Utilization, cycling and vertical transport of particulate organic matter in the coastal marine environment. Final project report, November 15, 1987--May 14, 1992

摘要

This project was funded as part of the California Basin Study (CaBS), a DOE-funded regional program investigating production, cycling, transport, and fate of organic matter, chemical tracers, and pollutants in the Southern California Bight. The study area, adjacent to Los Angeles, was of programmatic interest due to its heavy concentration of energy-related activities, including offshore oil drilling and natural seeps, shipping, nuclear power facilities, and industrial and municipal ocean waste disposal. It was also of scientific interest because the wide continental margin in the region, pot-marked with natural sediment traps in the form of deep basins with restricted inputs and outputs, was ideal for integrating water-column and benthic studies and tracing the fates of in situ production and introduced pollutants. Our role in the CABS Program was to investigate the flux of particulate matter through the water column, emphasizing the relationship between macrozooplankton feeding and particle flux.