The Chemical and Benthos (CAB) component addresses the benthic system with a particular
emphasis on sediment chemical characteristics and the benthic biota, both infaunal and epifaunal.
Our objectives for the 2009 summer field season were:
- To establish baseline data set for benthic infauna and epifauna,
organic carbon and sediment grain size, radioisotopes for down core dating,
as well as measure trace metals in sediments, biota and suspended particles
- To determine the sources, cycles and fate of carbon, selected trace metals
and the role of trace metals on organic carbon dynamics and food web dynamics
on the inner shelf of the Chukchi Sea
Our 2009 sampling effort generated immense amounts of data and samples
for chemical and biological analysis from 48 stations that will be used for
both contemporary and retrospective evaluation of the region.
Project data management is accomplished via the Observations Data Model (ODM)
relational database for the hydrologic sciences, which allows for robust interdisciplinary
analyses of diverse data sets. Preliminary results reveal that sediments contained low or
background values for metals and aliphatic hydrocarbons (except for a few notable exceptions),
and that the northern whelk, Neptunea heros, is a potentially valuable indicator for metals and
organic contaminants. Our field efforts included the deployment of a submersible video system
to survey a wide variety of epibenthic communities. These observations and benthic sampling
reveal that the northeastern Chukchi Sea is a productive and highly complex system that is
characterized by significant spatial heterogeneity in both benthic infaunal and epifaunal
populations.