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Reduction Rates of Sedimentary Mn and Fe Oxides: An Incubation Experiment with Arctic Ocean Sediments

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Abstract

To test the hypothesis that manganese- and iron-reducing bacteria in marine sediments respond rapidly to seasonal pulses of fresh organic carbon settling to the sea floor, we amended wet metal oxide–rich and metal oxide–poor sediments from the Beaufort Sea, Canadian Arctic, with organic carbon in the form of shrimp powder and incubated them at room temperature. Neither Mn nor Fe was released to the aqueous phase from unamended metal oxide–rich sediment during a 41-day incubation, but both elements were released from sediment aliquots amended with organic carbon. Dissolved Mn appeared in the aqueous phase after a lag period of 2 days or less and reached levels as high as 600 μmol l−1 before levelling out. The release of dissolved Mn was accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of solid-phase reducible Mn. Dissolved Fe did not appear until 2 weeks into the incubation and only after the concentration of dissolved Mn had levelled out. For low concentrations of amended organic carbon (0.3%), the kinetics of Mn reduction fit a second-order rate law with a rate constant k = 2 × 10−3 g μmol−1 day−1, but at intermediate and high organic carbon concentrations (0.7 and 1.3%), the reduction kinetics was better described by a pseudo-first-order rate law with a rate constant k′ = 1.6 × 10−1 day−1. A pulse of organic carbon settling to the sea floor can trigger reduction of Mn and Fe oxides within a few days in strongly seasonal sedimentary environments, such as in the Arctic.

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Acknowledgments

This study is a contribution to the Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study (CASES) and was funded by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). C.M. acknowledges scholarships from NSERC, the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University, and the GEOTOP Research Center. GEOTOP is funded by a grant from the Fonds Québecois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies (FQRNT). We thank the crew of the CCGS Amundsen for their impeccable assistance at sea. We also thank David Burdige and Joel Kostka for their insightful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. Finally, we dedicate this paper to the memory of John W. Morse, a mentor and friend to A.M. and an inspiration to all of us.

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  1. Cédric Magen

    Present address: Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, 177 N. Woodward Avenue, Tallahassee, FL, 36306-4320, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, Montréal, QC, H3A 2A7, Canada

    Cédric Magen, Alfonso Mucci & Bjorn Sundby

  2. Institut des Sciences de la Mer, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Rimouski, QC, G5L 3A1, Canada

    Bjorn Sundby

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  1. Cédric Magen
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Correspondence to Cédric Magen.

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Magen, C., Mucci, A. & Sundby, B. Reduction Rates of Sedimentary Mn and Fe Oxides: An Incubation Experiment with Arctic Ocean Sediments. Aquat Geochem 17, 629–643 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-010-9117-9

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