Carbon Burial Rates in Sediments and a Carbon Mass Balance for the Herbert River Region of the Great Barrier Reef Continental Shelf, North Queensland, Australia

摘要: The largest century scale carbon reservoir in the Herbert River sector of Great Barrier Reef continental shelf is carbonate carbon. This produced by corals, coralline algae, and other benthic organisms, stored on less than 13% area shelf. Maximum organic burial rates (1–28 mol m−2 yr−1) occur within a wind-protected <20 m water depth embayment (<1% shelf), where highest bulk sedimentation (1–12 kg were determined from 210Pb and137 Cs profiles 1–4 cores. Sediment, (OC), (CC) accumulation are very low lagoon slope, most annual productivity (8–15 OC decomposed algal microbial respiration. A mass balance indicated that approximately 1% combined river marine production was preserved across-shelf sedimentation, but 3% mangrove input this small embayment. An model predicted average matter respiration correctly, ratio fixation to (corrected for losses) 1·06.