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Science 8 May 1981:
Vol. 212. no. 4495, pp. 659 - 661
DOI: 10.1126/science.212.4495.659
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Articles

Calcite Dissolution: An in situ Study in the Panama Basin

ROBERT C. THUNELL 1, ROBIN S. KEIR 2, and SUSUMU HONJO 2

1 Department of Geology and Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine Biology and Coastal Research, University of South Carolina, Columbia 29208
2 Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543

The results of an in situ study of calcite dissolution in the Panama Basin indicate that the rate of dissolution in the water column increases suddenly below a water depth of about 2800 meters. This coincides with the depth at which the calcium carbonate content of surface sediments begins to decrease rapidly or the sedimentary lysocline. Since this level of increased dissolution both in the water column and on the sea floor does not appear to be related to the transition from supersaturation to undersaturation with respect to carbonate, there may be a kinetic origin for the lysocline in this region.

Submitted on June 9, 1980
Revised on November 18, 1980


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Sediment accumulation rates from Deep Tow profiler records and DSDP Leg 70 cores over the Galapagos spreading centre.
N. C. Mitchell (1998)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 131, 199-209
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)