Natural Fe Fertilization and Bioactive Metal Dynamics on the Western Antarctic Peninsula Shelf

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The shelf waters off the Western Antarctic Peninsula characteristically show high primary productivity, yet are bounded to the west and north by an apparently iron limited Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Natural sources of bioavailable Fe amendments are thought variously to arise from atmospheric deposition, upwelled Circumpolar Deep Water shoaling over the continental shelf, glacier and iceberg melting or even inputs from underlying shallow shelf sediments. As part of the ongoing Palmer LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) program, a comprehensive study of the water column distribution, bio-uptake studies and the dynamics of various forms of Fe and other bioactive elements will be used to inform physical and biogeochemical models of the WAP. The Western Antarctic Peninsula is a region of recent rapid climate change and also an important time series site for monitoring carbon uptake from the atmosphere, by the polar ocean. How ecological processes currently being studied in the context of the Palmer LTER site are adapting to a warming ocean is of interest to the science education community, the public, and society at large on issues ranging from the health of the oceans to global sea level rise.