Revisiting the biogenic silica burial flux determinations: A case study for the East China seas

IntroductionThe Coastal and Continental Margin Zones (CCMZs) contribute to 40% of the total burial flux of biogenic silica (bSi) of the world ocean. However, the accurate determination of the bSi content (bSiO(2)%) in marine sediments remains a challenge. The alkaline methods commonly used to quantitatively determine bSiO(2)% can completely digest the amorphous silica of diatoms but are less effective at digesting radiolarians and sponge spicules. In addition, the lithogenic silica (lSi) found in sediments is partly digested during these alkaline extractions, which can bias the accuracy of the determined bSiO(2)%. This is of importance in CCMZs where the lSi:bSi ratio is high. MethodsIn this study, we examined sediments collected in the CCMZs of East China seas, an environment of peculiar interest given the large amount of lSi deposited by the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. Results and discussionThe results show that alkaline digestions using stronger solutions and pretreatment steps resulted in an overestimate of the bSiO(2)% due to increased leaching of silica mainly from authigenic silicates and clays, whereas weak digestions underestimated the bSiO(2)% owing to incomplete digestion of sponge spicules. We found that the use of the Si/Al method accurately corrects for the lSi fraction in marine sediments, and thereby improves the determinations of bSiO(2)% in the sediments of East China seas CCMZs. Ensuring full digestion of all bSi remainschallenging, in particular for sponge spicules, motivating both verifications via microscopy and longer extraction times. To emphasize the influence of these methodological differences, we revised the bSi burial flux in the East China seasand provide a new estimate of 253 (+/- 286) Gmol-SiO2 yr-1, which is one third of theprevious estimates. We discuss the potential contribution from radiolarian andsponges and we propose a new general protocol for the determination of bSi insediments that minimizes the methodological bias in bSi determination.

Automated summary

The Coastal and Continental Margin Zones (CCMZs) are responsible for 40% of the total burial flux of biogenic silica (bSi) in the world ocean. However, accurately determining the bSi content in marine sediments remains a challenge. This study examines sediments in the CCMZs of East China seas and proposes a new method using boron-digestion to accurately measure the bSiO(2)% content.