Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2026, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (3): 25-38.doi: 10.11978/2025108CSTR: 32234.14.2025108

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A comparison of two non-instrumental methodologies for determining carbonate content in marine sediments*

ZHANG Qiang1,2(), ZHAO Zhongwei1, SU Xiang1, ZHAO Xuan1,3, LI Wei2   

  1. 1 Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 511458, China
    2 State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 511458, China
    3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2025-07-16 Revised:2025-09-05 Online:2026-05-10 Published:2026-05-28
  • Contact: ZHANG Qiang. email: zhangqiang210@scsio.ac.cn
  • Supported by:
    Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation(2022A1515010932); Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation(2026A1515012253); National Natural Science Foundation of China(42576068); National Natural Science Foundation of China(42076073); IODP-China

Abstract:

Carbonates constitute a critical component of marine sediments, and accurate determination of their content is fundamental to understanding global shifts in carbonate deposition and dissolution within the oceans, as well as the influence of carbonate system evolution on climate change. The gasometric method and the weight-loss method are typical non-instrumental approaches to carbonate quantification; however, their precision and reliability in the analysis of marine sediment carbonates remain insufficiently evaluated. This study first investigates the solubility of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas in hydrochloric acid (HCl) solutions, and finds that under typical temperature and pressure conditions, the solubility of CO2 gas in the ~18% HCl solution (20 mL) within the gasometric device ranges from 0.3% to 21.5%, with an average of 9%. Subsequently, using both the gasometric method and an improved weight-loss method, we conducted a comparative analysis of carbonate content in prepared samples with varying calcium carbonate concentrations and in deep-sea sedimentary sequence samples. The experimental results reveal that, due to CO2 dissolution in HCl, the gasometric method induces an absolute error in carbonate concentration analysis ranging from 0.3% to 18.2% (mean = 4.4%), with a standard deviation of 5.4%. In contrast, the improved weight-loss method yields errors of only 0.2% to 2.4% (mean = 1.0%) and a substantially lower standard deviation of 1.2%. These findings demonstrate that the accuracy and stability of the improved weight-loss method for carbonate quantification are superior to those of the gasometric method. Moreover, a comparison of carbonate content results for samples derived from IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program) Site U1553, obtained by both methods in this study and by coulometric titration, reveals that the improved weight-loss method more accurately reproduces the carbonate content variations observed at Site U1553, further validating its reliability and applicability for determining carbonate content in deep-sea sediments.

Key words: carbonate, gasometric method, weight-loss method, measurement error, deep-sea sediments

CLC Number: 

  • P736.21