Large groundwater strontium flux to the oceans from the Bengal Basin and the marine strontium isotope record.
Strontium concentration and isotopic data for subsurface flowing groundwaters of the Ganges-Brahmaputra (G-B) delta in the Bengal Basin demonstrate that this is a potentially significant source of strontium to the oceans, equal in magnitude to the dissolved strontium concentration carried to the oceans by the G-B river waters. The strontium concentrations of groundwaters are higher by a factor of about 10 than typical G-B river waters and they have similar 87Sr/86Sr ratio to the river waters. These new data suggest that the present contribution of the G-B system to the rise in 87Sr/86Sr ratio in seawater is higher by at least a factor of 2 to 5 than the average over the past 40 million years.
Basu
A R
AR
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA. abasu@earth.rochester.edu
Jacobsen
S B
SB
Poreda
R J
RJ
Dowling
C B
CB
Aggarwal
P K
PK