Reconciling drainage and receiving basin signatures of the Godavari River system

Usman, M. O. et al. (2018) Reconciling drainage and receiving basin signatures of the Godavari River system. Biogeosciences, 15(11), pp. 3357-3375. (doi: 10.5194/bg-15-3357-2018)

Abstract

The modern-day Godavari River transports large amounts of sediment (170 Tg per year) and terrestrial organic carbon (OCterr; 1.5 Tg per year) from peninsular India to the Bay of Bengal. The flux and nature of OCterr is considered to have varied in response to past climate and human forcing. In order to delineate the provenance and nature of organic matter (OM) exported by the fluvial system and establish links to sedimentary records accumulating on its adjacent continental margin, the stable and radiogenic isotopic composition of bulk OC, abundance and distribution of long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs), sedimentological properties (e.g. grain size, mineral surface area, etc.) of fluvial (riverbed and riverbank) sediments and soils from the Godavari basin were analysed and these characteristics were compared to those of a sediment core retrieved from the continental slope depocenter. Results show that river sediments from the upper catchment exhibit higher total organic carbon (TOC) contents than those from the lower part of the basin. The general relationship between TOC and sedimentological parameters (i.e. mineral surface area and grain size) of the sediments suggests that sediment mineralogy, largely driven by provenance, plays an important role in the stabilization of OM during transport along the river axis, and in the preservation of OM exported by the Godavari to the Bay of Bengal. The stable carbon isotopic (δ13C) characteristics of river sediments and soils indicate that the upper mainstream and its tributaries drain catchments exhibiting more 13C enriched carbon than the lower stream, resulting from the regional vegetation gradient and/or net balance between the upper (C4-dominated plants) and lower (C3-dominated plants) catchments. The radiocarbon contents of organic carbon (Δ14COC) in deep soils and eroding riverbanks suggests these are likely sources of "old" or pre-aged carbon to the Godavari River that increasingly dominates the late Holocene portion of the offshore sedimentary record. While changes in water flow and sediment transport resulting from recent dam construction have drastically impacted the flux, loci, and composition of OC exported from the modern Godavari basin, complicating reconciliation of modern-day river basin geochemistry with that recorded in continental margin sediments, such investigations provide important insights into climatic and anthropogenic controls on OC cycling and burial.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This project was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundations (“CAPS LOCK” grant no. 200021-140850 and “CAPS-LOCK2” grant no. 200021-163162). Francien Peterse received funding from NWO-Veni grant (grant no. 863.13.016). Liviu Giosan thanks colleagues and crew from the NGHP-01 expedition for intellectual interactions leading to pursuing work on fluvial–continental margin systems of Peninsular India and to grants from the National Science Foundation (OCE-0841736) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Mcintyre, Dr Cameron
• Authors: Usman, M. O., Kirkels, F. M. S. A., Zwart, H. M., Basu, S., Ponton, C., Blattmann, T. M., Ploetze, M., Haghipour, N., McIntyre, C., Peterse, F., Lupker, M., Giosan, L., and Eglinton, T. I.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre
• Journal Name: Biogeosciences
• Publisher: European Geosciences Union
• ISSN: 1726-4170
• ISSN (Online): 1726-4189
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2018 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Biogeosciences 15(11):3357-3375
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License