Using rare earth elements to constrain particulate organic carbon flux in the East China Sea.
Fluxes of particulate organic carbon (POC) in the East China Sea (ECS) have been reported to decrease from the inner continental shelf towards the outer continental shelf. Recent research has shown that POC fluxes in the ECS may be overestimated due to active sediment resuspension. To better characterize the effect of sediment resuspension on particle fluxes in the ECS, rare earth elements (REEs) and organic carbon (OC) were used in separate two-member mixing models to evaluate trap-collected POC fluxes. The ratio of resuspended particles from sediments to total trap-collected particles in the ECS ranged from 82-94% using the OC mixing model, and 30-80% using the REEs mixing model, respectively. These results suggest that REEs may be better proxies for sediment resuspension than OC in high turbidity marginal seas because REEs do not appear to undergo degradation during particle sinking as compared to organic carbon. Our results suggest that REEs can be used as tracers to provide quantitative estimates of POC fluxes in marginal seas.
Department of Oceanography, and Asia-Pacific Ocean Research Center, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, 80424 Taiwan.|Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, 23529 USA.
Chin-Chang
CC
Hung
Department of Oceanography, and Asia-Pacific Ocean Research Center, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, 80424 Taiwan.
Ya-Feng
YF
Chen
Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan.
Shih-Chieh
SC
Hsu
Laboratory of Marine Ecosystem and Biogeochemistry, State Oceanic Administration, Hangzhou, 310012, PR China.
Kui
K
Wang
Laboratory of Marine Ecosystem and Biogeochemistry, State Oceanic Administration, Hangzhou, 310012, PR China.
Jianfang
J
Chen
Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, 23529 USA.
David J
DJ
Burdige