Potassium isotopic signatures of modern offshore detrital sediments from different climatic regimes and the implications

Potassium isotopes are a novel tracer for continental weathering.Previous K isotope studies on chemical weathering generally targeted weathering profiles under a particular climate region,yet the effects of chemical weathering on K isotopes under different climatic backgrounds remain unclear.Moreover,little is known about the K isotope signatures of modern unconsolidated detrital sediments.Here,we report K isotopic data of surficial seafloor sediments from continental shelves along the east coast of China(ECC),as well as those around the tropical Hainan island in the northern South China Sea.The ECC sediments have a relatively narrow distribution ofδ^(41)K(with reference to NIST3141a)values,which range from(-0.40±0.01)‰to(-0.57±0.04)‰,with an average of(-0.51±0.09)‰.By contrast,δ^(41)K values of Hainan offshore sediments display a larger variation,ranging from(-0.28±0.07)‰to(-0.67±0.02)‰.Theδ^(41)K values of Hainan offshore sediments exhibit negative correlations with the chemical index of alteration(CIA),Al/K,Ti/K,and total iron(FeT),which underlines the control of chemical weathering on K isotopic signatures of detritus inputs into oceans.We also measured Mg isotope compositions for the same samples;interestingly,the variability inδ^(26)Mg of the samples is small(~0.24‰)for all ECC and Hainan offshore sediments,andδ^(26)Mg values do not show clear correlations with indexes of chemical weathering.Our study demonstrates the link between K isotopic variability of detrital sediments and climatic conditions including rainfall intensity,which indicates that K isotopes of the detrital component of marine sediments could be applied to study Earth’s climate in deep time.Theδ^(41)K values of the offshore detrital sediments are significantly less variable than those of pelagic marine sediments,highlighting the importance of distinguishing the effects of diagenesis and neoformation of clay minerals from continental weathering in attempts to study deep-time climate-weathering link by K isotopes in detrital sedimentary records.

High-precision potassium isotope analysis using the Nu Sapphire collision cell(CC)-MC-ICP-MS

This study presents high-precision analyses of stable potassium(K)isotope ratio using the recently-developed,collision-cell multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(CC-MC-ICP-MS,Nu Sapphire).The accuracy of our analyses is confirmed by measuring well-characterized geostandards(including rocks and seawater).Our results are consistent with literature values and a precision of 0.04‰(2SD)has been achieved based on multiple measurements of BCR-2 geostandard over a six-month period.We also evaluate factors that may lead to artificial isotope fractionations,including the mismatches in K concentration and acid molarity between samples and bracketing standards,as well as potential matrices.As the K adsorption capacity of AGW50-X8(200-400 mesh)is reduced with an increasing amount of matrix elements,less than 150µg K was loaded during the column chemistry.To evaluate the potential use of K isotopes as an archive of paleo seawater composition,δ^(41)K values of an international seawater standard(IAPSO),a Mn-nodule(NOD-P-1),and two iron formation standards(FeR-2 and FeR-4)are reported.The δ^(41)K value of IAPSO is consistent with other seawater samples reported previously,further substantiating a homogeneous K isotopic distribution in modern global oceans.The K isotopes in Mn-nodule(NOD-P-1:−0.121±0.013‰)and iron formation samples(FeR-2:−0.538±0.009‰;FeR-4:−0.401±0.008‰)seem to be an effective tracer of their formation genesis and compositional changes of ancient seawater.Our results suggest that high-precision measurements of stable K isotopes can be routinely obtained and open up a large variety of geological applications,such as continental weathering,hydrothermal circulation and alteration of oceanic crust.