An in situ microprofiling instrument for measuring interfacial pore water gradients: methods and oxygen profiles from the North Pacific Ocean
Abstract
An in situ microprofiling instrument has been developed to study the composition of pore waters at the interface of deep-ocean sediments. The device lowers and operates microelectrodes. It has been deployed by free vehicle, at four North Pacific Ocean sites spanning water depths of 1275-5790 m. Oxygen profiles with a vertical resolution of 1 mm, are reported from these deployments. Benthic oxygen fluxes calculated from the in situ gradients range from 0.04 ± 0.02 to 0.14 ± 0.04 μmol cm -2day-1. Microelectrode oxygen measurements in box-cored sediments never precisely duplicated the in situ distributions, especially near the sediment-water interface, where definition of the gradient is most critical to flux determinations.
- Publication:
-
Deep Sea Research A
- Pub Date:
- December 1987
- DOI:
- 10.1016/0198-0149(87)90096-3
- Bibcode:
- 1987DSRA...34.2019R