| ABSTRACT Barium (Ba) is a trace element which occurs predominantly as barite mineral (BaSO4) in the marine environment. Previous work suggests that barite concentrations are related to the organic carbon flux and marine biological debris in the water column suggesting a direct or indirect involvement in the marine biological cycling. In addition, barite has a high preservation rate (~30%) in sediments and it is less affected by early diagenesis than other proxies for productivity such as carbonates (~10%) and organic carbon (~1%), for example. Therefore, Ba is considered an excellent proxy for ocean (paleo)productivity. However, correlating barite to productivity involves some caveats. Specifically, the post-depositional formation of barite in oxic... |
