Organic Carbon Fluxes and Accumulation in Cariaco Basin

在该项目中，南佛罗里达大学的研究人员将与斯托尼布鲁克的纽约州立大学和南卡罗来纳州的同事一起研究影响碳和氮通量的近地表地球化学过程与委内瑞拉海岸缺氧海湾Cariaco盆地颗粒向下通量之间的关系。 该盆地以其相对不受干扰的纹状沉积物而闻名，许多沉积学家，地球化学家和古海洋学家认为这是加勒比海和大西洋过去海洋学条件的潜在有价值的代理档案。 USF小组将集中精力收集、模拟和解释大加勒比海盆地的水文和核心地球化学数据（碳、氮、浮游植物组成），并将观测结果与事件联系起来。 纽约州立大学的调查人员将研究有机物从盆地表面沃茨下沉到深处时的化学变化。 南卡罗来纳州小组将通过使用沉积物捕集器和分析海底沉积物岩心来研究颗粒沉积。 预计这些研究将有助于建立Cariaco沉积物档案与区域海洋学过程之间的联系，希望研究人员能够通过参考Cariaco沉积物中留下的记录来预测未来的古气候/古海洋学事件。

In this project, researchers from the University of South Florida will join with colleagues at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the University of South Carolina to study the relationship between near surface biogeochemical processes affecting the fluxed of carbon and nitrogen and the downward flux of particulates in the Cariaco Basin, an anoxic embayment on the coast of Venezuela. The Basin is famous for its relatively undisturbed varved sediments which many sedimentologists, geochemists, and paleoceanographers regard as a potentially valuable proxy archive for past oceanographic conditions of the CaribbeanSea and Atlantic Ocean. the USF group will concentrate on collection, modeling, and interpretation of hydrographic and core geochemical data (carbon, nitrogen, phytoplankton composition) of the water column and relating observations to events in the greater Caribbean basin. The SUNY investigators will study the chemical transformations of organic matter as it sinks from surface waters to depth in the Basin. And the South Carolina group will study particle sedimentation through the use of sediment traps and analysis of seabed sediment cores. It is anticipated that these studies will help establish a linkage between the Cariaco sediment archive and regional oceanographic processes over time, hopefully allowing researchers to predict future paleoclimatic/paleoceanographic events by referring to the record left in Cariaco sediments.