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We will begin with an overview of the general physicochemical features of the land-ocean interface (e.g., river deltas, estuaries, coastal wetlands, tidewater glaciers) around the world, with particular emphasis on the impact of global change on these highly dynamic and productive systems. We will then proceed with key biogeochemical pathways of these systems, as related to natural and anthropogenic changes. Finally, we will explore the fate and distribution organic carbon using state-of-the-art analytical techniques to measure proxies (e.g., chemical biomarkers, stable isotopes, radiocarbon) that can “track” the burial and oxidation of organic carbon in the coastal zone.
Dr. Thomas Bianchi
University of Florida, United States
1) acquire an understanding of the basics of biogeochemical reactions that control sequestration and burial of organic carbon at the land-ocean interface.
2) an ability to characterize and potentially utilize chemical proxies to better understand the capture, reactivity, and diagenesis of organic carbon in the coastal zone.
3) the understand impacts of climate/global change on these important aquatic critical zones and how that relates to global carbon budgets.
Overview of Global Marine Carbon Cycle and Budgets
O, N, and C Stable Isotopes
Radiocarbon
Primary Productivity/Export and Global Change
Water Column Flux and Organic Matter Sources
Metabolic Synthesis and Chemical Biomarkers
Redox, Marine Sediments, Diagenesis
Eutrophication, Hypoxia, and Plastics
The course will require in-class participation that will involve individual presentations and group activities. Prior to each class, students will be expected to keep up with the assigned readings and posted lectures on-line. There will be a final exam (essay format).
Readings from following Books:
Geochemistry of Marine Sediments, by D. Burdige, 2006, Princeton University Press
Estuarine Biogeochemistry, by T.S. Bianchi, 2007, Oxford University Press.
Chemical Biomarkers in Aquatic Ecosystems, T.S. Bianchi and E.A. Canuel 2011, Princeton University Press.
Projected Paper Readings:
Alldredge, A.L., Passow, U., Logan, B.E., 1993. The abundance and significance of a class of large, transparent organic particles in the ocean. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers 40, 1131–1140.
Aller, R.C., 1998. Mobile deltaic and continental shelf muds as suboxic, fluidized bed reactors. Marine Chemistry 61, 143–155.
Arnarson, T.S., Keil, R.G., 2007. Changes in organic matter–mineral interactions for marine sediments with varying oxygen exposure times. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 71, 3545–3556.
Arndt, S., Jørgensen, B.B., LaRowe, D.E., Middelburg, J., Pancost, R., Regnier, P., 2013. Quantifying the degradation of organic matter in marine sediments: a review and synthesis. Earth-Science Reviews 123, 53–86.
Bauer, J.E., Cai, W.-J., Raymond, P.A., Bianchi, T.S., Hopkinson, C.S., Regnier, P.A., 2013. The changing carbon cycle of the coastal ocean. Nature 504, 61–70.
Bianchi, T.S., 2011. The role of terrestrially derived organic carbon in the coastal ocean: a changing paradigm and the priming effect. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, 19473–19481.
Bianchi, T.S., Allison, M.A., 2009. Large-river delta-front estuaries as natural ‘‘recorders” of global environmental change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, 8085–8092.
Bianchi, T.S., Schreiner, K.M., Smith, R.W., Burdige, D.J., Woodard, S., Conley, D.J., 2016. Redox effects on organic matter storage in coastal sediments during the Holocene: a biomarker/proxy perspective. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 44, 295–319.
Blair, N.E., Aller, R.C., 2012. The fate of terrestrial organic carbon in the marine environment. Annual Review of Marine Science 4, 401–423.
Canuel, E.A., Cammer, S.S., McIntosh, H.A., Pondell, C.R., 2012. Climate change impacts on the organic carbon cycle at the land-ocean interface. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 40, 685–711.
Cui, X., Bianchi, T.S., Jaeger, J.M., Smith, R.W., 2016b. Biospheric and petrogenic organic carbon flux along southeast Alaska. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 452, 238–246.
Feng, X., Gustafsson, Ö., Holmes, R.M., Vonk, J.E., Dongen, B.E., Semiletov, I.P.,
Dudarev, O.V., Yunker, M.B., Macdonald, R.W., Wacker, L., 2015a. Multimolecular tracers of terrestrial carbon transfer across the pan-Arctic: 14C characteristics of sedimentary carbon components and their environmental controls. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 29, 1855–1873.
