Characterization of particulate organic matter in the Lena River Delta and adjacent nearshore zone, NE Siberia – Part 2: Radiocarbon inventories

Abstract

Particulate organic matter (POM) derived from permafrost soils and transported by the Lena River represents a quantitatively important terrestrial carbon pool exported to Laptev Sea sediments (next to POM derived from coastal erosion). Its fate in a future warming Arctic, i.e. its remobilization and remineralization after permafrost thawing as well as its transport pathways to and sequestration in marine sediments is currently under debate. We present the first radiocarbon (14C) data set of surface water POM within the Lena Delta sampled in summers 2009–2010 and spring 2011 (n = 30 samples). The bulk Δ14C concentrations varied from −55 to −391‰ translating into 14C ages of 395 to 3920 yr BP. We further estimated the fraction of phytoplankton-derived POM to our samples based on (1) particulate organic carbon to particulate nitrogen ratios (POC:PN) and (2) on the stable carbon isotope (Δ13C) composition of our samples. Assuming that this phytoplankton POM has a modern 14C signature we inferred the 14C concentrations of the soil-derived POM fractions. The results ranged from −258 to −768‰ (i.e. 2340 to 11 700 14C yr BP) for the POC:PN-based scenario and from −191 to −704‰ (i.e. 1640 to 9720 14C yrs BP). Despite the limitations of our approach, the estimated Δ14C concentrations of the soil-derived POM fractions seem to reflect the heterogeneous 14C signal of the Lena River catchment soils covering a range from Holocene to Pleistocene ages. We therefore propose a typical isotopic signature of riverine soil-derived POM with a Δ13C of −26.6 ± 1.1‰ deduced from our data of Lena Delta soils and published values, and a Δ14C concentration of −362 ± 123‰ deduced from our Δ13C-based estimates. These data can help to improve the dual-carbon-isotope simulations used to quantify contributions from riverine soil POM, Pleistocene ice complex POM from coastal erosion, and marine POM in Siberian shelf sediments.