Description: Characteristics, elevations and ages of 165 samples from various mid-late Holocene features, such as in situ Porites microatolls, in situ reef flats, conglomerates and reworked reef blocks, collected from twelve islands in French Polynesia. This table complements the database on which the mid-late Holocene sea-level curve has been initially reconstructed (Hallmann et al., 2018). Δ modern-fossil represents the difference in elevation between modern and Holocene microatolls at the same study site and in a similar environment (maximum vertical error is of ± 2 cm). NGPF = altimetric reference of French Polynesia. The elevations have been corrected for subsidence based on rates of 0.14 mm/yr for Moorea, 0.05 mm/yr for Bora Bora and Tahaa as well as 0.03 mm/yr for Maupiti, the Gambier Islands and Raivavae. Error values for ages and elevations are 2-sigma. Uncertainties for measured elevations related to NGPF are ± 14 cm for samples from Bora Bora, Maupiti, Raivavae, Tikehau and the Gambier Islands; ± 22 cm for samples from Fakarava, Hao, Makemo, Manihi, Moorea, Rangiroa and Tahaa. Uncertainties for estimated elevations are ± 10 cm for Δ modern-fossil and ± 22 cm for NGPF elevations.

Description: We present a compilation of paleo-circulation proxies during the Holocene from Bermuda Rise core ODP Site 1063. The data set comprises high resolution 231Pa/230Th (including 231Pa,230Th, 232Th, and 238U concentrations accompanied by measurements of biogenic opal concentrations) and Neodymium isotopes, as well as some δ13C from C. wuellerstorfi.

Description: Uranium/Thorium isotopic composition of 165 samples from various mid-late Holocene features, such as in situ Porites microatolls, in situ reef flats, conglomerates and reworked reef blocks, collected from twelve islands in French Polynesia. Recommendations of Dutton et al. (2017) were followed for the presentation of U/Th age data. For each parameter, the first column contains the value and the second column the statistical error. All statistical errors are two standard deviations of the mean (2σ mean). All samples have been corrected for initial 230Th by using a 230Th/232Th activity ratio of 0.66 ± 0.2 (Fietzke et al., 2005). Non-reported data consist of 230Th/232Th ratios which became negative due to background corrections. 238U Concentrations are not corrected for the background.

Description: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2013

Description: Nitrogen and trace metal biogeochemical effects on phytoplankton productivity were compared through whole water bottle incubations and proteomic evaluation of in situ harvested particulate matter from two distinct oceanographic regions: the Equatorial Pacific Upwelling and the South Pacific Gyre. Phytoplankton growth in both regions was stimulated by nitrogen additions with equivalent response from nitrate and urea. In the gyre, trace metal additions did not yield a chlorophyll response, however nickel treatments showed evidence of nickel-limited nitrogen fixation. In contrast, cell growth at the upwelling site was primarily iron-limited and iron plus urea or nitrate additions further enhanced the chlorophyll response, indicative of secondary nitrogen limitation. Nitrogen stress proteins and urea transporters from cyanobacteria in these field sites showed similar trends, with both increasing in waters containing lower dissolved inorganic nitrogen. Together with bottle incubations, the abundant urea transporters and nitrogen stress proteins indicate the importance of urea in these field sites. Representative cyanobacteria cultures (Synechococcus strain WH8020, and Prochlorococcus strain MED4) were evaluated to constrain urea uptake rates and explore the potential for compound specific uptake rates. Together, results from this study indicate that urea may represent an under-recognized component of the marine microbial nitrogen cycle.

Description: Funding of our lab by The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE), “Metzyme” (KM1128) by NSF Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE-1031271) and “BiG RAPA” (MV1015) by NSF (DBI-0424599).

Description: Author Posting. © Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Limnology and Oceanography 57 (2012): 989-1010, doi:10.4319/lo.2012.57.4.0989.

Description: We present full-depth zonal sections of total dissolved cobalt, iron, manganese, and labile cobalt from the South Atlantic Ocean. A basin-scale plume from the African coast appeared to be a major source of dissolved metals to this region, with high cobalt concentrations in the oxygen minimum zone of the Angola Dome and extending 2500 km into the subtropical gyre. Metal concentrations were elevated along the coastal shelf, likely due to reductive dissolution and resuspension of particulate matter. Linear relationships between cobalt, N2O, and O2, as well as low surface aluminum supported a coastal rather than atmospheric cobalt source. Lateral advection coupled with upwelling, biological uptake, and remineralization delivered these metals to the basin, as evident in two zonal transects with distinct physical processes that exhibited different metal distributions. Scavenging rates within the coastal plume differed for the three metals; iron was removed fastest, manganese removal was 2.5 times slower, and cobalt scavenging could not be discerned from water mass mixing. Because scavenging, biological utilization, and export constantly deplete the oceanic inventories of these three hybrid-type metals, point sources of the scale observed here likely serve as vital drivers of their oceanic cycles. Manganese concentrations were elevated in surface waters across the basin, likely due to coupled redox processes acting to concentrate the dissolved species there. These observations of basin-scale hybrid metal plumes combined with the recent projections of expanding oxygen minimum zones suggest a potential mechanism for effects on ocean primary production and nitrogen fixation via increases in trace metal source inputs.

