Contrasting Fates of Petrogenic and Biospheric Carbon in the South China Sea

A synthesis of published and newly acquired stable and radiocarbon isotope data from soil, river, and marine particulate organic carbon (OC) from the South China Sea drainage and sedimentary basin reveals that OC derived from bedrock‐erosion (petrogenic OC) and marine productivity comprises the major contributors to bulk OC in particulate matter reaching abyssal depths, while soil‐derived OC appears negligible. Aluminum‐radiocarbon relationships of sediments suggest that soil OC initially associated with detrital terrestrial minerals is lost and replaced by marine OC during transport beyond the continental shelf. We estimate that petrogenic OC sinking to a ~30,000 km2 region of the deep northeastern South China Sea accounts for 0.6% of global petrogenic OC burial. The basin‐wide OC isotope patterns coupled with sediment trap observations highlight both the spatial variabilities of OC components as they propagate from source to sedimentary sink and the significance of petrogenic OC to deep ocean sediments.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Geophysical Research Letters

• Publication date

  2018-09-06

• Fields of study

  Geology, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1029/2018GL079222
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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