Long-term storage and ageâ€biased export of fluvial organic carbon: field evidence from West Iceland

• Main Authors: Torres, Mark A., Kemeny, Preston C., Lamb, Michael P., Cole, Trevor L., Fischer, Woodward W.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2020
• Subjects: organic carbon; floodplains; sediment transport; rivers; carbon cycle; geomorphology; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019gc008632

Terrestrial organic carbon (OC) plays an important role in the carbon cycle, but questions remain regarding the controls and timescale(s) over which atmospheric COâ‚‚ remains sequestered as particulate OC (POC). Motivated by observations that terrestrial POC is physically stored within soils and other shallow sedimentary deposits, we examined the role that sediment storage plays in the terrestrial OC cycle. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that sediment storage impacts the age of terrestrial POC. We focused on the Efri Haukadalsá River catchment in Iceland as it lacks ancient sedimentary bedrock that would otherwise bias radiocarbonâ€based determinations of POC storage duration by supplying preâ€aged "petrogenic" POC. Our radiocarbon measurements of riverine suspended sediments and deposits implicated millennialâ€scale storage times. Comparison between the sample types (suspended and deposits) suggested an age offset between transported (suspended sediments) and stored (deposits) POC at the time of sampling, which is predicted by theory for the sediment age distribution in floodplains. We also observed that POC in suspended sediments is younger than the predicted mean storage duration generated from independent geomorphological data, which suggested an additional role for OC cycling. Consistent with this, we observed interparticle heterogeneity in the composition of POC by imaging our samples at the microscale using Xâ€ray absorption spectroscopy. Specifically, we found that particles within individual samples differed in their sulfur oxidation state, which is indicative of multiple origins and/or diagenetic histories. Altogether, our results support recent coupled sediment storage and OC cycling models and indicate that the physical drivers of sediment storage are important factors controlling the cadence of carbon cycling. © 2020 American Geophysical Union. Received 23 AUG 2019; Accepted 14 DEC 2019; Accepted article online 15MAR 2020. This work was supported by a grant from the Caltech Discovery ...