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    Temporal deconvolution of vascular plant-derived fatty acids exported from terrestrial watersheds

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    Author's manuscript, inc. supplementary material (2.405Mb)
    Date
    2018-09
    Author
    Vonk, Jorien E.  Concept link
    Drenzek, Nicholas J.  Concept link
    Hughen, Konrad A.  Concept link
    Stanley, Rachel H. R.  Concept link
    McIntyre, Cameron P.  Concept link
    Montlucon, Daniel B.  Concept link
    Giosan, Liviu  Concept link
    Southon, John R.  Concept link
    Santos, Guaciara M.  Concept link
    Druffel, Ellen R. M.  Concept link
    Andersson, August A.  Concept link
    Sköld, Martin  Concept link
    Eglinton, Timothy I.  Concept link
    Metadata
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    Citable URI
    https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10799
    As published
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2018.09.034
    Keyword
     Terrestrial carbon; Organic matter; Radiocarbon; Leaf waxes; Sediment; Residence time 
    Abstract
    Relatively little is known about the amount of time that lapses between the photosynthetic fixation of carbon by vascular land plants and its incorporation into the marine sedimentary record, yet the dynamics of terrestrial carbon sequestration have important implications for the carbon cycle. Vascular plant carbon may encounter multiple potential intermediate storage pools and transport trajectories, and the age of vascular plant carbon accumulating in marine sediments will reflect these different predepositional histories. Here, we examine down-core 14C profiles of higher plant leaf waxderived fatty acids isolated from high fidelity sedimentary sequences spanning the socalled “bomb-spike”, and encompassing a ca. 60-degree latitudinal gradient from tropical (Cariaco Basin), temperate (Saanich Inlet), and polar (Mackenzie Delta) watersheds to constrain integrated vascular plant carbon storage/transport times (“residence times”). Using a modeling framework, we find that, in addition to a "young" (conditionally defined as < 50 y) carbon pool, an old pool of compounds comprises 49 to 78 % of the fractional contribution of organic carbon (OC) and exhibits variable ages reflective of the environmental setting. For the Mackenzie Delta sediments, we find a mean age of the old pool of 28 ky (±9.4, standard deviation), indicating extensive pre-aging in permafrost soils, whereas the old pools in Saanich Inlet and Cariaco Basin sediments are younger, 7.9 (±5.0) and 2.4 (±0.50) to 3.2 (±0.54) ky, respectively, indicating less protracted storage in terrestrial reservoirs. The "young" pool showed clear annual contributions for Saanich Inlet and Mackenzie Delta sediments (comprising 24% and 16% of this pool, respectively), likely reflecting episodic transport of OC from steep hillside slopes surrounding Saanich Inlet and annual spring flood deposition in the Mackenzie Delta, respectively. Contributions of 5-10 year old OC to the Cariaco Basin show a short delay of OC inflow, potentially related to transport time to the offshore basin. Modeling results also indicate that the Mackenzie Delta has an influx of young but decadal material (20-30 years of age), pointing to the presence of an intermediate reservoir. Overall, these results show that a significant fraction of vascular plant C undergoes pre-aging in terrestrial reservoirs prior to accumulation in deltaic and marine sediments. The age distribution, reflecting both storage and transport times, likely depends on landscape-specific factors such as local topography, hydrographic characteristics, and mean annual temperature of the catchment, all of which affect the degree of soil buildup and preservation. We show that catchment-specific carbon residence times across landscapes can vary by an order of magnitude, with important implications both for carbon cycle studies and for the interpretation of molecular terrestrial paleoclimate records preserved in sedimentary sequences.
    Description
    Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here under a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license granted to WHOI. It is made available for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 244 (2019): 502-521, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2018.09.034.
    Collections
    • Geology and Geophysics (G&G)
    • Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry (MC&G)
    Suggested Citation
    Preprint: Vonk, Jorien E., Drenzek, Nicholas J., Hughen, Konrad A., Stanley, Rachel H. R., McIntyre, Cameron P., Montlucon, Daniel B., Giosan, Liviu, Southon, John R., Santos, Guaciara M., Druffel, Ellen R. M., Andersson, August A., Sköld, Martin, Eglinton, Timothy I., "Temporal deconvolution of vascular plant-derived fatty acids exported from terrestrial watersheds", 2018-09, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2018.09.034, https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10799
     

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