Benthic fluxes and pore water studies from sediments of the central equatorial north Pacific: Nutrient diagenesis

Benthic exchange rates of radon-222, oxygen, nitrate, ammonia, and silica were determined using an in situ benthic flux chamber and by modeling pore water profiles at three sites in the central equatorial north Pacific. A comparison of these results reveals several artifacts of pore water collection and processing. Whole-core squeezer (WCS) silica profiles are influenced by adsorption during squeezing and yield calculated fluxes that are too large. Pore water ammonia profiles show near-surface maxima that appear to be an artifact of core recovery. Near-surface nitrate measurements may also be suspect due to oxidation of the ammonia released, causing anomalously large nitrate gradients that yield overestimates of benthic exchange rates. Fluxes of radon, oxygen, and nitrate calculated from WCS profiles agree with chamber fluxes to better than 40% at all sites. Fluxes of silica and nitrate calculated from pore water data collected at coarser scales (> 1 cm intervals) agree within 50% with chamber measurements. Previous flux estimates from pore water and solid phase models established at two of these sites using data collected 6 years prior to this work differ from these chamber measurements, in some cases by up to a factor of 5 due to modeling uncertainties and temporal variabilities in the delivery of organic matter to a site. The benthic oxygen consumption rates measured at these sites are similar (they average 0.36 ± 0.03 mmol m −2 day −1) and are consistent with a trend of oxygen uptake vs. water depth previously established by others on a transect through the oligotrophic north Pacific gyre.