Plutonium and210Pb distributions in northeast Atlantic sediments: subsurface anomalies caused by non-local mixing

The depth distributions of210Pb and239,240Pu measured in a suite of box cores collected from water depths of 4000–5000 m in the northeast Atlantic Ocean exhibit pronounced subsurface maxima caused by sediment reworking by benthic infauna. Small-scale spatial heterogeneity in bioturbation rates is indicated by large differences in tracer profiles from duplicate cores separated only by a few centimeters.210Pb and239,240Pu activity distributions from each subcore exhibit a high degree of correlation, and most tracer profiles exhibit one or more subsurface maxima. One-dimensional, “biodiffusion” analogue models do not adequately simulate the principal features of this data set. However, an inverse “conveyer belt” mixing model which simulates subsurface egestion (or a functionally equivalent process) of surficial material which is enriched both in organic debris and radioactive tracers can reproduce the subsurface tracer maxima. Single-event and continuous subsurface egestion models have been formulated and solved for different “feeding rates” and background biodiffusive fields. The single-event model provides a better fit to the data and, in particular, ensures the observed, high degree of correlation between the210Pb and239,240Pu activity profiles, regardless of the different tracer input functions. The most likely candidate responsible for subsurface tracer egestion is a large infaunal worm of the phylum Sipunculida which dominates the biomass below a depth of 3 cm.