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Using radium to measure water mass age provided estimates that were longer than those obtained with other methods, long enough to allow Iniparib to grow within estuaries such as those in Waquoit Bay during late spring, early summer. At other times of year temperature, nutrient supply, light availability (and perhaps grazing) limited primary production, even though there was enough time for phytoplankton to grow. These results suggest that radium-derived age models, which are similar to artificial tracer-based approaches, may be a very useful method for studying the role of hydrodynamics on estuarine ecology.
1. Introduction
Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) has the potential to transport large amounts of trace elements and nutrients into estuarine systems (Charette and Buesseler, 2004, Dulaiova et al., 2010, Kelly and Moran, 2002, Null et al., 2012, Sanders et al., 2012 and Su et al., 2011). SGD is described as any water flow which passes through the sediments into the coastal ocean regardless of composition or driving force (Moore, 2010). SGD thus includes both recirculated saline and fresh meteoric groundwater. Globally, fresh SGD is estimated to supply only a small fraction of fresh water to the coastal zone relative to river flow (Burnett et al., 2006). However, fresh groundwater may be highly enriched in dissolved species relative to surface waters. Similarly, saline SGD (recirculated sea water) has the potential to become enriched in nutrients from sediments, transporting them to adjacent waterways (Moore, 2010 and Santos et al., 2009).