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Rivers discharge significant quantities of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to the ocean, yet biomarker and isotope studies suggest that terrigenous DOC makes up only a small amount DOC in the ocean. One of the removal pathways proposed for riverine DOC is sorption to marine sediments. This process is chemically selective, but whether sorption alters the isotopic composition of riverine DOC is unknown. Because there is isotopic variability across different organic compound classes, sorptive removal of DOC could also alter the isotopic composition of DOC. As a first step in addressing this question, we examined phase partitioning and isotopic composition of a riverine DOC standard in the presence of marine sediment particles. In a series of controlled experiments, the standard was mixed with marine sediment in 35‰ NaCl solution, then separated into particulate and dissolved phases for analyses of mass, δ¹³C, and ∆¹⁴C of organic carbon (OC). Across a range of sediment OC to DOC mass ratios (from < 0.1 to ~ 3), we found that: (1) sediment sorbed 0.8 μg OC per mg of sediment; and (2) DOC compounds with higher ∆¹⁴C and lower δ¹³C values relative to the bulk DOC was preferentially removed from solution. In effect, mixing a riverine DOC standard with marine sediment resulted in increased ∆¹⁴C and decreased δ¹³C of the DOC that remained in solution. These results show that sorption of DOC to sediment can alter the isotopic content of riverine DOC.

We report marine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations, and DOC Δ¹⁴C and δ¹³C in seawater collected from the West Indian Ocean during the GO‐SHIP I07N cruise in 2018. We find bomb¹⁴C in DOC from the upper 1,000 m of the water column. There is no significant change in ∆¹⁴C of DOC in deep water northward, unlike that of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), suggesting that transport of deep water northward is not controlling the¹⁴C age of DOC. Variability of DOC ∆¹⁴C, including high values in the deep waters, is more pronounced than in other oceans, suggesting that dissolution of surface derived particulate organic carbon is a source of modern carbon to deep DOC in the West Indian Ocean. Low δ¹³C are present at two of the five stations studied, suggesting a source of low δ¹³C DOC, or additional microbial utilization of deep DOC.

Radiocarbon (∆¹⁴C) measurements suggest the deep ocean stores marine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) on millennial timescales. The mechanisms that mediate this residence time remain unconstrained. Solid‐phase extraction (SPE) has emerged as a widely used technique to isolate DOC for subsequent analyses. We present SPE‐DOC concentrations and ∆¹⁴C values for three GO‐SHIP Repeat Hydrography transects, spanning the Pacific, Southern and Indian Oceans. Comparisons of SPE‐DOC with total DOC ∆¹⁴C values are used with an isotopic mass‐balance to estimate the size of the refractory DOC (RDOC) reservoir and changes in RDOC relative abundance in the global ocean. Estimated RDOC abundance is similar across the deep Pacific and Indian Oceans (average = 93 ± 5%, 35 ± 6 μM), whereas RDOC in the surface ocean varies as a function of total DOC concentration. Our results fill in spatial SPE‐DOC ∆¹⁴C sampling gaps for the global ocean, and our mass‐balance RDOC estimates are consistent with previous observations.

We report marine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations, and DOC Δ¹⁴C and δ¹³C values in seawater collected from the Southern Ocean and eastern Pacific GOSHIP cruise P18 in 2016/2017. The aging of¹⁴C in DOC in circumpolar deep water northward from 69°S to 20°N was similar to that measured in dissolved inorganic carbon in the same samples, indicating that the transport of deep waters northward is the primary control of¹⁴C in DIC and DOC. Low DOC ∆¹⁴C and δ¹³C measurements between 1,200 and 3,400 m depth may be evidence of a source of DOC produced in nearby hydrothermal ridge systems (East Pacific Rise).