The Ra-226–Ba relationship in the North Atlantic during GEOTRACES-GA01

• Published in: Biogeosciences
• Main Authors: Le Roy, Emilie, Sanial, Virginie, Charette, Matthew A., van Beek, Pieter, Lacan, Francois, Jacquet, Stéphanie H. M., Henderson, Paul B., Souhaut, Marc, García-Ibáñez, Maribel I., Jeandel, Catherine, Perez, Fiz F., Sarthou, Geraldine
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union 2018
• Subjects: Canada; Greenland; West European Basin; North Atlantic; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10403

© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 15 (2018): 3027-3048, doi:10.5194/bg-15-3027-2018. We report detailed sections of radium-226 (226Ra, T1∕2 = 1602 years) activities and barium (Ba) concentrations determined in the North Atlantic (Portugal–Greenland–Canada) in the framework of the international GEOTRACES program (GA01 section – GEOVIDE project, May–July 2014). Dissolved 226Ra and Ba are strongly correlated along the section, a pattern that may reflect their similar chemical behavior. Because 226Ra and Ba have been widely used as tracers of water masses and ocean mixing, we investigated their behavior more thoroughly in this crucial region for thermohaline circulation, taking advantage of the contrasting biogeochemical patterns existing along the GA01 section. We used an optimum multiparameter (OMP) analysis to distinguish the relative importance of physical transport (water mass mixing) from nonconservative processes (sedimentary, river or hydrothermal inputs, uptake by particles and dissolved–particulate dynamics) on the 226Ra and Ba distributions in the North Atlantic. Results show that the measured 226Ra and Ba concentrations can be explained by conservative mixing for 58 and 65 % of the samples, respectively, notably at intermediate depth, away from the ocean interfaces. 226Ra and Ba can thus be considered conservative tracers of water mass transport in the ocean interior on the space scales considered here, namely, on the order of a few thousand kilometers. However, regions in which 226Ra and Ba displayed nonconservative behavior and in some cases decoupled behaviors were also identified, mostly at the ocean boundaries (seafloor, continental margins and surface waters). Elevated 226Ra and Ba concentrations found in deepwater in the West European Basin suggest that lower Northeast Atlantic Deep Water (NEADWl) accumulates 226Ra and Ba from sediment diffusion and/or particle ...