The Marine Silicon Cycle: a journey from pole to pole
12:00pm - 1:00pm /
Friday 18th November 2016
/ Venue: Jane Herdman Lecture Theatre Jane Herdman Building
Type: Seminar /
Category: Department
- 01517950184
- Jamie
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Kate Hendry (University of Bristol) - The supply, distribution and sinks of nutrients are all key factors in controlling marine biological production, and so the drawdown of carbon from the atmosphere by algae in the surface oceans. One important nutrient - dissolved silicon - is essential for the growth of siliceous organisms such as diatoms, which contribute towards nearly half of the export of carbon in the form of organic matter from the ocean surface to the seafloor. Diatoms are so efficient at taking up dissolved silicon that they have effectively stripped it from near-surface oceans, meaning that they are reliant on near-coastal areas and regions of strong upwelling such as the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. Understanding how dissolved silicon cycles around the oceans is key to understanding diatom productivity and carbon uptake. I will be talking about some of the many outstanding questions surrounding the marine silicon cycle, and how we can go about addressing these gaps in our knowledge. Specifically, I will discuss how isotope geochemistry can reveal insights into the growth of siliceous organisms and seawater cycling - both today and in the past – with case studies reaching from the Southern Ocean to the Arctic.