From soil to sea: sources and transport of organic carbon traced by tetraether lipids in the monsoonal Godavari River, India

Kirkels, Frédérique M. S. A.; Zwart, Huub M.; Usman, Muhammed O.; Hou, Suning; Ponton, Camilo; Giosan, Liviu; Eglinton, Timothy I.; Peterse, Francien

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3979-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3979-2022

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3979-2022

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

Articles | Volume 19, issue 17

Research article

|

01 Sep 2022

Research article |

| 01 Sep 2022

From soil to sea: sources and transport of organic carbon traced by tetraether lipids in the monsoonal Godavari River, India

Frédérique M. S. A. Kirkels, Huub M. Zwart, Muhammed O. Usman, Suning Hou, Camilo Ponton, Liviu Giosan, Timothy I. Eglinton, and Francien Peterse

Data sets

Branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers, crenarchaeol and geochemical parameters in soils, SPM and riverbed sediments in the Godavari River basin (India) Frédérique M. S. A. Kirkels, Huub Michel Zwart, Muhammed Ojoshogu Usman, and Francien Peterse https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.934712

Glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers in a Holocene sediment core (NGHP-01-16A) in front of the Godavari River in the Bay of Bengal (India) Frédérique M. S. A. Kirkels, Muhammed Ojoshogu Usman, Suning Hou, Camilo Ponton, and Francien Peterse https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.934701

Isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (isoGDGT) lipids in soils, SPM, and riverbed sediments in the Godavari Basin (India) Frédérique M. S. A. Kirkels, Huub Michel Zwart, Muhammed Usman Ojoshogu, and Francien Peterse https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.946817

Global soil and peat branched GDGT compilation dataset Emily Dearing Crampton-Flood, Jessica E. Tierney, Francien Peterse, Frédérique M. S. A. Kirkels, and Jaap SSinninghe Damsté https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.907818

Short summary

Soil organic carbon (SOC) that is transferred to the ocean by rivers forms a long-term sink of atmospheric CO₂ upon burial on the ocean floor. We here test if certain bacterial membrane lipids can be used to trace SOC through the monsoon-fed Godavari River basin in India. We find that these lipids trace the mobilisation and transport of SOC in the wet season but that these lipids are not transferred far into the sea. This suggests that the burial of SOC on the sea floor is limited here.