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The ocean is a critical component of the Earth's climate system, and the iron cycle plays a key role in ocean primary productivity and marine ecosystem function. Iron limitation has been known to limit the efficiency of the biological carbon pump.
Iron is a key micronutrient in primary productivity, [49] and a limiting nutrient in the Southern ocean, eastern equatorial Pacific, and the subarctic Pacific referred to as High-Nutrient, Low-Chlorophyll (HNLC) regions of the ocean. [50] Iron in the ocean cycles between plankton, aggregated particulates (non-bioavailable iron), and dissolved ...
Iron can also be oxidized by marine microbes under conditions that are high in iron and low in oxygen. [53] Iron can enter marine systems through adjoining rivers and directly from the atmosphere. Once iron enters the ocean, it can be distributed throughout the water column through ocean mixing and through recycling on the cellular level. [54]
In each cycle, the chemical element or molecule is transformed and cycled by living organisms and through various geological forms and reservoirs, including the atmosphere, the soil and the oceans. It can be thought of as the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles (is turned over or moves through) the biotic compartment and the abiotic ...
Ocean iron fertilization is an example of a geoengineering technique that involves intentional introduction of iron-rich deposits into oceans, and is aimed to enhance biological productivity of organisms in ocean waters in order to increase carbon dioxide (CO 2) uptake from the atmosphere, possibly resulting in mitigating its global warming effects.
The degradation of organic matter through respiration in the modern ocean is facilitated by different electron acceptors, their favorability based on Gibbs free energy law, and the laws of thermodynamics. [2] This redox chemistry is the basis for life in deep sea sediments and determines the obtainability of energy to organisms that live there.
The isotopically heavy iron in the deep ocean suggests that the iron cycle is dominated by the abiotic, non-reductive release of iron, via desorption or dissolution, from particles. [38] Isotopic analyses similar to the one above are utilized throughout all of the world's oceans to better understand regional variability in the processes which ...
Marine biogenic calcification is the production of calcium carbonate by organisms in the global ocean.. Marine biogenic calcification is the biologically mediated process by which marine organisms produce and deposit calcium carbonate minerals to form skeletal structures or hard tissues.