Deep-water circulation in the North Pacific deduced from Si-O diagrams

Abstract

A simple dissolved silica (Si) and dissolved oxygen (O) diagram method was applied to study the deep-water circulation in the North Pacific and the following results and conclusion have been obtained. In the abyssal water flowing northward in the western Pacific Si increases with a constant ratio of Si to decreasing O(Si/O=−0.30). The water is designated as the main sequence. In the eastern Pacific the Si-O diagram is characteristic of the location and reflects the degrees of mixing with older waters and of alteration due to decomposition of biogenic material. The Bay of Alaska is found to be a great source of silica in the North Pacific and its bottom water spreads out to the central North Pacific north of 40°N, called here the abyssal front. The younger abyssal water in the Aleutian Trench flowing to the eastern North Pacific north of 40°N comes through the north end of the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench instead of the gap in the Emperor Seamounts at about 46°N. The deep water is almost completely homogenized by active isopycnal mixing and advection when the deep water reaches its upper boundary by upwelling in the western North Pacific including the Bering Sea. Thus the high productivity in the Bering Sea is principally caused neither by the direct supply of abyssal water rich in nutrients nor by the extremely active vertical mixing reaching depths greater than 500 m, but it may be caused simply by the shallower upper boundary of the deep water mass in the Bering Sea, from which nutrients are easily transported to the surface.