The AL561 cruise was conducted in the framework of the project APOC (“Anthropogenic impacts on Particulate Organic Carbon cycling in the North Sea”). This collaborative project between GEOMAR, AWI, HEREON, UHH, and BUND is to understand how particulate organic carbon (POC) cycling contributes to carbon sequestration in the North Sea and how this ecosystem service is compromised and interlinked with global change and a range of human pressures include fisheries (pelagic fisheries, bottom trawling), resource extraction (sand mining), sediment management (dredging and disposal of dredged sediments) and eutrophication. The main aim of the sampling activity during AL561 cruise was to recover undisturbed sediment from high accumulation sites in the Skagerrak/Kattegat and to subsample sediment/porewater at high resolution in order to investigate sedimentation transport processes, origin of sediment/POC and mineralization processes over the last 100- 200 years. Moreover, the actual processes of sedimentation and POC degradation in the water column and benthic layer will be addressed by sampling with CTD and Lander devices. In total 9 hydroacoustic surveys (59 profiles), 4 Gravity Corer, 7 Multicorer, 3 Lander and 4 CTD stations were successfully conducted during the AL561 cruise. - (Alkor-Berichte ; AL561)

End-member modelling of bulk grain-size distributions allows the unravelling of natural and anthropogenic depositional processes in salt marshes and quantification of their respective contribution to marsh accretion. The sedimentology of two marshes is presented: (1) a sheltered back-barrier marsh; and (2) an exposed, reinstated foreland marsh. Sedimentological data are supplemented by an age model based on lead-210 decay and caesium-137, as well as geochemical data. End-member modelling of grain-size data shows that marsh growth in back-barrier settings is primarily controlled by the settling of fines from suspension during marsh inundation. In addition, nearby active dunes deliver aeolian sediment (up to 77% of the total sediment accretion), potentially enhancing the capability of salt marshes to adapt to sea-level rise. Growth of exposed marshes, by contrast, primarily results from high-energy inundation and is attributed to two sediment-transport processes. On the seaward edge of the marsh, sedimentation is dominated by coarser-grained traction load, whereas further inland, settling of fine-grained suspension load prevails. In addition, a third, coarse-grained sediment sub-population is interpreted to derive from anthropogenic landreclamation measures, that is material from drainage channels relocated onto the marsh surface. This process contributed up to 34% to the total marsh accretion and terminated synchronously with the end of land reclamation measures. Data suggest that natural sediment supply to marshes alone is sufficient to outpace contemporary sea-level rise in the study area. This underlines the resilience potential of salt marshes in times of rising sea levels. The comparison of grain-size sub-populations with observed climate variability implies that even managed marshes allow for the extraction of environmental signals if natural and anthropogenic sedimentary processes are determined and their relative contribution to bulk sediment composition is quantified. Data series based solely on bulk sediments, however, seem to be of limited use because it is difficult to exclude bias of natural signals by anthropogenic measures.

Dissolved silicate (H4SiO4) is essential for the formation of the opaline skeletal structures of diatoms and other siliceous plankton. A fraction of particulate biogenic silica (bSi) formed in surface waters sinks to the seabed, where it either dissolves and returns to the water column or is permanently buried. Global silica budgets are still poorly constrained since data on benthic bSi cycling are lacking, especially on continental margins. This study describes benthic bSi cycling in the Skagerrak, a sedimentary depocenter for particles from the North Sea. Biogenic silica burial fluxes, benthic H4SiO4 fluxes to the water column and bSi burial efficiencies are reported for nine stations by evaluating data from in-situ benthic landers and sediment cores with a diagenetic reaction-transport model. The model simulates bSi contents and H4SiO4 concentrations at all sites using a novel power law to describe bSi dissolution kinetics with a small number of adjustable parameters. Our results show that, on average, 1100 mmol m-2 yr-1 of bSi rains down to the Skagerrak basin seafloor, of which 50% is released back to overlying waters, with the remainder being buried. Biogenic silica cycling in the Skagerrak is generally consistent with previously reported global trends, showing higher Si fluxes and burial efficiencies than deep-sea sites and similar values compared to other continental margins. A significant finding of this work is a molar bSi-to-organic carbon burial ratio of 0.22 in Skagerrak sediments, which is distinctively lower compared to other continental margins. We suggest that the continuous dissolution of bSi in suspended sediments transported over long distances from the North Sea leads to the apparent decoupling between bSi and organic carbon in Skagerrak sediments.