Particulate and soluble 210 Pb activities in the deep sea

• Main Authors: Somayajulu, B. L. K., Craig, H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier Science 1976
• Subjects: QE Geology; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://repository.ias.ac.in/49736/; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012821X76900674

Particulate and soluble, 210 Pb activities have been measured by filtration of large-volume water samples at two stations in the South Atlantic. Particulate phase 210 Pb (caught by a 0.4-μm filter) varies from 0.3% of total 210 Pb in equatorial surface water to 15% in the bottom water. The "absolute activity" of 210 Pb per unit mass of particulate matter is about 10 7 times the activity of soluble 210 Pb per unit mass of water, but because the mass ratio of particulate matter to water is about 10 −8 , the particulate phase carries only about 10% of the total activity. In Antarctic surface water the particulate phase carries 40% of the total 210 Pb activity; the absolute activity of this material is about the same as in other water masses and the higher fraction is due to the much larger concentration of suspended matter in surface water in this region. In the equatorial Atlantic the particulate phase 210 Pb activity increases with depth, by a factor of 40 from surface to bottom, and by a factor of 4 from the Antarctic Intermediate Water core to the Antarctic Bottom Water. This increase with depth is predicted by our previously proposed particulate scavenging model which indicated a scavenging residence time of 50 years for 210 Pb in the deep sea. A scavenging experiment showed that red clay sediment removes all the 210 Pb from seawater in less than a week. The Antarctic particulate profile shows little or no evidence of scavenging in this region, which may be due to the siliceous nature of the particulate phase in circumpolar waters. Our previous observation that the 210 Pb/ 226 Ra activity ratio is of the order of 0.5 in the deep water is further confirmed by the two South Atlantic profiles analyzed in the present work.