Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information
• Funding

Dataset includes delta 15N of nitrate (NO3) measurements from the GT10 and GT11 (KN199-04 and KN204-01) U.S. GEOTRACES North Atlantic Transect cruises.

Sampling:
Full depth and super station samples were collected from the ship's rosette. Samples were filtered through 0.8/0.45 um acropak500 filter cartridges into triple-rinsed 60 mL HDPE bottles. Demi station samples were collected from the GEOTRACES Go-Flo rosette. Samples were filtered through 0.2 um acropak capsule filters into triple-rinsed 60 mL HDPE bottles. Each sample was collected in triplicate. Samples were frozen at -20 C immediately and stored frozen until analysis.

Analysis:
Samples were analyzed for nitrate d15N and d18O using the denitrifier method (Sigman et al., 2001; Casciotti, et al., 2001, with technical updates described by McIlvin and Casciotti, 2011). Nitrate isotope reference materials USGS32, USGS34, and USGS35 were used to calibrate d18O and USGS32 and USGS34 to calibrate d15N. Each sample was analyzed 2-6 times. Mean and standard deviations are reported for each sample. All samples were analyzed on a DeltaPLUS XP isotope ratio mass spectrometer, with custom-built inlet described in McIlvin and Casciotti, 2011.

Where possible (concentrations exceeded 2 uM), samples and standards were analyzed in 20 nanomole aliquots. When NO3- concentrations were below 2 uM, samples were injected in maximum volume (10 mL) and calibrated using interpolations between standard curves of 5 and 20 nano moles NO3-. Some samples contained nitrate concentrations lower than the typical analytical window (300 nM NO3-), but were analyzed nonetheless. Samples analyzed with concentrations below 0.3 uM are were flagged as "low concentration". These samples contained a subset with major ion peak areas (m/z 44) less than 1 volt-second, which are flagged at "low area". Two of these samples are flagged as having elevated d18O-NO3 values relative to their d15N-NO3 values. The flagged samples should be treated with caution.

This version (16 March 2013) has not been thoroughly intercalibrated with data from the Sigman Lab. Currently, there exists no detachable d15N offset between the datasets. However, Casciotti d18O data are approximately 0.6 permil higher than Sigman d18O data.

Processing:
Raw data were calibrated to USGS standards analyzed 6x with each batch of samples. The measured values of these reference materials were used to calibrated the measured d15N and d18O values to the atmospheric N2 and VSMOW reference scales (McIlvin and Casciotti, 2011).

References:
McIlvin, M., and K. L. Casciotti. 2011. Technical updates to the bacterial method for nitrate isotopic analyses. Analytical Chemistry 83: 1850-1856.

BCO-DMO Processing Notes:
- Modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions.
- Separated original date field into month, day, and year.
- Replaced asterisks in the flag columns with the text "low_area" or "low_concentration". "no_flag" added for unflagged data.
- Replaced blanks with 'nd' to indicate 'no data'.
- Corrected event numbers of KN199-04 station 6 cast 1, station 7 cast 6, and station 9 cast 3 to be consistent with those in the event log and bottle files, per approval by PI. (29-April-2013)

Additional GEOTRACES Processing:
After the data were submitted to the International Data Management Office, BODC, the office noticed that important identifying information was missing in many datasets. With the agreement of BODC and the US GEOTRACES lead PIs, BCO-DMO added standard US GEOTRACES information, such as the US GEOTRACES event number, to each submitted dataset lacking this information. To accomplish this, BCO-DMO compiled a 'master' dataset composed of the following parameters: station_GEOTRC, cast_GEOTRC (bottle and pump data only), event_GEOTRC, sample_GEOTRC, sample_bottle_GEOTRC (bottle data only), bottle_GEOTRC (bottle data only), depth_GEOTRC_CTD (bottle data only), depth_GEOTRC_CTD_rounded (bottle data only), BTL_ISO_DateTime_UTC (bottle data only), and GeoFish_id (GeoFish data only). This added information will facilitate subsequent analysis and inter comparison of the datasets.

Bottle parameters in the master file were taken from the GT-C_Bottle_GT10, GT-C_Bottle_GT11, ODF_Bottle_GT10, and ODF_Bottle_GT11 datasets. Non-bottle parameters, including those from GeoFish tows, Aerosol sampling, and McLane Pumps, were taken from the Event_Log_GT10 and Event_Log_GT11 datasets. McLane pump cast numbers missing in event logs were taken from the Particulate Th-234 dataset submitted by Ken Buesseler.

A standardized BCO-DMO method (called "join") was then used to merge the missing parameters to each US GEOTRACES dataset, most often by matching on sample_GEOTRC or on some unique combination of other parameters.

If the master parameters were included in the original data file and the values did not differ from the master file, the original data columns were retained and the names of the parameters were changed from the PI-submitted names to the standardized master names. If there were differences between the PI-supplied parameter values and those in the master file, both columns were retained. If the original data submission included all of the master parameters, no additional columns were added, but parameter names were modified to match the naming conventions of the master file.

See the dataset parameters documentation for a description of which parameters were supplied by the PI and which were added via the join method.

Much of this text appeared in an article published in OCB News, October 2008, by the OCB Project Office.

