Oxygen flux in surface sediments (Table 1)

This variability is driven largely by seasonal changes of processes occurring in the surface waters (Smith, 1987; Deuser and Ross, 1980; Billett et al., 1983 doi:10.1038/302520a0).

The coupling of the deep sea floor environment to the surface waters is the result of rapid vertical transport of particulate matter through the water column (Honjo, 1982 doi:10.1126/science.218.4575.883; Deuser et al., 1986 doi:10.1016/0198-0149(86)90120-2; Lampitt, 1985 doi:10.1016/0198-0149(85)90034-2), affording only limited time for degradation before arrival at the sea floor. Studies in the Pacific Ocean have indicated that temporal variations in particulate organic carbon fluxes to the sea floor are accompanied by temporal variability in sediment oxygen demand by as much as a factor of four (Smith and Baldwin, 1984; Smith, 1987).