Description: To study the transformation of organic carbon through long distance transport in rivers, we measured the composition of bulk organic carbon in river suspended sediment of the Rio Bermejo (northern Argentina). This river has a ~1300 km lowland flowpath with no significant tributaries. We collected fluvial suspended sediment in vertical depth profiles at five sampling locations along the length of the Rio Bermejo (northern Argentina) during near-bankfull conditions, when discharge varied between 675 and 1080 m3/s and banks were actively eroding. Additionally, we collected one depth profile from the Rio San Francisco (RSF) and one from the Rio Bermejo 10 km upstream of the RSF confluence. Combining these profiles and weighting them by the relative proportions of their total sediment load input to the mainstem Bermejo serves as a depth profile representing the headwaters. At each depth profile location, we collected water and suspended sediment from the channel thalweg by boat. We used a weighted 8-liter horizontal sampling bottle (Wildco Beta Plus bottle) with an attached pressure transducer to measure sampling depth. We separated sediment from the water using a custom-built 5-liter pressurized filtration unit with a 293 mm diameter, 0.2 µm polyethersulfone filter. In the laboratory, we rinsed sediment off the filters directly into an evaporating dish with ultrapure 18.2 MΩ water (pH~7). Samples were dried in an oven at 40ºC, and subsequently homogenized. Sediment particle size distributions were measured on ~10 mg aliquots using a laser diffraction particle size analyzer (Horiba LA-950). Specific surface area (SSA) of bulk sediment samples was measured on ~4 g aliquots using a Quantachrome NOVAtouch LX gas sorption analyzer and the Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller (BET) theory (Brunauer et al., 1938). Aliquots for organic carbon measurements were first treated with 4% HCl solution to remove inorganic carbon, following Galy et al. (2007, doi:10.1111/j.1751-908X.2007.00864.x). Total organic carbon (TOCPOC) and δ13C of POC was measured in duplicate at Durham University using a Costech elemental analyzer (EA) coupled to a CONFLO III and Thermo Scientific Delta V Advantage isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS). Radiocarbon content was measured using an EA coupled to an accelerator mass spectrometer (EA-AMS) at ETH Zurich. We report 14C content as fraction modern (F14C), by normalizing measurements to 95% of the 1950 NBS Oxalic Acid II standard (δ13C = -17.8‰) and correcting for mass-dependent fractionation using a common δ13C value of -25‰. OC loading is the mass of organic carbon in a sample normalized by the sample's specific surface area (SSA). Reactive metals in the amorphous oxyhydroxide and crystalline oxide grain coatings, were extracted from the sediment samples using a procedure adapted from Wittmann et al. (2012, doi:10.1016/j.chemgeo.2012.04.031). The extracted oxyhydroxides and oxides were dried down and diluted in 3M HNO3. A 100 μl aliquot was taken for measurement of metal concentrations. Al, Fe, Mg, and Mn concentrations were measured using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). Uncertainty of ICP-OES measurements was 〈5%. All depth-integrated values are calculated as a function of the suspended sediment concentration relative to the depth-averaged suspended sediment concentration.

Description: Alkenone concentration and radiocarbon age in 7 gobally-distributed surface sediment samples and their associated grain-size fractions. Total organic carbon (TOC) and fractional abundance of grain-size fractions from bulk sediments (Bulk%) are taken from Ausín et al. (2021). Analytical precision of Uk'37 is 0.003 units. Uk'37-SST propagated error is ±0.51℃. These parameters were measured to explore the influence of alkenone-mineral associations and hydrodynamic mineral sorting processes on alkenone proxy signals. Bulk sediment samples were fractionated into four grain-size fractions (sand (〉300-63 µm); coarse silt (63-10 µm); fine silt (10-2 µm); and clay (〈 2 µm) prior to lipid extraction and manual column chromatography to obtain a ketone fraction containing the alkenones. The concentration and distribution of C37 alkenones was analyzed using gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID) at the Biogeoscience Group Laboratories, ETH Zürich in 2018. The ketone fractions used for determination of alkenone concentration and unsaturation were further purified for compound specific radiocarbon analysis following Ohkouchi et al. (2005). Samples, were measured as CO2 using an Elemental-Analyzer system interface coupled to a gas ion source (GIS)-equipped Minicarbon Dating System (MICADAS) at the Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zürich in 2018. References Ausín, B., Bruni, E., Haghipour, N., Welte, C., Bernasconi, S. M., & Eglinton, T. I. Controls on the abundance, provenance and age of organic carbon buried in continental margin sediments. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 558, 116759, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116759, 2021. Ohkouchi, N., Xu, L., Reddy, C. M., Montluon, D., & linton, T. I. Radiocarbon dating of alkenones from marine sediments: I. Isolation Protocol Radiocarbon, 47, 401-412, doi:10.1017/S0033822200035189, 2005.