2. Hartnett, H. E., Keil, R. G., Hedges, J. I. & Devol, A. H. Nature 391, 572–574 (1998).

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  3. Emerson, S. in The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric CO 2 : Natural Variations Archean to Present (eds Sundquist, E. T. & Broecker, W. S.) 78-88 (Am. Geophys. Union, Washington DC, 1985).

  4. Canfield, D. E. Chem. Geol. 114, 315–329 (1994).

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  5. Cai, W.-J. & Sayles, F. L. Mar. Chem. 52, 123–131 (1996).

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  6. Aller, R. C. Mar. Chem. (in the press).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, 08901-8521, New Jersey, USA

    Clare E. Reimers

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  1. Clare E. Reimers
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Reimers, C. Feedbacks from the sea floor. Nature 391, 536–537 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/35262

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