Table of Contents

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

Tritium Concentrations from GEOTRACES 2013 Eastern Pacific Zonal Transect cruise (TN303).

Tritium samples were obtained by transfer from NISKIN bottles to cleaned and baked 1 liter flint glass bottles fitted with polyseal caps (Lott and Jenkins 1998). On shore, approximately 500 ml of the sample is transferred under an argon atmosphere to a pre-cleaned 1 liter aluminosilicate glass flask and degassed (quantitatively removing all dissolved helium) and stored for a minimum of 6 months in a cosmic-ray sheltered environment for 3-He regrowth (Clarke, Jenkins et al. 1976). The tritiugenic 3-He is harvested and analyzed with a mass spectrometer (Lott and Jenkins 1998). The overall uncertainty is estimated from a combination of measurement counting statistics, variation in cosmogenic production rates, and uncertainty in the running standard.

References:
Clarke, W. B., W. J. Jenkins and Z. Top (1976). "Determination of tritium by spectrometric measurement of 3He." International Journal of Applied Radiation and Isotopes 27: 515-525.

Lott, D. E. and W. J. Jenkins (1998). "Advances in the analysis and shipboard processing of tritium and helium samples." International WOCE Newsletter 30: 27-30.

Additional columns (pressure, temperature, salinity, latitude, longitude) provided in original data are included for reference only. All quality flags follow CCHDO/WOCE conventions.

BCO-DMO Processing Note: modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO and GEOTRACES naming conventions.

Additional GEOTRACES Processing:
As was done for the GEOTRACES-NAT data, 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: cruise_id, EXPOCODE,SECT_ID, STNNBR, CASTNO, GEOTRC_EVENTNO, GEOTRC_SAMPNO, GEOTRC_INSTR, SAMPNO, GF_NO, BTLNBR, BTLNBR_FLAG_W, DATE_START_EVENT, TIME_START_EVENT, ISO_DATETIME_UTC_START_EVENT, EVENT_LAT, EVENT_LON, DEPTH_MIN, DEPTH_MAX, BTL_DATE, BTL_TIME, BTL_ISO_DATETIME_UTC, BTL_LAT, BTL_LON, ODF_CTDPRS, SMDEPTH, FMDEPTH, BTMDEPTH, CTDPRS, CTDDEPTH.

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 and ODF_Bottle datasets. Non-bottle parameters, including those from GeoFish tows, Aerosol sampling, and McLane Pumps, were taken from the TN303 Event Log (version 30 Oct 2014). Where applicable, pump information was taken from the PUMP_Nuts_Sals dataset.

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.

From the NSF Award Abstract
The mission of the International GEOTRACES Program (https://www.geotraces.org/), of which the U.S. chemical oceanography research community is a founding member, is "to identify processes and quantify fluxes that control the distributions of key trace elements and isotopes in the ocean, and to establish the sensitivity of these distributions to changing environmental conditions" (GEOTRACES Science Plan, 2006). In the United States, ocean chemists are currently in the process of organizing a zonal transect in the eastern tropical South Pacific (ETSP) from Peru to Tahiti as the second cruise of the U.S.GEOTRACES Program. This Pacific section includes a large area characterized by high rates of primary production and particle export in the eastern boundary associated with the Peru Upwelling, a large oxygen minimum zone that is a major global sink for fixed nitrogen, and a large hydrothermal plume arising from the East Pacific Rise. This particular section was selected as a result of open planning workshops in 2007 and 2008, with a final recommendation made by the U.S.GEOTRACES Steering Committee in 2009. It is the first part of a two-stage plan that will include a meridional section of the Pacific from Tahiti to Alaska as a subsequent expedition.

