Description: The GEOVIDE cruise, a collaborative project within the framework of the international GEOTRACES programme, was conducted along the French-led section in the North Atlantic Ocean (Section GA01), between 15 May and 30 June 2014. In this Special Issue, results from GEOVIDE, including physical oceanography and trace element and isotope cyclings, are presented among seventeen articles. Here, the scientific context, project objectives and scientific strategy of GEOVIDE are provided, along with an overview of the main results from the articles published in the special issue.

Description: Woody debris is known to be transported to the seas and accumulate on the seafloor, however, little is known on the consequences of its degradation in the marine environment. In this study we monitored the degradation product sulfide with Au/Hg voltammetric microelectrodes on the surface and interior of an experimentally immersed wood for 200 d. After 5 weeks of immersion, the interior became sulfidic, and steady-state conditions were established after 13 weeks with sulfide concentration reaching about 300 μM. Although sulfide was briefly detected at the surface of wood, its concentration remained lower than 20 μM, indicating that this compound was effectively oxidized within the substrate. Fitting these data to a kinetic model lead to an estimated microbial sulfide production rate in the range of 19–28 μM d−1 at steady state. As much as 24 μM d−1 nitrate could be consumed by this process in the steady-state period. Before the establishment of the steady state conditions, steep fluctuations in sulfide concentration (between 1 mM and several μM) were observed in the wood interior. This study is the first to document the temporal dynamics of this unsteady process, characterized by fast sulfide fluctuation and consumption. Our results point to the complex mechanisms driving the dynamics of wood biogeochemical transformations, and reveal the capacity of woody debris to generate sulfidic conditions and act as a possible sink for oxygen and nitrate in the marine environment.

Description: In situ chemical monitoring at deep-sea hydrothermal vents remains a challenge. Particularly, tools are still scarce for assessing the ranges and temporal variability of sulfide in these harsh environmental conditions. There is a particular need for compact and relatively simple devices to enlarge the capacity of in situ measurements of this major energy source in chemosynthetic ecosystems. With this objective, a voltammetric sensor based on a bare-silver working electrode was developed and tested in real conditions. In the laboratory, the sensor presented a linear response from 10 to 1000 μM sulfide, together with a low pH sensitivity and moderate temperature dependence. The device was operated at 850 and 2500 m depth during 3 cruises over two different vent fields. The autonomous potentiostat (290 mm length, ∅ 35 mm) equipped with laboratory-made electrodes was mounted on a wand, for manipulation from a submersible, or on a holder for unattended deployments. The system was applied in mussel, tubeworm and annelid worm habitats, characterized by different ranges of sulfide concentration, pH and temperature. Calibrations performed before and after each deployment confirmed the stability of the sensor response over a few hours to 11 days, with a maximum drift of 11.4% during this period. Short-term measurements in the vicinity of Riftia pachyptila and Alvinella pompejana were consistent with previous results on these habitats, with concentrations ranging from 20 to 140 μM and 100 to 450 μM and sulfide versus temperature ratio of 14 μM °C−1 and 20 μM °C−1, respectively. A continuous 4-day record on a bed of Bathymodiolus Thermophilus mussels furthermore illustrated the capacity of the sensor to capture fluctuating sulfide concentration between 0 and 70 μM, in combination to temperature, and to investigate the changes in the sulfide versus temperature ratio over time. The method has a higher detection limit (〈10 μM) than previous in situ sulfide measurement methods, but has the advantage of selectivity to free sulfide (compared to colorimetry), low pH sensitivity (compared to amperometry) and lower reconditioning requirement for electrode surface (with respect to gold-amalgam voltammetry). This sensor is therefore a valuable complementary tool for discrete and continuous measurements within the moderate temperature environment of fauna at deep-sea vents.