Item

Abstract

Biotic and abiotic processes, climate change, regional and global environmental issues, greenhouse gas emission, stratospheric ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity, desertification, freshwater availability, and air quality are all inter-linked. Understanding the driving forces and feedback mechanisms of these processes is essential for understanding the evolution and future of the earth, the environment, and society. It is important to realize that the ocean's carbon cycle plays an important role in the global element fluxes. In the following, we look at two major processes representing a sink for carbon in the ocean: 1) sedimentation of biogenic carbonate from productive surface waters, and 2) carbon sequestration by methane oxidation above gashydrate and other sites of methane seepage. We point out the necessity to monitor and understand the submarine environments at the interface between the geo-and biosphere.