Carbon Export associated with a Frontal Region in the California Current System

Printer-friendly version

Frontal regions are common in the California Current Ecoystem (CCE) and are often sites of increased upwelling, downwelling, and biological production.  Therefore, they likely play an important role in the biological pump as organic matter is transported to depth either on sinking particles or during subduction of both POM and DOM.  To assess the importance of enhanced gravitational flux in frontal regions we made 234Th:238U disequilibrium measurements during rapid sampling transects on the August 2012 Process cruise of the California Current Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research program and also deployed sediment traps during 2 day Lagrangian experiments.  Preliminary results suggest that the frontal region was a site of enhanced gravitational particle flux and also likely a site of enhanced subduction of particles to depth.  Since satellite results suggest that frontal frequency in the CCE is increasing, these mechanisms may contribute to an increasingly large portion of net carbon export in the region.