Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska
As Arctic warming continues and permafrost thaws, more soil and sedimentary organic carbon (OC) will be decomposed in northern high latitudes. Still, uncertainties remain in the quantity and quality of OC stored in different deposit types of permafrost landscapes. This study presents OC data from de...
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ftawi:oai:epic.awi.de:47223 2023-05-15T15:15:06+02:00 Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska Jongejans, Loeka L. Strauss, Jens Lenz, Josefine Peterse, Francien Mangelsdorf, Kai Fuchs, Matthias Grosse, Guido 2018 application/pdf https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47223/ https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47223/1/Jongejans_bg-2018-151.pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-151 https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.6d0e42d7-8efe-49e9-a22a-a12984e26a9f https://hdl.handle.net/ unknown https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47223/1/Jongejans_bg-2018-151.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/ Jongejans, L. L. orcid:0000-0002-0383-4567 , Strauss, J. orcid:0000-0003-4678-4982 , Lenz, J. orcid:0000-0002-4050-3169 , Peterse, F. , Mangelsdorf, K. , Fuchs, M. orcid:0000-0003-3529-8284 and Grosse, G. orcid:0000-0001-5895-2141 (2018) Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska , Biogeosciences Discussions, pp. 1-29 . doi:10.5194/bg-2018-151 <https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-151> , hdl:10013/epic.6d0e42d7-8efe-49e9-a22a-a12984e26a9f EPIC3Biogeosciences Discussions, pp. 1-29, ISSN: 1810-6285 Article notRev 2018 ftawi https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-151 2021-12-24T15:43:52Z As Arctic warming continues and permafrost thaws, more soil and sedimentary organic carbon (OC) will be decomposed in northern high latitudes. Still, uncertainties remain in the quantity and quality of OC stored in different deposit types of permafrost landscapes. This study presents OC data from deep permafrost and lake deposits on the Baldwin Peninsula which is located in the southern portion of the continuous permafrost zone in West-Alaska. Sediment samples from yedoma and drained thermokarst lake basin (DTLB) deposits as well as thermokarst lake sediments were analyzed for cryostratigraphical and biogeochemical parameters and their lipid biomarker composition to identify the size and quality of belowground OC pools in ice-rich permafrost on Baldwin Peninsula. We provide the first detailed characterization of yedoma deposits on Baldwin Peninsula. We show that three quarters of soil organic carbon in the frozen deposits of the study region (total of 68 Mt) is stored in DTLB deposits (52 Mt) and one quarter in the frozen yedoma deposits (16 Mt). The lake sediments contain a relatively small OC pool (4 Mt), but have the highest volumetric OC content(93 kg m-3) compared to the DTLB (35 kg m-3) and yedoma deposits (8 kg m-3), largely due to differences in the ground ice content. The biomarker analysis indicates that the OC in both yedoma and DTLB deposits is mainly of terrestrial origin. Nevertheless, the relatively high carbon preference index of plant leaf waxes in combination with a lack of degradation trend with depth in the yedoma deposits indicates that OC stored in yedoma is less degraded than that stored in DTLB deposits. This suggests that OC in yedoma has a higher potential for decomposition upon thaw, despite the relatively small size of this pool. These findings highlight the importance of molecular OC analysis for determining the potential future greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost, especially because this area close to the discontinuous permafrost boundary is projected to thaw substantially within the 21st century. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Ice permafrost Thermokarst Alaska Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) Arctic Baldwin ENVELOPE(163.300,163.300,-72.250,-72.250) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) |
op_collection_id |
ftawi |
language |
unknown |
description |
As Arctic warming continues and permafrost thaws, more soil and sedimentary organic carbon (OC) will be decomposed in northern high latitudes. Still, uncertainties remain in the quantity and quality of OC stored in different deposit types of permafrost landscapes. This study presents OC data from deep permafrost and lake deposits on the Baldwin Peninsula which is located in the southern portion of the continuous permafrost zone in West-Alaska. Sediment samples from yedoma and drained thermokarst lake basin (DTLB) deposits as well as thermokarst lake sediments were analyzed for cryostratigraphical and biogeochemical parameters and their lipid biomarker composition to identify the size and quality of belowground OC pools in ice-rich permafrost on Baldwin Peninsula. We provide the first detailed characterization of yedoma deposits on Baldwin Peninsula. We show that three quarters of soil organic carbon in the frozen deposits of the study region (total of 68 Mt) is stored in DTLB deposits (52 Mt) and one quarter in the frozen yedoma deposits (16 Mt). The lake sediments contain a relatively small OC pool (4 Mt), but have the highest volumetric OC content(93 kg m-3) compared to the DTLB (35 kg m-3) and yedoma deposits (8 kg m-3), largely due to differences in the ground ice content. The biomarker analysis indicates that the OC in both yedoma and DTLB deposits is mainly of terrestrial origin. Nevertheless, the relatively high carbon preference index of plant leaf waxes in combination with a lack of degradation trend with depth in the yedoma deposits indicates that OC stored in yedoma is less degraded than that stored in DTLB deposits. This suggests that OC in yedoma has a higher potential for decomposition upon thaw, despite the relatively small size of this pool. These findings highlight the importance of molecular OC analysis for determining the potential future greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost, especially because this area close to the discontinuous permafrost boundary is projected to thaw substantially within the 21st century. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jongejans, Loeka L. Strauss, Jens Lenz, Josefine Peterse, Francien Mangelsdorf, Kai Fuchs, Matthias Grosse, Guido |
spellingShingle |
Jongejans, Loeka L. Strauss, Jens Lenz, Josefine Peterse, Francien Mangelsdorf, Kai Fuchs, Matthias Grosse, Guido Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska |
author_facet |
Jongejans, Loeka L. Strauss, Jens Lenz, Josefine Peterse, Francien Mangelsdorf, Kai Fuchs, Matthias Grosse, Guido |
author_sort |
Jongejans, Loeka L. |
title |
Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska |
title_short |
Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska |
title_full |
Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska |
title_sort |
organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on baldwin peninsula, west-alaska |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47223/ https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47223/1/Jongejans_bg-2018-151.pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-151 https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.6d0e42d7-8efe-49e9-a22a-a12984e26a9f https://hdl.handle.net/ |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(163.300,163.300,-72.250,-72.250) |
geographic |
Arctic Baldwin |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Baldwin |
genre |
Arctic Ice permafrost Thermokarst Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Ice permafrost Thermokarst Alaska |
op_source |
EPIC3Biogeosciences Discussions, pp. 1-29, ISSN: 1810-6285 |
op_relation |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/47223/1/Jongejans_bg-2018-151.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/ Jongejans, L. L. orcid:0000-0002-0383-4567 , Strauss, J. orcid:0000-0003-4678-4982 , Lenz, J. orcid:0000-0002-4050-3169 , Peterse, F. , Mangelsdorf, K. , Fuchs, M. orcid:0000-0003-3529-8284 and Grosse, G. orcid:0000-0001-5895-2141 (2018) Organic carbon characteristics in yedoma and thermokarst deposits on Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska , Biogeosciences Discussions, pp. 1-29 . doi:10.5194/bg-2018-151 <https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-151> , hdl:10013/epic.6d0e42d7-8efe-49e9-a22a-a12984e26a9f |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-151 |
_version_ |
1766345484494962688 |