Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost
The fate of permafrost carbon upon thaw will drive feedbacks to climate warming. Here we consider the character and context of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in yedoma permafrost cores from up to 20 m depth in central Alaska. We observed high DOC concentrations (4 to 129 mM) and consistent low molec...
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ftmontanastateu:oai:scholarworks.montana.edu:1/9986 2023-05-15T17:57:04+02:00 Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost Ewing, Stephanie A. O'Donnell, Jonathan A. Aiken, George R. Butler, Kenna Butman, David Windham-Myers, Lisamarie Kanevskiy, Mikhail Z. 2015-12 application/pdf https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/9986 unknown Ewing, Stephanie A., Jonathan A. O’Donnell, George R. Aiken, Kenna Butler, David Butman, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, and Mikhail Z. Kanevskiy. “Long-Term Anoxia and Release of Ancient, Labile Carbon Upon Thaw of Pleistocene Permafrost.” Geophysical Research Letters 42, no. 24 (December 23, 2015): 10,730–10,738. doi:10.1002/2015gl066296. 0094-8276 https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/9986 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode CC-BY-NC-ND Article 2015 ftmontanastateu https://doi.org/10.1002/2015gl066296 2022-06-06T07:28:08Z The fate of permafrost carbon upon thaw will drive feedbacks to climate warming. Here we consider the character and context of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in yedoma permafrost cores from up to 20 m depth in central Alaska. We observed high DOC concentrations (4 to 129 mM) and consistent low molecular weight organic acid concentrations in three cores. We estimate a DOC production rate of 12 µmol DOC m−2 yr−1 based on model ages of up to ~200 kyr derived from uranium isotopes. Acetate C accounted for 24 ± 1% of DOC in all samples. This proportion suggests long-term anaerobiosis and is likely to influence thaw outcomes due to biolability of acetate upon release in many environments. The combination of uranium isotopes, ammonium concentrations, and calcium concentrations explained 86% of the variation in thaw water DOC concentrations, suggesting that DOC production may be related to both reducing conditions and mineral dissolution over time. USGS through the Climate and Land Use Change Mission Area and the NRC postdoc program; Montana State University Vice President of Research and College of Agriculture; the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station; National Science Foundation (EAR 0630257) Article in Journal/Newspaper permafrost Alaska Montana State University (MSU): ScholarWorks Geophysical Research Letters 42 24 |
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Open Polar |
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Montana State University (MSU): ScholarWorks |
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ftmontanastateu |
language |
unknown |
description |
The fate of permafrost carbon upon thaw will drive feedbacks to climate warming. Here we consider the character and context of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in yedoma permafrost cores from up to 20 m depth in central Alaska. We observed high DOC concentrations (4 to 129 mM) and consistent low molecular weight organic acid concentrations in three cores. We estimate a DOC production rate of 12 µmol DOC m−2 yr−1 based on model ages of up to ~200 kyr derived from uranium isotopes. Acetate C accounted for 24 ± 1% of DOC in all samples. This proportion suggests long-term anaerobiosis and is likely to influence thaw outcomes due to biolability of acetate upon release in many environments. The combination of uranium isotopes, ammonium concentrations, and calcium concentrations explained 86% of the variation in thaw water DOC concentrations, suggesting that DOC production may be related to both reducing conditions and mineral dissolution over time. USGS through the Climate and Land Use Change Mission Area and the NRC postdoc program; Montana State University Vice President of Research and College of Agriculture; the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station; National Science Foundation (EAR 0630257) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Ewing, Stephanie A. O'Donnell, Jonathan A. Aiken, George R. Butler, Kenna Butman, David Windham-Myers, Lisamarie Kanevskiy, Mikhail Z. |
spellingShingle |
Ewing, Stephanie A. O'Donnell, Jonathan A. Aiken, George R. Butler, Kenna Butman, David Windham-Myers, Lisamarie Kanevskiy, Mikhail Z. Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost |
author_facet |
Ewing, Stephanie A. O'Donnell, Jonathan A. Aiken, George R. Butler, Kenna Butman, David Windham-Myers, Lisamarie Kanevskiy, Mikhail Z. |
author_sort |
Ewing, Stephanie A. |
title |
Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost |
title_short |
Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost |
title_full |
Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost |
title_fullStr |
Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost |
title_full_unstemmed |
Long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of Pleistocene permafrost |
title_sort |
long-term anoxia and release of ancient, labile carbon upon thaw of pleistocene permafrost |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/9986 |
genre |
permafrost Alaska |
genre_facet |
permafrost Alaska |
op_relation |
Ewing, Stephanie A., Jonathan A. O’Donnell, George R. Aiken, Kenna Butler, David Butman, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, and Mikhail Z. Kanevskiy. “Long-Term Anoxia and Release of Ancient, Labile Carbon Upon Thaw of Pleistocene Permafrost.” Geophysical Research Letters 42, no. 24 (December 23, 2015): 10,730–10,738. doi:10.1002/2015gl066296. 0094-8276 https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/9986 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2015gl066296 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
container_volume |
42 |
container_issue |
24 |
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1766165427060211712 |