Project: Collaborative Research: RAPID: Extreme disturbances/perturbations to coastal deposition systems

NSF Award Abstract:
This project will take advantage of the passage of Hurricane Ida across the northern Gulf of Mexico shelf in August, 2021 to study important aspects of the cycling of silica in coastal sediments. In coastal systems, water column primary productivity is dominated by diatoms, a group of phytoplankton which produce a shell of amorphous biogenic silica. This biogenic silica can either be buried in its original unaltered form or undergo chemical reactions that convert it to aluminosilicate minerals (e.g. marine clays). This latter process is important in global chemical budgets for many elements, including carbon. One of the factors that influences whether silicon is buried as biogenic silica or converted to aluminosilicates may be the amount of oxygen in the sediments. Storms mix the ocean waters and can add oxygen to sediments in shallow water, potentially changing the silica balance. The investigators collected sediment samples in early August, 2021, two weeks before Hurricane Ida. Sampling through the year after the storm will allow them to test whether storms affect silica cycling. This project will support an early-career investigator and undergraduate student researchers.

Tropical and subtropical coastal deposition systems sequester 25-40% of the global silica sink, a disproportionately large impact relative to their area. In the northern Gulf of Mexico seasonal water column stratification may impact how sedimentary biogenic silica is processed and preserved by limiting oxygen injections into the benthos, seasonally driving biogenic silica burial efficiency. Hurricane Ida moved through the Mississippi Delta and adjacent Louisiana shelf at the end of August 2021. Thirteen days prior to Hurricane Ida’s landfall in Port Fourchon, LA, in August 2021, the team collected sediment cores at 3 sites in the topset delta sediment between the Southwest Pass (major Mississippi River distributary) and Cocodrie, LA; all sites experienced Category 4 hurricane conditions from Ida with maximum sustained winds of 130 knots (67 m/s). Ida, a much stronger storm than either Hurricanes Harvey or Nate in 2017, likely introduced oxygen into the sediment of the proximal coastal zone, perhaps enough to turn most of the top meter or so of the sediment column oxic. The investigators hypothesize that the storm-induced change in redox and diagenetic conditions initially favored burial of biogenic silica rather than an authigenic aluminosilicate. Using a multi-proxy approach, this project will analyze how this major storm event altered biogenic silica burial over the course of ten months.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.