Sediment trap gel images of settled particles that were collected from the Sargasso Sea between 2013 and 2014.

Abstract

Sinking particle sizes span many orders of magnitude and the relative influence of small particles on carbon export compared to large particles has not been resolved. To determine the influence of particle size on carbon export, the flux of both small (11–64 μm) and large (>64 μm) particles in the upper mesopelagic was examined during five cruises of the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series (BATS) in the Sargasso Sea using neutrally buoyant sediment traps mounted with tubes containing polyacrylamide gel layers to preserve sizes and shapes of sinking particles. Microphotographic images of gels were collected and used to determine particle size distributions. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the supplemental document 'Field_names.pdf', and a full dataset description is included in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: http://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/728395