Monsoon-controlled export fluxes to the interior of the Arabian Sea

As a part of the US-JGOFS Arabian Sea Process Study (ASPS), we deployed a mooring array consisting of 16 Mark-7G time-series sediment traps on five moorings, each in the mesopelagic and interior depths in the western Arabian Sea set along a transect quasi-perpendicular to the Omani coast. The array was deployed for 410 days to cover all monsoon and inter-monsoon phases at 4.25-, 8.5- or 17-day open-close intervals, all of which were synchronized at 17-day periods. Total mass flux, fluxes of organic, inorganic carbon, biogenic Si and lithogenic Al (mg m−2 day−1) were obtained from samples representing 667 independent periods. The average total mass fluxes estimated in the interior depth along this sediment trap array at Mooring Stations 1–5 (MS-1–5) during 1994-5 ASPS were 147, 235, 221, 164 and 63 mg m−2 day−1, respectively. Mass fluxes during the southwest (SW) Monsoon were always larger than during the northeast (NE) Monsoon at all divergent zone stations, but the difference was insignificant at the oligotrophic station, MS-5. Four major pulses of export flux events, two each at NE Monsoon and SW Monsoon, were observed in the divergent zone; these events dominated in quantity production of the annual mass flux, but did not dominate temporally. Export pulses were produced by passing eddies and wind-curl events, but the direct processes to produce individual export blooms at each station were diversified and highly complex. The onset of these pulses was generally synchronous throughout the divergent zone. Export pulses associated with specific biogeochemical signatures such as the ratio of elevated biogenic Si to inorganic carbon indicate a supply of deep water to the euphotic layer in varying degrees. The variability of mass fluxes at the oligotrophic station, MS-5, also represented both monsoon events, but with far less amplitude and without notable export pulses.