Age determinations and analyses of organic matter of sediments from the Argentine Basin

The first radiocarbon chronology for sediments of the Argentine basin has been determined using accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) analyses of 54 total organic carbon samples from four box and two piston cores collected from the downstream and upstream sides of two central Argentine Basin mudwaves. Throughout the Holocene, sediment from the geomorphically defined upstream side of each wave accumulated at rates of 30 to 105 cm/1000 years. Sediments from the downstream side of each wave accumulated at rates of 2 to 10 cm/1000 years in the late and early Holocene, while the mid Holocene is characterized by sedimentation rates less than 1.0 cm/1000 years. During the mid-Holocene, increased aridity reduced chemical weathering and the flow of the rivers draining to the continental shelf, causing a concomitant decrease in fine-grained terrigenous input to the basin as evidenced by decreased sedimentation rates, lower N/C ratios, and depleted delta13Corg values. It is estimated that all of the organic carbon deposited in the central basin during the mid-Holocene was of a marine origin. During the late and early Holocene, however, approximately 35% of the organic carbon deposited was of terrestrial origin. Bottom water flow speeds in the late Holocene were estimated using a lee-wave model and found to average 14 cm/s. This estimate is comparable to 10 cm/s mean and 15-20 cm/s maximum flow speeds measured by current meters deployed within the basin. Flow speeds in the Argentine Basin were 10% higher than today from 8000 to 2000 B.P., and are consistent with a general invigoration of thermohaline circulation that began between 9000 and 8000 B.P. It is proposed that the introduction of warm, salty Indian Ocean water into the northern North Atlantic at 9000 B.P. was the mechanism that provided the excess salt needed to stabilize the North Atlantic Deep Water thermohaline circulation system in its present mode.

Zooplankton community within the Titanic Polygon, Northwest Atlantic, summer 2003

In summer 2003 we continued our long-term series of observations over the zooplankton community within the Titanic Polygon (area of the frontal zone of Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current) in the North Atlantic, where interaction of ecosystems of subpolar and warm waters takes place. Depending on hydrological situation occurring in the frontal zone interrelated interannual variations in abundance and biomass of plankton species including Calanus hyperboreus and mesopelagic shrimps of Acanthephyra genus were observed. In different years contribution of two parallel trophic nets passing primarily through the larger and smaller plankters to formation of the community varied. Data on the size structure of population of macroplankton shrimps are presented.

Gridded bathymetry from multibeam echosounder EM122 data of the cruise MSM34/2 (2013)

Bathymetry based on data recorded during MSM34-2 between 27.12.2013 and 18.01.2014 in the Black Sea. The main objective of this cruise was the mapping and imaging of the gas hydrate distribution and gas accumulations as well as possible gas migration pathways. Objectives of Cruise: Gas hydrates have been the focus of scientific and economic interest for the past 15-20 years, mainly because the amount of carbon stored in gas hydrates is much greater than in other carbon reservoirs. Several countries including Japan, Korea and India have launched vast reasearch programmes dedicated to the exploration for gas hydrate resources and ultimately the exploitation of the gas hydrates for methane. The German SUGAR project that is financed the the Ministry of Education and Research (BmBF) and the Ministry of Economics (BmWi) aims at developing technology to exploit gas hydrate resources by injecting and storing CO2 instead of methane in the hydrates. This approach includes techniques to locate and quantify hydrate reservoirs, drill into the reservoir, extract methane from the hydrates by replacing it with CO2, and monitor the thus formed CO2-hydrate reservoir. Numerical modeling has shown that any exploitation of the gas hydrates can only be succesful, if sufficient hydrate resources are present within permeable reservoirs such as sandy or gravelly deposits. The ultimate goal of the SUGAR project being a field test of the technology developed within the project, knowledge of a suitable test site becomes crucial. Within European waters only the Norwegian margin and the Danube deep-sea fan show clear geophysical evidence for large gas hydrate accumulations, but only the Danube deep-sea fan most likely contains gas hydrates within sandy deposits. The main objective of cruise MSM34 therefore is locating and characterising suitable gas hydrate deposits on the Danube deep-sea fan.

Temperature affects the morphology and calcification of Emiliania huxleyi strains

The global warming debate has sparked an unprecedented interest in temperature effects on coccolithophores. The calcification response to temperature changes reported in the literature, however, is ambiguous. The two main sources of this ambiguity are putatively differences in experimental setup and strain-specificity. In this study we therefore compare three strains isolated in the North Pacific under identical experimental conditions. Three strains of Emiliania huxleyi type A were grown under non-limiting nutrient and light conditions, at 10, 15, 20 and 25 ºC. All three strains displayed similar growth rate versus temperature relationships, with an optimum at 20-25 ºC. Elemental production (particulate inorganic carbon (PIC), particulate organic carbon (POC), total particulate nitrogen (TPN)), coccolith mass, coccolith size, and width of the tube elements cycle were positively correlated with temperature over the sub-optimum to optimum temperature range. The correlation between PIC production and coccolith mass/size supports the notion that coccolith mass can be used as a proxy for PIC production in sediment samples. Increasing PIC production was significantly positively correlated with the percentage of incomplete coccoliths in one strain only. Generally, coccoliths were heavier when PIC production was higher. This shows that incompleteness of coccoliths is not due to time shortage at high PIC production. Sub-optimal growth temperatures lead to an increase in the percentage of malformed coccoliths in a strain-specific fashion. Since in total only six strains have been tested thus far, it is presently difficult to say whether sub-optimal temperature is an important factor causing malformations in the field. The most important parameter in biogeochemical terms, the PIC:POC, shows a minimum at optimum growth temperature in all investigated strains. This clarifies the ambiguous picture featuring in the literature, i.e. discrepancies between PIC:POC-temperature relationships reported in different studies using different strains and different experimental setups. In summary, global warming might cause a decline in coccolithophore's PIC contribution to the rain ratio, as well as improved fitness in some genotypes due to less coccolith malformations.

Temperature modulates coccolithophorid sensitivity of growth, photosynthesis and calcification to increasing seawater pCO2

Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations are expected to impact pelagic ecosystem functioning in the near future by driving ocean warming and acidification. While numerous studies have investigated impacts of rising temperature and seawater acidification on planktonic organisms separately, little is presently known on their combined effects. To test for possible synergistic effects we exposed two coccolithophore species, Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica, to a CO2 gradient ranging from ~0.5-250 µmol/kg (i.e. ~20-6000 µatm pCO2) at three different temperatures (i.e. 10, 15, 20°C for E. huxleyi and 15, 20, 25°C for G. oceanica). Both species showed CO2-dependent optimum-curve responses for growth, photosynthesis and calcification rates at all temperatures. Increased temperature generally enhanced growth and production rates and modified sensitivities of metabolic processes to increasing CO2. CO2 optimum concentrations for growth, calcification, and organic carbon fixation rates were only marginally influenced from low to intermediate temperatures. However, there was a clear optimum shift towards higher CO2 concentrations from intermediate to high temperatures in both species. Our results demonstrate that the CO2 concentration where optimum growth, calcification and carbon fixation rates occur is modulated by temperature. Thus, the response of a coccolithophore strain to ocean acidification at a given temperature can be negative, neutral or positive depending on that strain's temperature optimum. This emphasizes that the cellular responses of coccolithophores to ocean acidification can only be judged accurately when interpreted in the proper eco-physiological context of a given strain or species. Addressing the synergistic effects of changing carbonate chemistry and temperature is an essential step when assessing the success of coccolithophores in the future ocean.