Description: This research was supported US National Science Foundation Chemical Oceanography (Division of Ocean Sciences OCE-0452883, OCE-0752291, OCE-0928414, OCE-1031271), the Center for Microbial Research and Education, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute, and the WHOI Ocean Life Institute.

Description: © The Authors, 2010. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 7 (2010): 2091-2100, doi:10.5194/bg-7-2091-2010.

Description: Extensive observations were made during the late Southwest Monsoon of 2004 over the Indian and Omani shelves, and along a transect that extended from the southern coast of Oman to the central west coast of India, tracking the southern leg of the US JGOFS expedition (1994–1995) in the west. The data are used, in conjunction with satellite-derived data, to investigate long-term trends in chlorophyll and sea surface temperature, indicators of upwelling intensity, and to understand factors that control primary production (PP) in the Arabian Sea, focussing on the role of iron. Our results do not support an intensification of upwelling in the western Arabian Sea, reported to have been caused by the decline in the winter/spring Eurasian snow cover since 1997. We also noticed, for the first time, an unexpected development of high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll condition off the southern Omani coast. This feature, coupled with other characteristics of the system, such as a narrow shelf and relatively low iron concentrations in surface waters, suggest a close similarity between the Omani upwelling system and the Peruvian and California upwelling systems, where PP is limited by iron. Iron limitation of PP may complicate simple relationship between upwelling and PP assumed by previous workers, and contribute to the anomalous offshore occurrence of the most severe oxygen (O2) depletion in the region. Over the much wider Indian shelf, which experiences large-scale bottom water O2-depletion in summer, adequate iron supply from reducing bottom-waters and sediments seems to support moderately high PP; however, such production is restricted to the thin, oxygenated surface layer, probably because of the unsuitability of the O2-depleted environment for the growth of oxygenic photosynthesizers.

Description: Financial support was provided by CSIR through the Network Project CMM0009 to SWAN and by NSF through OCE-0327227S to JWM.

Description: There is a converging body of evidence supporting a measurable slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) as climate warms and Northern Hemisphere ice sheets inexorably shrink. Within this context, we assess the variability of the AMOC during the Holocene based on a marine sediment core retrieved from the deep northwest Atlantic, which sensitively recorded large-scale deglacial transitions in deep water circulation. While there is a diffuse notion of Holocene variability in Labrador and Nordic Seas overturning, we report a largely invariable deep water circulation for the last ~11,000 years, even during the meltwater pulse associated with the 8.2-ka event. Sensitivity tests along with high-resolution 231Pa/230Th data constrain the duration and the magnitude of possible Holocene AMOC variations. The generally constant baseline during the Holocene suggests attenuated natural variability of the large-scale AMOC on submillennial timescales and calls for compensating effects involving the upstream components of North Atlantic Deep Water.

Description: © The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cohen, N. R., Noble, A. E., Moran, D. M., McIlvin, M. R., Goepfert, T. J., Hawco, N. J., German, C. R., Horner, T. J., Lamborg, C. H., McCrow, J. P., Allen, A. E., & Saito, M. A. Hydrothermal trace metal release and microbial metabolism in the northeastern Lau Basin of the South Pacific Ocean. Biogeosciences, 18(19), (2021): 5397–5422, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5397-2021.

Description: Bioactive trace metals are critical micronutrients for marine microorganisms due to their role in mediating biological redox reactions, and complex biogeochemical processes control their distributions. Hydrothermal vents may represent an important source of metals to microorganisms, especially those inhabiting low-iron waters, such as in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Previous measurements of primordial 3He indicate a significant hydrothermal source originating in the northeastern (NE) Lau Basin, with the plume advecting into the southwest Pacific Ocean at 1500–2000 m depth (Lupton et al., 2004). Studies investigating the long-range transport of trace metals associated with such dispersing plumes are rare, and the biogeochemical impacts on local microbial physiology have not yet been described. Here we quantified dissolved metals and assessed microbial metaproteomes across a transect spanning the tropical and equatorial Pacific with a focus on the hydrothermally active NE Lau Basin and report elevated iron and manganese concentrations across 441 km of the southwest Pacific. The most intense signal was detected near the Mangatolo Triple Junction (MTJ) and Northeast Lau Spreading Center (NELSC), in close proximity to the previously reported 3He signature. Protein content in distal-plume-influenced seawater, which was high in metals, was overall similar to background locations, though key prokaryotic proteins involved in metal and organic uptake, protein degradation, and chemoautotrophy were abundant compared to deep waters outside of the distal plume. Our results demonstrate that trace metals derived from the NE Lau Basin are transported over appreciable distances into the southwest Pacific Ocean and that bioactive chemical resources released from submarine vent systems are utilized by surrounding deep-sea microbes, influencing both their physiology and their contributions to ocean biogeochemical cycling.

