Cycling of organic carbon and biogenic silica in the Southern Ocean: Estimates of water-column and sedimentary fluxes on the Ross Sea continental shelf

We examined the cycling of organic carbon and biogenic silica in the water column and upper sediments of the Ross Sea, seeking to understand the processes leading to the formation of opal-rich, organic-poor sediments over much of the Southern Ocean. Between January, 1990 and December, 1994 we conducted three cruises, performing tracer incubation studies (C-14, N-15, Si-30, Si-32) to measure rates of primary production, nitrate-based ''new'' production, biogenic silica production and biogenic silica dissolution in the upper 50 m over most of the Ross Sea shelf in spring, mid summer and late summer. We deployed sediment traps from January, 1990 to early March, 1992 to measure the mid-water (250 m) and near-bottom gravitational fluxes of particulate organic carbon, nitrogen and biogenic silica year-round at three sites, and obtained sediment cores at 15 sites to assess the accumulation rates of organic carbon and biogenic silica in all known sediment regimes on the shelf. At 9 of those sites we also measured nutrient efflux from the sediments, enabling us to calculate benthic recycling fluxes of organic matter and opal. These data permit estimates of the annual production, near-surface recycling, vertical sinking flux, delivery to the seabed, benthic regeneration and long-term burial of both organic and siliceous material, integrated over a 3.3 x 10(5) km(2) area that covers 75 - 80% of the Ross Sea shelf. The resulting annual budgets for carbon and silica indicate highly selective preservation of biogenic silica over organic carbon between 50 and 250 m in the water column, as well as in the upper seabed. Selective preservation of silica within the upper 50 m is not indicated, and both organic matter and silica are transported from 250 m to the sea floor with virtually 100% efficiency. The SiO2/C mass ratios for surface-layer production, 250-m sinking flux, delivery to the seabed and long-term burial are approximately 0.85, 6.1, 6.2 and 27, respectively. This progressive enrichment in silica results in long-term burial of 5.8% of the biogenic silica and 0.17% of the organic carbon produced by phytoplankton in the surface layer, a factor of 30 greater preservation efficiency for silica than for carbon. Nevertheless, the ratio of opal burial to opal production in the Ross Sea is only about twice the apparent global average of 3% and < 1/3 of the estimated burial/production ratio for the Southern Ocean as a whole. It thus appears that both silica preservation and the decoupling between the cycles of silica and carbon must be even more effective in the waters overlying abyssal Southern Ocean sediments than they are over the Ross Sea shelf.