Marine Chemistry

Seasonal changes of organic carbon in the Pearl River estuary

  • GUO Wei ,
  • YE Feng ,
  • LIAN Zhonglian ,
  • JIA Guodong
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  • 1. Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Laboratory of Marginal Sea Geology, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China;
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
    3. South China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center, State Oceanic Administration, Guangzhou 510300, China

Received date: 2015-08-18

  Online published: 2016-08-04

Supported by

Natural Science Foundation of China (41276072 and 41306102)

Abstract

Seasonal distributions of particulate organic carbon (POC) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations, as well as their sources, transports and mixing behaviors, in the Pearl River estuary (PRE) are reported in this paper. Samples were collected in November 2013, and in February, May and August 2014. The results suggest that the sources of POC were mainly in situ aquatic phytoplankton, and the source of DOC was mainly input from terrigenous organic carbon. However, aquatic phytoplankton might have contributed less to POC in May than in other months due to intensified erosion by high rainfall during May, and terrigenous organic carbon contribution to DOC increased in August. DOC was always the main portion, i.e., higher than POC, in the total organic carbon. The conservative mixing process of riverine and marine organic carbon occurred from the low salinity zone (salinity of 1‰~5‰) near the Humen Outlet to the open sea area out of the PRE. Biological degradation may have played an important role in reducing POC and DOC concentrations in the upper reach of the Humen Outlet. Preferential consumption of fresh phytoplankton organic carbon, reduction of phytoplankton production, and flocculation and sinking of particulate matter might have collectively resulted in the much more reduction of POC than DOC in the upper reach.

Cite this article

GUO Wei , YE Feng , LIAN Zhonglian , JIA Guodong . Seasonal changes of organic carbon in the Pearl River estuary[J]. Journal of Tropical Oceanography, 2016 , 35(4) : 40 -50 . DOI: 10.11978/2015109

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