Seawater carbonate chemistry and community calcification near Lizar Island, 2011, supplement to: Tynan, Sarah; Opdyke, Bradley N (2011): Effects of lower surface ocean pH upon the stability of shallow water carbonate sediments. Science of the Total Environment, 409(6), 1082-1086

• Main Authors: Tynan, Sarah, Opdyke, Bradley N
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2011
• Subjects: Benthos; Bottles or small containers/Aquaria <20 L; Calcification/Dissolution; Coast and continental shelf; Entire community; Laboratory experiment; Rocky-shore community; South Pacific; Tropical; Identification; Site; Sample ID; Time of day; Incubation duration; Salinity; Temperature, water; pH; Calcium; Magnesium; Alkalinity, total; Δ alkalinity, total; Calcification rate of calcium carbonate; Carbon, inorganic, dissolved; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Fugacity of carbon dioxide water at sea surface temperature wet air; Bicarbonate ion; Carbonate ion; Aragonite saturation state; Calcite saturation state; Measured; Varian Vista Pro Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometer; Metrohm Titrando titrator; Alkalinity anomaly technique Smith and Key, 1975; Calculated using CO2SYS; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. 2010; European network of excellence for Ocean Ecosystems Analysis EUR-OCEANS; European Project on Ocean Acidification EPOCA; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre OA-ICC; Pacific; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.763348; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.763348

It is predicted that surface ocean pH will reach 7.9, possibly 7.8 by the end of this century due to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and in the surface ocean. While aragonite-rich sediments don't begin to dissolve until a threshold pH of ~ 7.8 is reached, dissolution from high-Mg calcites is evident with any drop in pH. Indeed, it is high-Mg calcite that dominates the reaction of carbonate sediments with increased CO2, which undergoes a rapid neomorphism process to a more stable, low-Mg calcite. This has major implications for the future of the high-Mg calcite producing organisms within coral reef ecosystems. In order to understand any potential buffering system offered by the dissolution of carbonate sediments under a lower oceanic pH, this process of high-Mg calcite dissolution in the reef environment must be further elucidated. : In order to allow full comparability with other ocean acidification data sets, the R package seacarb (Lavigne and Gattuso, 2011) was used to compute a complete and consistent set of carbonate system variables, as described by Nisumaa et al. (2010). In this dataset the original values were archived in addition with the recalculated parameters (see related PI).