Description: This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (grant nos. 1031271, 1924554, 1850719, 1736599, and 1851007); the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant no. 3782); and the Simons Foundation (grant no. 544236).

Description: © The Authors, 2010. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 7 (2010): 4059-4082, doi:10.5194/bg-7-4059-2010.

Description: We report the distribution of cobalt (Co) in the Ross Sea polynya during austral summer 2005–2006 and the following austral spring 2006. The vertical distribution of total dissolved Co (dCo) was similar to soluble reactive phosphate (PO43−), with dCo and PO43− showing a significant correlation throughout the water column (r2 = 0.87, 164 samples). A strong seasonal signal for dCo was observed, with most spring samples having concentrations ranging from ~45–85 pM, whereas summer dCo values were depleted below these levels by biological activity. Surface transect data from the summer cruise revealed concentrations at the low range of this seasonal variability (~30 pM dCo), with concentrations as low as 20 pM observed in some regions where PO43− was depleted to ~0.1 μM. Both complexed Co, defined as the fraction of dCo bound by strong organic ligands, and labile Co, defined as the fraction of dCo not bound by these ligands, were typically observed in significant concentrations throughout the water column. This contrasts the depletion of labile Co observed in the euphotic zone of other ocean regions, suggesting a much higher bioavailability for Co in the Ross Sea. An ecological stoichiometry of 37.6 μmol Co:mol−1 PO43− calculated from dissolved concentrations was similar to values observed in the subarctic Pacific, but approximately tenfold lower than values in the Eastern Tropical Pacific and Equatorial Atlantic. The ecological stoichiometries for dissolved Co and Zn suggest a greater overall use of Zn relative to Co in the shallow waters of the Ross Sea, with a Co:PO43−/Zn:PO43− ratio of 1:17. Comparison of these observed stoichiometries with values estimated in culture studies suggests that Zn is a key micronutrient that likely influences phytoplankton diversity in the Ross Sea. In contrast, the observed ecological stoichiometries for Co were below values necessary for the growth of eukaryotic phytoplankton in laboratory culture experiments conducted in the absence of added zinc, implying the need for significant Zn nutrition in the Zn-Co cambialistic enzymes. The lack of an obvious kink in the dissolved Co:PO43− relationship was in contrast to Zn:PO43− and Cd:PO43− kinks previously observed in the Ross Sea. An excess uptake mechanism for kink formation is proposed as a major driver of Cd:PO43− kinks, where Zn and Cd uptake in excess of that needed for optimal growth occurs at the base of the euphotic zone, and no clear Co kink occurs because its abundances are too low for excess uptake. An unusual characteristic of Co geochemistry in the Ross Sea is an apparent lack of Co scavenging processes, as inferred from the absence of dCo removal below the euphotic zone. We hypothesize that this vertical distribution reflects a low rate of Co scavenging by Mn oxidizing bacteria, perhaps due to Mn scarcity, relative to the timescale of the annual deep winter mixing in the Ross Sea. Thus Co exhibits nutrient-like behavior in the Ross Sea, in contrast to its hybrid-type behavior in other ocean regions, with implications for the possibility of increased marine Co inventories and utility as a paleooceanographic proxy.

Description: This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation through research grants (OPP-0440840, OPP-0338097, OPP-0732665, OCE-0452883, OCE-0752991, OCE-0928414).

Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Limnology and Oceanography 62 (2017): 1984–2003, doi:10.1002/lno.10547.

Description: Thaumarchaea are among the most abundant microbial groups in the ocean, but controls on their abundance and the distribution and metabolic potential of different subpopulations are poorly constrained. Here, two ecotypes of ammonia-oxidizing thaumarchaea were quantified using ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) genes across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The shallow, or water column “A” (WCA), ecotype was the most abundant ecotype at the depths of maximum nitrification rates, and its abundance correlated with other biogeochemical indicators of remineralization such as NO3 : Si and total Hg. Metagenomes contained thaumarchaeal genes encoding for the catalytic subunit of the urease enzyme (ureC) at all depths, suggesting that members of both WCA and the deep, water column “B” (WCB) ecotypes may contain ureC. Coupled urea hydrolysis-ammonia oxidation rates were similar to ammonia oxidation rates alone, suggesting that urea could be an important source of ammonia for mesopelagic ammonia oxidizers. Potential inducement of metal limitation of both ammonia oxidation and urea hydrolysis was demonstrated via additions of a strong metal chelator. The water column inventory of WCA was correlated with the depth-integrated abundance of WCB, with both likely controlled by the flux of sinking particulate organic matter, providing strong evidence of vertical connectivity between the ecotypes. Further, depth-integrated amoA gene abundance and nitrification rates were correlated with particulate organic nitrogen flux measured by contemporaneously deployed sediment traps. Together, the results refine our understanding of the controls on thaumarchaeal distributions in the ocean, and provide new insights on the relationship between material flux and microbial communities in the mesopelagic.

Description: United States National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant Numbers: OCE-1260006, OCE-1031271, OCE-1337780, OCE-1259994; University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES); JGI Community Sequencing Project 1337