ALKOR AL561

The aim of the project APOC is to understand how particulate organic carbon
(POC) cycling contributes to carbon sequestration in the North Sea and how
this ecosystem service is compromised and interlinked with global change and
a range of human pressures include fisheries (pelagic fisheries, bottom
trawling), resource extraction (sand mining), sediment management (dredging
and disposal of dredged sediments) and eutrophication. We will apply a broad
range of analytical techniques to assess how sedimentation regimes, origin
and reactivity of POC as well as biogeochemical processes in the seabed
control the remineralization and burial of POC and how these have changed
over the last century. Sediment of the North Sea is accumulating
preferentially in the Skagerrak, with sedimentation rates of up to 1 cm per
year and POC contents of up to 3 %. Our proposed research cruise aims to
recover undisturbed sediment from high accumulation sites in the
Skagerrak/Kattegat and to subsample sediment/porewater at high resolution in
order to investigate sedimentation transport processes, origin of
sediment/POC and mineralization processes over the last 100- 200 years.
Moreover, the actual processes of sedimentation and respiration in the water
column and benthic layer will be addressed by sampling with CTD and Lander
devices.