Biogenic barium usually occurs as discrete microcrystals of the refractory mineral, barite (BaSO4). It may be found in the water column (in the tests of both live and dead planktonic species), in benthic foraminifera, in coral skeletons, and in the underlying sediment. The earliest observations of enriched barium (usually identified as barium concentrations exceeding typical shale or sediment concentrations), and attributed to biological processes, are the work of Revelle et al. (1955) working in the equatorial divergence of the Pacific Ocean. Dehairs et al. (1980) and Bishop (1988) showed that barite (BaSO4) was precipitated in decaying suspended marine particulate matter (particularly diatoms) in oceanic waters. Some studies have suggested that biogenic barium may occur in heavy mineral granules functioning as statoliths in statocyst organs and within protozoans such as Xenophyophoria and Loxodes. Biogenic barium distribution and concentration have been studied in benthic...
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Shimmield, G. (2015). Biogenic Barium. In: Harff, J., Meschede, M., Petersen, S., Thiede, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_42-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_42-2
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Biogenic Barium- Published:
- 05 March 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_42-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_42-1