IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-35112-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transfer efficiency of organic carbon in marine sediments

Author

Listed:
  • James A. Bradley

    (Queen Mary University of London
    GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences)

  • Dominik Hülse

    (University of California, Riverside
    Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology)

  • Douglas E. LaRowe

    (University of Southern California)

  • Sandra Arndt

    (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Abstract

Quantifying the organic carbon (OC) sink in marine sediments is crucial for assessing how the marine carbon cycle regulates Earth’s climate. However, burial efficiency (BE) – the commonly-used metric reporting the percentage of OC deposited on the seafloor that becomes buried (beyond an arbitrary and often unspecified reference depth) – is loosely defined, misleading, and inconsistent. Here, we use a global diagenetic model to highlight orders-of-magnitude differences in sediment ages at fixed sub-seafloor depths (and vice-versa), and vastly different BE’s depending on sediment depth or age horizons used to calculate BE. We propose using transfer efficiencies (Teff’s) for quantifying sediment OC burial: Teff is numerically equivalent to BE but requires precise specification of spatial or temporal references, and emphasizes that OC degradation continues beyond these horizons. Ultimately, quantifying OC burial with precise sediment-depth and sediment-age-resolved metrics will enable a more consistent and transferable assessment of OC fluxes through the Earth system.

Suggested Citation

  • James A. Bradley & Dominik Hülse & Douglas E. LaRowe & Sandra Arndt, 2022. "Transfer efficiency of organic carbon in marine sediments," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-35112-9
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35112-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35112-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-35112-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Cartapanis & Daniele Bianchi & Samuel L. Jaccard & Eric D. Galbraith, 2016. "Global pulses of organic carbon burial in deep-sea sediments during glacial maxima," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-7, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shi, Wen & Chen, Ao & Xie, Xiang, 2024. "Generating and validating cluster sampling matrices for model-free factor screening," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 313(1), pages 241-257.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yunru Chen & Liang Dong & Weikang Sui & Mingyang Niu & Xingqian Cui & Kai-Uwe Hinrichs & Fengping Wang, 2024. "Cycling and persistence of iron-bound organic carbon in subseafloor sediments," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Sureth Michael & Kalkuhl Matthias & Edenhofer Ottmar & Rockström Johan, 2023. "A Welfare Economic Approach to Planetary Boundaries," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 243(5), pages 477-542, October.
    3. Liao Chang & Babette A. A. Hoogakker & David Heslop & Xiang Zhao & Andrew P. Roberts & Patrick Deckker & Pengfei Xue & Zhaowen Pei & Fan Zeng & Rong Huang & Baoqi Huang & Shishun Wang & Thomas A. Bern, 2023. "Indian Ocean glacial deoxygenation and respired carbon accumulation during mid-late Quaternary ice ages," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-35112-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.