Dimethylsulphide (DMS) has been measured in the water of the Weddell Sea during the austral summer 1988-1989. In the Summer Surface Water, which generally contained a maximum at 20-50 m depth, the concentrations were extremely high, up to 12 000 ng l-1 DMS, but showed a significant spatial variability. Data from the central part of the Weddell Sea show a steep gradient downwards, and below about 200 m depth, in the Weddell Sea Deep Water, concentrations were below the detection limit of 1 ng l-1. The high-density Ice Shelf Water, when flowing down the continental slope, brings DMS down to the Weddell Sea Bottom Water in significant amounts before its eventual decay.
Continental margin sediments receive most of the particulate organic carbon (POC) deposited on the global seafloor, making them crucial locations in the carbon cycle. However, the complex environments in coastal oceans make it challenging to predict the fate of sedimentary organic carbon (OC) in these areas. Here we use data from 21 sites in the Baltic Sea, representing different biological and physiochemical regimes, to explore controls on sedimentary OC cycling. To this end, we combine in situ measured benthic fluxes of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC; proxy for OC oxidation) with data on sediment properties. In the Gulf of Bothnia, low sedimentary OC oxidation capacities (yearly DIC flux divided by sedimentary POC inventory) were likely caused by a large fraction of terrestrial material in the POC pool, indicated by low sedimentary chlorophyll a content and high (> 10) carbon:nitrogen ratios. The highest OC oxidation capacities were measured at shallow, permanently oxic sites in the Baltic Proper, where bioturbation likely stimulates OC oxidation. The other sites in the Baltic Proper and all stations in the Gulf of Finland displayed increasing OC oxidation capacities with increasing normalised water depth (station depth divided by maximal depth in the basin). This pattern suggests that substantial quantities of POC are shuttled, through repeated cycles of resuspension-redeposition, from shallow erosion-transport (ET) areas to deep accumulation (A) areas. This interpretation was supported by decreasing sediment age and increasing sedimentary inventories of POC and chlorophyll a with normalised water depth. Our calculations indicate that particle shuttling redistributes almost half of the deposited export production from ET areas to A areas in the Baltic Proper, and that substantial amounts of terrestrial organic material are transported through particle shuttling to the deeper parts of the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia. Depositional setting and POC origin can thus be central factors in predicting the distribution and fate of OC in coastal and shelf sediments.