Origin, transport, and retention of fluvial sedimentary organic matter in South Africa's largest freshwater wetland, Mkhuze Wetland System

Gensel, Julia; Humphries, Marc Steven; Zabel, Matthias; Sebag, David; Hahn, Annette; Schefuß, Enno

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-2881-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-2881-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-2881-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 11

Research article

|

13 Jun 2022

Research article |

| 13 Jun 2022

Origin, transport, and retention of fluvial sedimentary organic matter in South Africa's largest freshwater wetland, Mkhuze Wetland System

Julia Gensel, Marc Steven Humphries, Matthias Zabel, David Sebag, Annette Hahn, and Enno Schefuß

Data sets

Bulk organic matter composition, n-alkane distribution patterns, and compound-specific stable isotope compositions of modern surface sediments and plants of South Africa's largest freshwater wetland. Julia Gensel, Marc Humphries, Matthias Zabel, David Sebag, Annette Hahn, and Enno Schefuß https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.935586

Short summary

We investigated organic matter (OM) and plant-wax-derived biomarkers in sediments and plants along the Mkhuze River to constrain OM's origin and transport pathways within South Africa's largest freshwater wetland. Presently, it efficiently captures OM, so neither transport from upstream areas nor export from the swamp occurs. Thus, we emphasize that such geomorphological features can alter OM provenance, questioning the assumption of watershed-integrated information in downstream sediments.