Dissolved gallium (Ga) from the US GEOTRACES GP17-OCE cruise on R/V Roger Revelle (RR2214) in the South Pacific and Southern Oceans from December 2022 to January 2023

Abstract

Dissolved gallium (Ga) was determined in association with a US GEOTRACES cruise (GP17-OCE/RR2214) in the South Pacific and Southern Ocean. The cruise sampled formation regions for globally distributed water masses, the return flow of Pacific Deep Water into the Southern Ocean, hydrothermally influenced waters, margin waters, and a gradient of low to high productivity with varying limiting nutrients. The cruise track investigates circulation through the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and formation of intermediate waters important for upper ocean nutrient supply. The overall circulation/productivity/export/recycling trap of this region also affects how oceanic element-element relationships develop. For Ga, its distribution can provide insight into dust delivery, which recent work has suggested may be higher than previously thought in the study area. Ga's limited reactivity also allows its distribution to be used for water mass deconvolution, which could be usefully applied to the ACC and intermediate water formation regions. Data include dissolved Ga concentrations from bottle and towed fish samples.

For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/939225