This award provides funding for management of the U.S.GEOTRACES Pacific campaign to a team of scientists from the University of Southern California, Old Dominion University, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The three co-leaders will provide mission leadership, essential support services, and management structure for acquiring the trace elements and isotopes samples listed as core parameters in the International GEOTRACES Science Plan, plus hydrographic and nutrient data needed by participating investigators. With this support from NSF, the management team will (1) plan and coordinate the 52-day Pacific research cruise described above; (2) obtain representative samples for a wide variety of trace metals of interest using conventional CTD/rosette and GEOTRACES Sampling Systems; (3) acquire conventional JGOFS/WOCE-quality hydrographic data (CTD, transmissometer, fluorometer, oxygen sensor, etc) along with discrete samples for salinity, dissolved oxygen (to 1 uM detection limits), plant pigments, redox tracers such as ammonium and nitrite, and dissolved nutrients at micro- and nanomolar levels; (4) ensure that proper QA/QC protocols are followed and reported, as well as fulfilling all GEOTRACES Intercalibration protocols; (5) prepare and deliver all hydrographic-type data to the GEOTRACES Data Center (and US data centers); and (6) coordinate cruise communications between all participating investigators, including preparation of a hydrographic report/publication.

Broader Impacts: The project is part of an international collaborative program that has forged strong partnerships in the intercalibration and implementation phases that are unprecedented in chemical oceanography. The science product of these collective missions will enhance our ability to understand how to interpret the chemical composition of the ocean, and interpret how climate change will affect ocean chemistry. Partnerships include contributions to the infrastructure of developing nations with overlapping interests in the study area, in this case Peru. There is a strong educational component to the program, with many Ph.D. students carrying out thesis research within the program.

Figure 1. The 2013 GEOTRACES EPZT Cruise Track. [click on the image to view a larger version]

The biogeochemical cycling of trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) in the marine environment is an important research area within the context of global change that motivates the International GEOTRACES program. Some trace elements are known to play potentially important roles as micronutrients in biological cycling, particularly in regard to enzymatic and catalytic processes in the marine environment. Radioisotopes, transient tracers, and noble gases are valuable tracers of these and related processes, and of the ocean?s interaction with the atmosphere and the solid earth, which in turn play a role in shaping many trace element distributions within the ocean.

According to the GEOTRACES Science Plan, the guiding mission of the GEOTRACES program is "to identify processes and quantify fluxes that control the distributions of key trace elements and isotopes in the ocean". The key observational strategy for GEOTRACES is an internationally-coordinated global-scale ocean survey of key TEIs. The second US GEOTRACES section, set for the Eastern South Pacific in 2013, is aimed at the characterization of key processes in an oxygen minimum zone (OMZ), as well as a major abyssal hydrothermal plume extending westward from the East Pacific Rise.

To help achieve these goals, with support from this grant, a research team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will collaborate with other GEOTRACES investigators on the Eastern South Pacific expedition to measure a suite of tracers useful for interpreting the rest of the synoptic TEI data. Specifically, the team will make measurements of the noble gases, helium isotopes, tritium, and radiocarbon include in order to: (1) quantify ventilation, circulation, and diapycnal mixing in the OMZ to enable estimation of fluxes and transformation rates of key TEIs; (2) determine upwelling rates in the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) over a range of timescales to constrain the fluxes of biogeochemically important properties; (3) estimate hydrothermal fluxes of key TEIs using 3He as a flux gauge, and also use 3He as a measure of downstream dilution in the hydrothermal plume; (4) use radiocarbon to estimate abyssal remineralization rates for key TEIs; and (5) probe for evidence of off-axis contribution of hydrothermal processes to TEI distribution. The collective effort will allow marine geochemists to understand mechanistically and quantitatively how a variety of physical, chemical, and biological processes join to determine the distribtuion of TEIs in the ocean.

It has been argued that anthropogenic influence on the global cycles of many elements is emerging as significant. As outlined in the International GEOTRACES Science Plan, the broader impacts of this activity include both an important "baseline snapshot" of the biogeochemical state of the oceanic environment, and a quantitative improvement in the characterization and understanding of important processes in the marine environment. Both of these build a foundation for improved models and quantitative predictions of the oceanic response and role in global change and climate, particularly with anthropogenic forcing. For example, recent evidence of "ocean deoxygenation" has profound implications for marine biologic response. In particular, the evolving state of marine OMZs represents an important biogeochemical "climate canary". A key benefit of diagnosing trace metal dynamics and response to changing redox conditions is the improvement in prognostic capabilities of coupled ocean-atmosphere biogeochemical models for global change.

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.