The first U.S. GEOTRACES Atlantic Section will be specifically centered around a sampling cruise to be carried out in the North Atlantic in 2010. Ed Boyle (MIT) and Bill Jenkins (WHOI) organized a three-day planning workshop that was held September 22-24, 2008 at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The main goal of the workshop, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. GEOTRACES Scientific Steering Committee, was to design the implementation plan for the first U.S. GEOTRACES Atlantic Section. The primary cruise design motivation was to improve knowledge of the sources, sinks and internal cycling of Trace Elements and their Isotopes (TEIs) by studying their distributions along a section in the North Atlantic (Figure 1). The North Atlantic has the full suite of processes that affect TEIs, including strong meridional advection, boundary scavenging and source effects, aeolian deposition, and the salty Mediterranean Outflow. The North Atlantic is particularly important as it lies at the "origin" of the global Meridional Overturning Circulation.

It is well understood that many trace metals play important roles in biogeochemical processes and the carbon cycle, yet very little is known about their large-scale distributions and the regional scale processes that affect them. Recent advances in sampling and analytical techniques, along with advances in our understanding of their roles in enzymatic and catalytic processes in the open ocean provide a natural opportunity to make substantial advances in our understanding of these important elements. Moreover, we are motivated by the prospect of global change and the need to understand the present and future workings of the ocean's biogeochemistry. The GEOTRACES strategy is to measure a broad suite of TEIs to constrain the critical biogeochemical processes that influence their distributions. In addition to these "exotic" substances, more traditional properties, including macronutrients (at micromolar and nanomolar levels), CTD, bio-optical parameters, and carbon system characteristics will be measured. The cruise starts at Line W, a repeat hydrographic section southeast of Cape Cod, extends to Bermuda and subsequently through the North Atlantic oligotrophic subtropical gyre, then transects into the African coast in the northern limb of the coastal upwelling region. From there, the cruise goes northward into the Mediterranean outflow. The station locations shown on the map are for the "fulldepth TEI" stations, and constitute approximately half of the stations to be ultimately occupied.

Figure 1. The proposed 2010 Atlantic GEOTRACES cruise track plotted on dissolved oxygen at 400 m depth. Data from the World Ocean Atlas (Levitus et al., 2005) were plotted using Ocean Data View (courtesy Reiner Schlitzer). [click on the image to view a larger version]

Hydrography, CTD and nutrient measurements will be supported by the Ocean Data Facility (J. Swift) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and funded through NSF Facilities. They will be providing an additional CTD rosette system along with nephelometer and LADCP. A trace metal clean Go-Flo Rosette and winch will be provided by the group at Old Dominion University (G. Cutter) along with a towed underway pumping system.

The North Atlantic Transect cruise began in 2010 with KN199 leg 4 (station sampling) and leg 5 (underway sampling only) (Figure 2).

KN199-04 Cruise Report (PDF)

Figure 2. The red line shows the cruise track for the first leg of the US Geotraces North Atlantic Transect on the R/V Knorr in October 2010.  The rest of the stations (beginning with 13) will be completed in October-December 2011 on the R/V Knorr (courtesy of Bill Jenkins, Chief Scientist, GNAT first leg). [click on the image to view a larger version]

The section completion effort resumed again in November 2011 with KN204-01A,B (Figure 3).

KN204-01A,B Cruise Report (PDF)

Figure 3. Station locations occupied on the US Geotraces North Atlantic Transect on the R/V Knorr in November 2011.  [click on the image to view a larger version]

Data from the North Atlantic Transect cruises are available under the Datasets heading below, and consensus values for the SAFe and North Atlantic GEOTRACES Reference Seawater Samples are available from the GEOTRACES Program Office: Standards and Reference Materials

ADCP data are available from the Currents ADCP group at the University of Hawaii at the links below:
KN199-04   (leg 1 of 2010 cruise; Lisbon to Cape Verde)
KN199-05   (leg 2 of 2010 cruise; Cape Verde to Charleston, NC)
KN204-01A (part 1 of 2011 cruise; Woods Hole, MA to Bermuda)
KN204-01B (part 2 of 2011 cruise; Bermuda to Cape Verde)

GEOTRACES is a SCOR sponsored program; and funding for program infrastructure development is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

GEOTRACES gained momentum following a special symposium, S02: Biogeochemical cycling of trace elements and isotopes in the ocean and applications to constrain contemporary marine processes (GEOSECS II), at a 2003 Goldschmidt meeting convened in Japan. The GEOSECS II acronym referred to the Geochemical Ocean Section Studies To determine full water column distributions of selected trace elements and isotopes, including their concentration, chemical speciation, and physical form, along a sufficient number of sections in each ocean basin to establish the principal relationships between these distributions and with more traditional hydrographic parameters;

* To evaluate the sources, sinks, and internal cycling of these species and thereby characterize more completely the physical, chemical and biological processes regulating their distributions, and the sensitivity of these processes to global change; and

* To understand the processes that control the concentrations of geochemical species used for proxies of the past environment, both in the water column and in the substrates that reflect the water column.

GEOTRACES will be global in scope, consisting of ocean sections complemented by regional process studies. Sections and process studies will combine fieldwork, laboratory experiments and modelling. Beyond realizing the scientific objectives identified above, a natural outcome of this work will be to build a community of marine scientists who understand the processes regulating trace element cycles sufficiently well to exploit this knowledge reliably in future interdisciplinary studies.

Expand "Projects" below for information about and data resulting from individual US GEOTRACES research projects.