Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Nov 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004eostr..85..470b&link_type=abstract
EOS Transactions, AGU, Volume 85, Issue 45, p. 470-470
Mathematics
Logic
Oceanography: Biological And Chemical: Radioactivity And Radioisotopes, Oceanography: Biological And Chemical: Carbon Cycling, Meetings
Scientific paper
A fundamental and outstanding issue in marine biogeochemistry is understanding the mechanisms that control and enhance the flux of material from the surface ocean to depth. ``Sinking particles'' are the ultimate removal mechanism of many biologically and particle reactive elements from the ocean. This includes atmospheric carbon, which is converted from CO2 to particulate phases during biological production and sequestered to deep waters via particle sinking. Unfortunately, the temporal and spatial magnitude of the sinking particle flux remains an elusive and difficult process to study. Over the past decade, thorium-234 has increasingly been used to quantify particle fluxes from surface waters in both open-ocean and coastal environments. Thorium-243 (t½ = 24.1 days) is a particle reactive radionuclide that is produced in seawater by radioactive decay of its dissolved conservative parent,238U. In principle, the disequilibrium between238U and the measured total 234Th activity reflects the net rate of particle export from the surface ocean on timescales of days to weeks. Thus, 234Th should serve as an integrative tracer that is relatively forgiving in terms of biological patchiness and temporal heterogeneity. Furthermore, it enables multiple sample collection at a suite of depths throughout the water column, enabling a closer examination of particle flux and remineralization patterns.
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