An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles
Biogenic production and sedimentation of calcium carbonate in the ocean, referred to as the carbonate pump, has profound implications for the ocean carbon cycle, and relate both to global climate, ocean acidification and the geological past. In marine pelagic environments coccolithophores, foraminif...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3479124 2023-05-15T17:51:26+02:00 An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles Heldal, Mikal Norland, Svein Erichsen, Egil S. Thingstad, T. Frede Bratbak, Gunnar 2012-10-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479124 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23110119 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047887 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479124 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23110119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047887 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2012 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047887 2013-09-04T14:53:16Z Biogenic production and sedimentation of calcium carbonate in the ocean, referred to as the carbonate pump, has profound implications for the ocean carbon cycle, and relate both to global climate, ocean acidification and the geological past. In marine pelagic environments coccolithophores, foraminifera and pteropods have been considered the main calcifying organisms. Here, we document the presence of an abundant, previously unaccounted fraction of marine calcium carbonate particles in seawater, presumably formed by bacteria or in relation to extracellular polymeric substances. The particles occur in a variety of different morphologies, in a size range from <1 to >100 µm, and in a typical concentration of 104–105 particles L−1 (size range counted 1–100 µm). Quantitative estimates of annual averages suggests that the pure calcium particles we counted in the 1–100 µm size range account for 2–4 times more CaCO3 than the dominating coccolithophoride Emiliania huxleyi and for 21% of the total concentration of particulate calcium. Due to their high density, we hypothesize that the particles sediment rapidly, and therefore contribute significantly to the export of carbon and alkalinity from surface waters. The biological and environmental factors affecting the formation of these particles and possible impact of this process on global atmospheric CO2 remains to be investigated. Text Ocean acidification PubMed Central (PMC) PLoS ONE 7 10 e47887 |
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Research Article Heldal, Mikal Norland, Svein Erichsen, Egil S. Thingstad, T. Frede Bratbak, Gunnar An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles |
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Research Article |
description |
Biogenic production and sedimentation of calcium carbonate in the ocean, referred to as the carbonate pump, has profound implications for the ocean carbon cycle, and relate both to global climate, ocean acidification and the geological past. In marine pelagic environments coccolithophores, foraminifera and pteropods have been considered the main calcifying organisms. Here, we document the presence of an abundant, previously unaccounted fraction of marine calcium carbonate particles in seawater, presumably formed by bacteria or in relation to extracellular polymeric substances. The particles occur in a variety of different morphologies, in a size range from <1 to >100 µm, and in a typical concentration of 104–105 particles L−1 (size range counted 1–100 µm). Quantitative estimates of annual averages suggests that the pure calcium particles we counted in the 1–100 µm size range account for 2–4 times more CaCO3 than the dominating coccolithophoride Emiliania huxleyi and for 21% of the total concentration of particulate calcium. Due to their high density, we hypothesize that the particles sediment rapidly, and therefore contribute significantly to the export of carbon and alkalinity from surface waters. The biological and environmental factors affecting the formation of these particles and possible impact of this process on global atmospheric CO2 remains to be investigated. |
format |
Text |
author |
Heldal, Mikal Norland, Svein Erichsen, Egil S. Thingstad, T. Frede Bratbak, Gunnar |
author_facet |
Heldal, Mikal Norland, Svein Erichsen, Egil S. Thingstad, T. Frede Bratbak, Gunnar |
author_sort |
Heldal, Mikal |
title |
An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles |
title_short |
An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles |
title_full |
An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles |
title_fullStr |
An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles |
title_full_unstemmed |
An Unaccounted Fraction of Marine Biogenic CaCO3 Particles |
title_sort |
unaccounted fraction of marine biogenic caco3 particles |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479124 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23110119 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047887 |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3479124 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23110119 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047887 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047887 |
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PLoS ONE |
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7 |
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10 |
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e47887 |
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