Release of Methane from Bering Sea Sediments During the Last Glacial Period

• Main Authors: Cook, Mea, Keigwin, Lloyd
• Other Authors: United States. Department of Energy.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 2007
• Subjects: Interstitials; Sediments; Bering Sea; Oxidation; Methane; Stable Isotopes; Climates; Carbonates; Water; 03 Natural Gas; Sediment-Water Interfaces; Foraminifera; Umnak Plateau; Planktonic foraminifera
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2172/969330; https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc929343/

Several lines of evidence suggest that during times of elevated methane flux the sulfate-methane transition zone (SMTZ) was positioned near the sediment-water interface. We studied two cores (from 700 m and 1457 m water depth) from the Umnak Plateau region. Anomalously low d13C and high d18O in benthic and planktonic foraminifera in these cores are the consequence of diagenetic overgrowths of authigenic carbonates. There are multiple layers of authigenic-carbonate-rich sediment in these cores, and the stable isotope compositions of the carbonates are consistent with those formed during anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). The carbonate-rich layers are associated with biomarkers produced by methane-oxidizing archaea, archaeol and glyceryl dibiphytanyl glyceryl tetraether (GDGT). The d13C of the archaeol and certain GDGTs are isotopically depleted. These carbonate- and AOM-biomarker-rich layers were emplaced in the SMTZ during episodes when there was a high flux of methane or methane-rich fluids upward in the sediment column. The sediment methane in the Umnak Plateau region appears to have been very dynamic during the glacial period, and interacted with the ocean-atmosphere system at millennial time scales. The upper-most carbonate-rich layers are in radiocarbon-dated sediment deposited during interstitials 2 and 3, 28-20 ka, and may be associated with the climate warming during this time.