GEOTRACES sessions at Ocean Sciences 2024

There is a very interesting programme at Ocean Sciences 2024
(18-23 February 2024, New Orleans, Lousiana, USA)

Submit an abstract before 13 September 2023, 23:59 EDT/03:59 +1 GMT!

List of GEOTRACES or GEOTRACES-related sessions
(scroll down to read the session descriptions):

*E005 – Heading South: Contrasting Biogeochemical Cycling of Trace Elements and Isotopes from Tropical to Southern Ocean Water
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/194812

Gregory A Cutter, Old Dominion University, Ocean and Earth Sciences, Norfolk, United States, Jessica N Fitzsimmons, Texas A&M University, Oceanography, College Station, TX, United States, Benjamin S Twining, Bigelow Lab for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, United States and Isuri Kapuge, University of Delaware, Newark, United States

*CT002 – Geochemical tracers of ocean processes
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/198041

Lauren Kipp, Rowan University, Glassboro, Chris T Hayes, University of Southern Mississippi, Stennis Space Center, MS, United States, Erin Black, University of Rochester and Thomas S Weber, University of Rochester, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rochester, NY, United States
Session Proposal

*OB004 – Biogeochemical Cycling in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and Beyond
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/195273

Tim Conway, University of South Florida, College of Marine Science, St. Petersburg, Angela N Knapp, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States, Juan Carlos Herguera, Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada, Ensenada, Mexico and Jessica N Fitzsimmons, Texas A&M University, Oceanography, College Station, TX, United States

*OB019 – Speciation and Bioavailability of Trace Metals in the Marine Environment
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/195612

Kristen N Buck, Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Corvallis, OR, United States, Ana Aguilar-Islas, University of Alaska Fairbanks, College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, Fairbanks, United States, Randelle M Bundy, University of Washington Seattle Campus, School of Oceanography, Seattle, United States, Maeve C Lohan, University of Southampton, Ocean and Earth Sciences, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, United Kingdom and Machakalai Rajesh Kumar, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India
Session Proposal

*OB024 – Towards Standardization in Aquatic Science Research: Measurement Protocols for Enhanced Accuracy, Repeatability, and Uncertainty Estimation
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/196197

Chelsea Lopez, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, Joaquin Ernesto Chaves, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Easton, MD, United States and Aimee Renee Neeley, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States
Session Proposal

*OB022 – The influence of boundary currents on exchange processes between continental margins and the open ocean and biogeochemical consequences
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/198113

Anh Pham, University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, United States, Christian Briseño-Avena, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Biology and Marine Biology, Wilmington, United States, Tamaryn Morris, South African Weather Service, Pretoria, South Africa and Alexis Floback, University of Southern California, Department of Biological Sciences, Los Angeles, United States

*OB023 – Time-series observations of ocean biogeochemistry: what we have learned and what we will learn.
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/prelim.cgi/Session/195074

Maki Noguchi Aita (JAMSTEC Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), Makio Honda (JAMSTEC Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), Rut Pedrosa Pamies (Marine Biological Laboratory), Angelicque E White (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

Session Descriptions:

*HE005 – Heading South: Contrasting Biogeochemical Cycling of Trace Elements and Isotopes from Tropical to Southern Ocean Waters

The cycling of biologically-essential trace elements like iron and zinc, and predominantly scavenged elements like lead and thorium, is driven by complex interactions of physical transport and mixing, spatially-variable sources and sinks, and species-specific biological uptake and regeneration. Nowhere are these controls more evident than at transitions between the ultra-oligotrophic subtropical gyres, the highly productive waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and the HNLC waters surrounding Antarctica. Sampling across these regimes allows the processes affecting the cycling of trace elements and isotopes to be revealed. Indeed, programs such as SOCCOM, GEOTRACES, SOLAS, and GO-SHIP have used sampling and transects in these transitional waters of the Southern Ocean. This session invites presentations on processes affecting trace elements and isotopes, methods to study them, and modeling approaches to explore mechanisms and rates of biogeochemical processes that are revealed in waters near the Southern Ocean.

*CT002 – Geochemical tracers of ocean processes

International programs such as GEOTRACES have greatly improved our understanding of the basin-scale distributions of carbon, nutrients, and trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) in the ocean. However, data gaps still exist around the sources, sinks, and internal cycling processes that set the observed distributions. Naturally occurring radioactive isotopes can be applied as geochemical tracers to help constrain the rates of TEI input, removal, and transport, while stable isotopes are exploited as tracers of sources and of internal cycling. Such processes may include the supply of aerosols to the ocean, export of material from the surface ocean, particle dynamics and fluxes of sinking particulate material, sources to the water column from the early diagenesis of sediments, sources from submarine groundwater discharge, biological uptake of nutrients and nutrient-like chemical species, and more. This session will be of interest to investigators applying geochemical tracers in the study of any of these processes, using observational and/or modeling approaches. It is hoped that synthesis activities combining different TEIs or combining models with observations will emerge as a product of this session.

