Meagan Eagle Gonneea

Isotopic, geophysical and biogeochemical investigation of submarine groundwater discharge: IAEA-UNESCO intercomparison exercise at Mauritius Island

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) into a shallow lagoon on the west coast of Mauritius Island (Flic-en-Flac) was investigated using radioactive ((3)H, (222)Rn, (223)Ra, (224)Ra, (226)Ra, (228)Ra) and stable ((2)H, (18)O) isotopes and nutrients. SGD intercomparison exercises were carried out to validate the various approaches used to measure SGD including radium and radon measurements, seepage rate measurements using manual and automated meters, sediment bulk conductivity and salinity surveys. SGD measurements using benthic chambers placed on the floor of the Flic-en-Flac Lagoon showed discharge rates up to 500 cm/day. Large variability in SGD was observed over distances of a few meters, which were attributed to different geomorphological features. Deployments of automated seepage meters captured the spatial and temporal variability of SGD with a mean seepage rate of 10 cm/day. The stable isotopic composition of submarine waters was characterized by significant variability and heavy isotope enrichment and was used to predict the contribution of fresh terrestrially derived groundwater to SGD (range from a few % to almost 100%). The integrated SGD flux, estimated from seepage meters placed parallel to the shoreline, was 35 m(3)/m day, which was in reasonable agreement with results obtained from a hydrologic water balance calculation (26 m(3)/m day). SGD calculated from the radon inventory method using in situ radon measurements were between 5 and 56 m(3)/m per day. Low concentrations of radium isotopes observed in the lagoon water reflected the low abundance of U and Th in the basalt that makes up the island. High SGD rates contribute to high nutrients loading to the lagoon, potentially leading to eutrophication. Each of the applied methods yielded unique information about the character and magnitude of SGD. The results of the intercomparison studies have resulted a better understanding of groundwater-seawater interactions in coastal regions. Such information is an important pre-requisite for the protection and management of coastal freshwater resources.

Hydrologic Controls on Nutrient Cycling in an Unconfined Coastal Aquifer

Groundwater is an important pathway for terrestrially derived nutrients to enter the coastal ocean. In coastal aquifers, groundwater transits the subterranean estuary, a region of sharp gradients in redox conditions and the availability of reactants. In one such system (Waquoit Bay, MA, USA), we observed more than a doubling of the groundwater-associated nitrogen flux to surface water during the summer compared to winter due primarily to a reduction in nitrogen attenuation within the subterranean estuary. Because marine groundwater intrusion has been shown to increase during the summer, we calculate a greater contribution of recycled nutrients from the coastal ocean to the subterranean estuary. We posit that the longer residence times within the subterranean estuary during the winter, which would result from reduced marine groundwater circulation, allow oxygen depletion of the groundwater, creating a favorable environment for important nutrient transformations such as nitrification, denitrification, and anammox. The timing of nutrient delivery to the coastal ocean has important implications for coastal marine ecology including the potential development of harmful algal blooms.

Twentieth century warming of the tropical Atlantic captured by Sr‐U paleothermometry

Coral skeletons are valuable archives of past ocean conditions. However, interpretation of coral paleotemperature records is confounded by uncertainties associated with single element-ratio thermometers, including Sr/Ca. A new approach, Sr-U, uses U/Ca to constrain the influence of Rayleigh fractionation on Sr/Ca [DeCarlo et al., 2016]. Here, we build on the initial Pacific Porites Sr-U calibration to include multiple Atlantic and Pacific coral genera from multiple coral reef locations spanning a temperature range of 23.15-30.12 °C. Accounting for the wintertime growth cessation of one Bermuda coral, we show that Sr-U is strongly correlated with the average water temperature at each location (r2 = 0.91, P < 0.001, n = 19). We applied the multi-species spatial calibration between Sr-U and temperature to reconstruct a 96-year long temperature record at Mona Island, Puerto Rico using a coral not included in the calibration. Average Sr-U derived temperature for the period 1900-1996 is within 0.12 °C of the average instrumental temperature at this site and captures the 20th century warming trend of 0.06 °C per decade. Sr-U also captures the timing of multi-year variability but with higher amplitude than implied by the instrumental data. Mean Sr-U temperatures and patterns of multi-year variability were replicated in a second coral in the same grid box. Conversely, Sr/Ca records from the same two corals were inconsistent with each other and failed to capture absolute sea temperatures, timing of multi-year variability or the 20th century warming trend. Our results suggest that coral Sr-U paleothermometry is a promising new tool for reconstruction of past ocean temperatures.

Author Correction: Accuracy and Precision of Tidal Wetland Soil Carbon Mapping in the Conterminous United States

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.

Environmental Controls, Emergent Scaling, and Predictions of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Fluxes in Coastal Salt Marshes

Coastal salt marshes play an important role in mitigating global warming by removing atmospheric carbon at a high rate. We investigated the environmental controls and emergent scaling of major greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) in coastal salt marshes by conducting data analytics and empirical modeling. The underlying hypothesis is that the salt marsh GHG fluxes follow emergent scaling relationships with their environmental drivers, leading to parsimonious predictive models. CO2 and CH4 fluxes, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), air and soil temperatures, well water level, soil moisture, and porewater pH and salinity were measured during May–October 2013 from four marshes in Waquoit Bay and adjacent estuaries, MA, USA. The salt marshes exhibited high CO2 uptake and low CH4 emission, which did not significantly vary with the nitrogen loading gradient (5–126 kg · ha 1 · year ) among the salt marshes. Soil temperature was the strongest driver of both fluxes, representing 2 and 4–5 times higher influence than PAR and salinity, respectively. Well water level, soil moisture, and pH did not have a predictive control on the GHG fluxes, although both fluxes were significantly higher during high tides than low tides. The results were leveraged to develop emergent power law-based parsimonious scaling models to accurately predict the salt marsh GHG fluxes from PAR, soil temperature, and salinity (Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency = 0.80–0.91). The scaling models are available as a user-friendly Excel spreadsheet named Coastal Wetland GHG Model to explore scenarios of GHG fluxes in tidal marshes under a changing climate and environment.