Terrestrial Contribution to &13C of TOC Preserved in Deep- Sea Sediments

确定在海洋沉积物中发现的有机物有多少来自海洋初级生产，有多少是从陆地运来的，是现代有机地球化学的主要问题之一。陆地对深海沉积物的贡献问题影响着我们对沉积记录演化的理解，包括它在理解与全球碳和二氧化碳动态有关的过去和未来气候趋势方面的作用。在某种程度上，从陆地到深海的运输是风成的，就像铁的运输一般一样，甚至可能与控制海洋初级生产的因素有关。在这项研究中，首席研究员将使用植物蜡分析和碳-13测量来估计几个深海地点沉积物中陆地和海洋碳的含量。他将使用现代海洋浮游生物和陆生植物材料的C-13和蜡化学作为一个尺度的末端成员，任意沉积物的分析结果都可以放在这个尺度上。该方法将涉及开发和验证这种表征深海沉积物碳库的方法。

9616851 Prahl Determining how much of the organic matter found in marine sediments originates from marine primary production and how much was transported from land is one of the major problems of modern organic geochemistry. The question of terrestrial contribution to deep-sea sediments impacts upon our understanding of the evolution of the sedimentary record, including its usefulness in understanding past, and future climatic trends in relation to the global dynamics of carbon and carbon dioxide. To the extent that transport from land to the deep ocean is aeolian, as is generally the case for the transport of iron, there may even be links with factors controlling oceanic primary production. In this study the principal investigator will use plant wax analysis and carbon-13 measurements to estimate the amounts of terrestrial and oceanic carbon in sediment from several deep-ocean sites. He will use the C-13 and wax chemistry of modern-day marine plankton and terrestrial plant materials as end-members of a scale along which analytical results for arbitrary sediments may be placed. The approach will involved development and validation of this method for characterizing the deep-sea sediment carbon pool.