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The effect of temperature and salinity on the stable hydrogen isotopic composition of long chain alkenones produced by Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica
1Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Department of Marine Biogeochemistry and Toxicology, P.O. Box 59, 1790 AB, Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands
2Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, P.O. Box 12 01 61, 27 515 Bremerhaven, Germany
Abstract. Two haptophyte algae, Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica, were cultured at different temperatures and salinities to investigate the impact of these factors on the hydrogen isotopic composition of long chain alkenones synthesized by these algae. Results showed that alkenones synthesized by G. oceanica were on average depleted in D by 30 per mil compared to those of E. huxleyi when grown under similar conditions. The fractionation factor, αalkenones-H2O, ranged from 0.760 to 0.815 for E. huxleyi and from 0.741 to 0.788 for G. oceanica. There was no significant correlation of αalkenones-H2O with temperature but a positive linear correlation was observed between αalkenones-H2O and salinity with ~3 per mil change in fractionation per salinity unit. This suggests that salinity can have a substantial impact on the stable hydrogen isotopic composition of long chain alkenones in natural environments and, vice versa, that δD can possibly be used as a proxy to estimate paleosalinity.
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Citation: Schouten, S., Ossebaar, J., Schreiber, K., Kienhuis, M. V. M., Langer, G., and Bijma, J.: The effect of temperature and salinity on the stable hydrogen isotopic composition of long chain alkenones produced by Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica, Biogeosciences Discuss., 2, 1681-1695, 2005. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager
