Recent Organic and Inorganic Carbon Deposition Along and Across the Turkish Shelves.

• Vedat Ediger
• Middle East Technical University Institute of Marine Sciences Pk: 28 33731, Erdemli/Mersin, Turkey.
  E-mail: ediger@ims.metu.edu.tr
• The Regional Workshop on Marine Sciences & Natural Resources 25-26 May 2004.

Abstract

The total inorganic (TIC) and total organic (TOC) carbons were determined in the nearly 600 different sea bottom grab sediments collected last ten years along the Turkish shelves of the Black Sea, Sea of Marmara, Aegean Sea and Mediterranean Sea.

There is a reverse relation between the amounts of total inorganic carbon (TIC) and total organic carbon (TOC) along the entire continental margin of Turkey. The maximum TIC and minimum TOC values were detected at Anamur Bay in Mediterranean Sea, at the Aegean-Dardanel Junction, along the Bosphorus and at western Black Sea respectively. This order of magnitude of the TIC and TOC from eastern Black Sea to eastern Mediterranean Sea probably closely related with the production level of the Seas.

There are no any similarities between the percentage distribution of the TIC and TOC along the shallow (0-50m) waters. The highest TOC content between the 50-100m depths of water of the Black Sea shelf is decreased in the same depth of the Sea of Marmara, Mediterranean and Aegean Seas in respectively. The highest percentages of the TOC contents are nearly same in the shelf areas lying between the 100m and 200m depth of Black Sea and Sea of Marmara. The abundance of the TIC between the 100-200m depths of the shelf areas has reverse order of the seas.

The level of the pollution, coastal type-lithology, the level of the primary production, sea bottom depth-morphology, coastal current systems, and coastal inputs are control the amount of the total carbon deposition along the Turkish shelves.