Galy, V., Eglinton, T., 2011. Protracted storage of biospheric carbon in the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin. Nature Geoscience 4, 843–847.
Hartnett, H.E., Keil, R.G., Hedges, J.I., Devol, A.H., 1998. Influence of oxygen exposure time on organic carbon preservation in continental margin sediments. Nature 391, 572–575.
Hedges, J.I., Keil, R.G., 1995. Sedimentary organic matter preservation: an assessment and speculative synthesis. Marine Chemistry 49, 81–115.
Hilton, R.G., Galy, V., Gaillardet, J., Dellinger, M., Bryant, C., O’Regan, M., Gröcke, D.R., Coxall, H., Bouchez, J., Calmels, D., 2015. Erosion of organic carbon in the Arctic as a geological carbon dioxide sink. Nature 524, 84–87.
Hopkinson, C.S., Cai, W.-J., Hu, X., 2012. Carbon sequestration in wetland dominated coastal systems—a global sink of rapidly diminishing magnitude. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 4, 186–194.
Hugelius, G., Strauss, J., Zubrzycki, S., Harden, J.W., Schuur, E., Ping, C.-L., Schirrmeister, L., Grosse, G., Michaelson, G.J., Koven, C.D., 2014. Estimated stocks of circumpolar permafrost carbon with quantified uncertainty ranges and identified data gaps. Biogeosciences 11, 6573–6593.
Keil, R.G., Mayer, L.M., Quay, P.D., Richey, J.E., Hedges, J.I., 1997. Loss of organic matter from riverine particles in deltas. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 61, 1507–1511.
Lalonde, K., Mucci, A., Ouellet, A., Gélinas, Y., 2012. Preservation of organic matter in sediments promoted by iron. Nature 483, 198–200.
Mayer, L.M., 1994b. Surface area control of organic carbon accumulation in continental shelf sediments. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 58, 1271–1284.
McCarthy, J.F., Ilavsky, J., Jastrow, J.D., Mayer, L.M., Perfect, E., Zhuang, J., 2008. Protection of organic carbon in soil microaggregates via restructuring of aggregate porosity and filling of pores with accumulating organic matter. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 72, 4725–4744.
Rosenheim, B.E., Roe, K.M., Roberts, B.J., Kolker, A.S., Allison, M.A., Johannesson, K.H., 2013. River discharge influences on particulate organic carbon age structure in the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River System. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 27, 154–166.
Rosentreter, J.A., G.G. Laruelle, H.W. Bange, T.S. Bianchi, J.J.M. Busecke, W.J. Cai, B.D. Eyre, I. Forbrich, E. Young Kwon, T. Maavara, N. Moosdorf, R.G. Najjar, V.V.S.S. Sarma, B. Van Dam, and P. Regnier. 2023. Coastal vegetation and estuaries collectively reduce global warming. Nat. Clim. Chang., https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01682-9.
Schmidt, M.W., Torn, M.S., Abiven, S., Dittmar, T., Guggenberger, G., Janssens, I.A., Kleber, M., Kögel-Knabner, I., Lehmann, J., Manning, D.A., 2011. Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property. Nature 478, 49–56.
Stubbins, A., K. Lavender Law, S. Munoz, T.S. Bianchi, and L. Zhu. 2021. Plastics in the Earth System. Science 373, 51–55, 10.1126/science.abb0354.
Syvitski, J.P., 2008. Deltas at risk. Sustainability Science 3, 23–32. Tesi, T., Semiletov, I., Dudarev, O., Andersson, A., Gustafsson, Ö., 2016. Matrix association effects on hydrodynamic sorting and degradation of terrestrial
organic matter during cross-shelf transport in the Laptev and East Siberian shelf seas. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 121, 731–752.
Vonk, J.E., Semiletov, I.P., Dudarev, O.V., Eglinton, T.I., Andersson, A., Shakhova, N., Charkin, A., Heim, B., Gustafsson, Ö., 2014. Preferential burial of permafrost derived organic carbon in Siberian-Arctic shelf waters. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119, 8410–8421.