*OB004 – Biogeochemical Cycling in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and Beyond

The Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are dynamic, interconnected, marginal seas that host the complete range of marginal ocean environments, including coastal shelves, eutrophic coastal systems, oligotrophic open waters, anoxic basins, dust gradients, hydrocarbon seeps, and hydrothermal/volcanic activity. A panoply of margin fluxes (atmospheric, riverine, submarine groundwater, etc), the Mississippi, productivity gradients, periodic algal blooms, and pollution events all drive regional spatial and temporal variability in the biogeochemistry of nutrients and trace elements and isotopes (TEIs), making the region an ideal natural laboratory for testing biogeochemical hypotheses. Teleconnections between the Caribbean, the Gulf, the Gulf Stream, and the Atlantic provide unique opportunities for investigating how marginal environments transform and modify supply of nutrients and TEIs to open ocean waters. We invite contributions that characterize variability in the biogeochemistry/geochemistry of the Gulf and the Caribbean, and especially the linkages between these seas and the Atlantic. Suggested submissions may include: water column nutrient, TEI, or geochemical distributions and fluxes; biogeochemical rate measurements, regional biogeochemistry, and descriptions of circulation that impact biogeochemical dynamics. This session aims to bring together interested international investigators to highlight findings and to identify areas of common interest and collaborative opportunities to help inform future planning in national/international programs.

*OB019 – Speciation and Bioavailability of Trace Metals in the Marine Environment

The trace metals manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, and cadmium play important roles in the productivity and composition of marine phytoplankton communities. Some of these metals serve as limiting nutrients to phytoplankton in open ocean regions, others can substitute for essential metals that are less abundant, and still others can be toxic at elevated concentrations. The bioavailability of trace metals to phytoplankton and microorganisms is largely governed by their chemical form, or speciation, in seawater. Insights from recent studies have highlighted the range of strategies that microorganisms employ to acquire the metals they need and the interplay between trace metals during phytoplankton growth and decay. However, there is still much left to learn about biogeochemical controls on trace metal bioavailability and how changing ocean conditions may influence trace metal cycling and speciation. This session welcomes submissions from across the field of trace metal biogeochemistry, including temporal and spatial studies of metal speciation from GEOTRACES and other efforts, and experimental or modeling studies that examine feedbacks between microorganisms and trace metal chemistry, interactions between trace metals in natural systems, or the impacts of changing conditions (e.g., pH, oxygen, temperature) on trace metal speciation or bioavailability.

*OB024 – Towards Standardization in Aquatic Science Research: Measurement Protocols for Enhanced Accuracy, Repeatability, and Uncertainty Estimation

Objective: Emphasize the significance of standardized measurement protocols for improving measurement accuracy, repeatability, and uncertainty estimation. We will discuss the importance of community consensus protocols and the role of technological advancements in measurement and computation in achieving this.
Accurate measurements of environmental parameters are essential for advancing scientific knowledge and informing management decisions. However, inconsistencies in measurement protocols, and instrumentation can introduce errors, hindering data comparison and synthesis across studies. The availability of open datasets, from large-scale measurement campaigns (e.g., GEOTRACES, Argo, EXPORTS) to regional citizen science monitoring, necessitates the adoption of standardized measurement protocols and uncertainty metrics. This enables reproducible analyses, reliable model simulations and climate data records, and promotes transparency and data sharing.
This session will focus on the significance of adopting community consensus protocols for measurement standardization in aquatic science research. We invite contributions that explore the challenges and benefits of establishing such protocols and provide examples of their implementation in various fields, discuss the role of technological advances in measurement, such as new sensors, and advocate for the utilization of large datasets, machine learning, and high-performance computing to enhance measurement accuracy, repeatability, and uncertainty estimation. Researchers from all disciplines of aquatic science are encouraged to contribute.

*OB023 – Time-series observations of ocean biogeochemistry: what we have learned and what we will learn.

Ocean time-series monitoring and sampling has provided several scientific and societal insights, such as understanding climate-driven changes in ocean temperature, biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems. Several long-term multi-variable data sets covering the atmosphere’s and ocean’s physics from the surface to the deep layer are international available in data repositories (e,g., OceanSITES, BCO-DMO). However, data sets of water column and seafloor biogeochemistry measurements are not fully sufficient to our understanding of ocean function. For example, there is still a lack of understanding of the relationship between surface primary production, the biological carbon pump, and the carbon requirements of organisms in the deeper layers. Furthermore, long-term data to understand the coupling between biological responses and biogeochemical cycling and increasing environmental multi-stressors, such as global warming, acidification, and anoxia, is essential. In this session, we will emphasize the importance of sustained ocean time-series programs, and discuss the key issues that should be addressed to maintain and enhance ocean observation systems and reduce uncertainties in model predictions, in addition to the knowledge obtained from time-series observations to date, as well as the linkage of various approaches, such as field observations, satellite observations, numerical models, and technological development.

*OB022 – The influence of boundary currents on exchange processes between continental margins and the open ocean and biogeochemical consequences

Continental shelf margins and their adjacent boundary current systems are significant in global budgets of heat, freshwater and biogeochemical properties, and are regions of strong air-sea interactions and frontal instabilities. The transport and exchanges of water masses, heat, nutrients, biogeochemical constituents, and pollutants between ocean margins and the open ocean influence biodiversity, biomass, and biological interactions in marine food webs, which consequently mediate the fate of carbon and element flows. However, understanding these exchanges has been hindered by the “scale gap” between local mixing processes, cross shelf and onshore transport, and interactions with boundary currents. This session explores new approaches to close the scale gap in understanding coast – ocean exchange. We encourage submissions based on empirical observations, numerical and theoretical models that focus on: (1) material exchange in western and eastern boundary current systems; (2) the role of mesoscale and submesoscale circulations in transporting material across isobath barriers; and (3) modeling approaches that bridge the scale gap. We particularly welcome studies that focus on seasonal cycles and inter-annual variability, climate change impacts, extreme events, multiscale processes, trends, and linkages to ecosystems.