Benthic fluxes and early diagenesis processes in Adriatic Sea.
F. Spagnoli; G. Bartholini; P. Giordano;
During the last decades various researches in the Adriatic and
Ionian Sea allowed the individuation of different area
characterized by various early diagenesis environments that
generate dissolved fluxes at the sediment-water interface with
different intensity.
North of the Po River a thin and discontinuous band of
terrigenous fine carbonate sediment and with different
reactivity of organic matter produces benthic flues extremely
variable in functions of the fresh organic matter entered by the
main rivers
In front of the Po River a limited area, with high
sedimentation rate and high continental and autochthonous
organic matter inputs, generates high nutrient benthic fluxes.
In the western Adriatic sediments are characterised by
progressive southward decrease of sedimentation rate and
reactive organic matter that generate decreasing benthic
fluxes. The central Adriatic Sea bottom sediment area is
characterized by prevalently carbonate sediments and low
fluxes of nutrients due to little organic and inorganic inputs
and to precipitation of authigenic mineral.
In the Meso-Adriatic and South Adriatic Depression low
sedimentation rates and strongly reworked organic and
inorganic matter produce very low benthic nutrient fluxes.
In Ionian Sea slope sediments are carachterized by very lo
particulate imputs and by negative fluxes of DIC acting in this
way as CO2 traps while basin sedimts show higher benthic
fluxes due to increses of organic matter inputs.
2013 - Abstract in rivista
Mineralogical magazine (Online) 77 (2013). doi:10.1180/minmag.2013.077.5.19
Keywords: Adriatic Sea