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High rates of organic carbon burial in submarine deltas maintained on geological timescales
Hage, S.; Romans, B.W.; Peploe, T.G.E.; Poyatos-Moré, M.; Haeri Ardakani, O.; Bell, D.; Englert, R.G.; Kaempfe-Droguett, S.A.; Nesbit, P.R.; Sherstan, G.; Synnott, D.P.; Hubbard, S.M. (2022). High rates of organic carbon burial in submarine deltas maintained on geological timescales. Nature Geoscience 15(11): 919-924. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01048-4
In: Nature Geoscience. Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 1752-0894; e-ISSN 1752-0908, more
Peer reviewed article  
Available in  Authors 
Keyword
    Marine/Coastal
Authors  Top 
  • Hage, S.
  • Romans, B.W.
  • Peploe, T.G.E.
  • Poyatos-Moré, M.
  • Haeri Ardakani, O.
  • Bell, D.
  • Englert, R.G.
  • Kaempfe-Droguett, S.A.
  • Nesbit, P.R.
  • Sherstan, G.
  • Synnott, D.P.
  • Hubbard, S.M.
Abstract
    Burial of terrestrial organic carbon in marine sediments can draw down atmospheric CO2 levels on Earth over geologic timescales (≥105 yr). The largest sinks of organic carbon burial in present-day oceans lie in deltas, which are composed of three-dimensional sigmoidal sedimentary packages called clinothems, dipping from land to sea. Analysis of modern delta clinothems, however, provides only a snapshot of the temporal and spatial characteristics of these complex systems, making long-term organic carbon burial efficiency difficult to constrain. Here we determine the stratigraphy of an exhumed delta clinothem preserved in Upper Cretaceous (~75 million years ago) deposits in the Magallanes Basin, Chile, using field measurements and aerial photos, which was then combined with measurement of total organic carbon to create a comprehensive organic carbon budget. We show that the clinothem buried 93 ± 19 Mt terrestrial-rich organic carbon over a duration of 0.1–0.9 Myr. When normalized to the clinothem surface area, this represents an annual burial of 2.3–15.7 t km−2 yr−1 organic carbon, which is on the same order of magnitude as modern-day burial rates in clinothems such as the Amazon delta. This study demonstrates that deltas have been and will probably be substantial terrestrial organic carbon sinks over geologic timescales, a long-standing idea that had yet to be quantified.
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