Anaerobic oxidation of methane in coastal sediment from Guishan Island (Pearl River Estuary), South China Sea |
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| Authors: | Zijun Wu Huaiyang Zhou Xiaotong Peng Nan Jia Yuhong Wang Linxi Yuan |
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| Institution: | (1) State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200 092, China;(2) Institute of Polar Environment, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230 026, China;(3) National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA |
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| Abstract: | The concentrations of CH4, SO42−, σCO2 and the carbon isotope compositions of ΣCO2 and CH4 in the pore-water of the GS sedimentary core collected from Guishan Island (Pearl River Estuary), South China Sea, were determined.
The methane concentration in the pore-water shows dramatic changes and sulfate concentration gradients are linear at the base
of the sulfate reduction zone for the station. The carbon isotope of methane becomes heavier at the sulfate-methane transition
(SMT) likely because of the Raleigh distillation effect; 12CH4 was oxidized faster than 13CH4, and this caused the enrichment of residual methane δ
13C and δ
13C-ΣCO2 minimum. The geochemical profiles of the pore-water support the existence of anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM), which
is mainly controlled by the quality and quantity of the sedimentary organic matter. As inferred from the index of δ
13C-TOC value and TOC/TN ratio, the organic matter is a mix of mainly refractory terrestrial component plus some labile alga
marine-derived in the study area. A large amount of labile organic matter (mainly labile alga marine-derived) is consumed
via the process of sedimentary organic matter diagenesis, and this reduces the amount of labile organic matter incorporated into
the base of the sulfate reduction zone. Due to the scarcity of labile organic matter, the sulfate will in turn be consumed
by its reaction with methane and therefore AOM takes place. Based on a diffussion model, the portion of pore-water sulfate
reduction via AOM is 58.6%, and the percentage of ΣCO2 in the pore-water derived from AOM is 41.4%. Thus, AOM plays an important role in the carbon and sulfur cycling in the marine
sediments of Pearl River Estuary. |
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| Keywords: | Anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) sulfate reduction pore-water South China Sea |
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