Depositional controls and budget of organic carbon burial in fine-grained sediments of the North Sea – the Helgoland Mud Area as a natural laboratory

Müller, Daniel; Liu, Bo; Geibert, Walter; Holtappels, Moritz; Sander, Lasse; Miramontes, Elda; Taubner, Heidi; Henkel, Susann; Hinrichs, Kai-Uwe; Bethke, Denise; Dohrmann, Ingrid; Kasten, Sabine

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-2541-2025

Articles | Volume 22, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-2541-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-2541-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 11

Research article

|

05 Jun 2025

Research article |

| 05 Jun 2025

Depositional controls and budget of organic carbon burial in fine-grained sediments of the North Sea – the Helgoland Mud Area as a natural laboratory

Daniel Müller, Bo Liu, Walter Geibert, Moritz Holtappels, Lasse Sander, Elda Miramontes, Heidi Taubner, Susann Henkel, Kai-Uwe Hinrichs, Denise Bethke, Ingrid Dohrmann, and Sabine Kasten

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-2541-2025-supplement

Data sets

Oxygen micro profiles of multi-corer sediment cores taken during RV Heincke cruise HE595 in the Helgoland Mud Area, SE German Bight D. Müller et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.970325

Pore-water dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and its stable carbon isotopic composition (δ13C) for sediment cores taken during RV Heincke cruise HE575 and HE595 in the Helgoland Mud Area, German Bight D. Müller et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.969033

Solid-phase porosity, grain sizes, TOC, 210Pbxs and 137Cs data for sediment cores taken during RV Heincke cruise HE575 and HE595 in the Helgoland Mud Area, SE German Bight D. Müller et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.968969

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Short summary

Coastal and shelf sediments are the most important sinks for organic carbon (OC) on Earth. We produced a new high-resolution sediment and porewater data set from the Helgoland Mud Area (HMA), North Sea, to determine which depositional factors control the preservation of OC. The burial efficiency is highest in an area of high sedimentation and terrigenous OC. The HMA covers 0.09 % of the North Sea but accounts for 0.76 % of its OC accumulation, highlighting the importance of the depocentre.