Sediment texture, erodibility, and composition in the Northern Gulf of Mexico and their potential impacts on hypoxia formation

Abstract

A region of hypoxic waters has formed annually over the past several decades in the northern Gulf of Mexico. This has motivated the studies of mechanisms controlling the development of hypoxia. Both field and laboratory approaches were used to examine sediment texture, erodibility, and composition. Sediment texture analyses show that grain size relates to the proximity to the Mississippi and Atchafalaya river deltas and to the remnants of shifts in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya deltaic lobes. Temporal variability in erodibility relates to seasonal weather patterns, with more energetic wave conditions in winter and spring setting up an active bottom layer that increases erodibility, compared to quiescent summers that allow for seabed consolidation. The amount of eroded material is fairly low until shear stress levels in the bottom boundary layer exceed 0.4 Pa. An organically enriched fluff layer was found at the sediment–water interface, which is highly erodible under low shear stress levels. Eroded volatile suspended solids (a proxy for organic material) vs. increasing levels of shear stress revealed a distinct pattern at all sample areas; higher concentrations of organic material were eroded at the lowest (0.01 Pa) and highest (0.6 Pa) applied shear stresses, and there was a higher ratio of the volatile to total suspended solids at 0.01 Pa. Based on erodibility experiments and modeling data analysis, the low shear stress levels during the quiescent periods in summer were sometimes high enough to resuspend this fluff layer, but not underlying sediment, thereby potentially facilitating the development of bottom water hypoxia.