The effect of sediment-water exchange on manganese deposition and nodule growth in Jervis Inlet,British Columbia

The processes controlling Mn deposition in the vicinity of a nodule site in Jervis Inlet, a fjord in the British Columbia mainland coast, were studied. The results indicate that Mn, due to reductive remobilization in the subsurface sediments, undergoes intensive exchange across the sediment-water interface and, because of this exchange and the effects of water circulation processes within the inlet, tends to be stripped from shallow water sediments and to be redeposited as an oxide precipitate in the surface sediment of the deepest areas. There it undergoes diagenetic reactions in the subsurface sediments that, as demonstrated by saturation of the pore waters, finally result in its burial as a carbonate phase. The distribution of properties in the vicinity of the Mn nodule site indicates that concretion growth occurs in an area of strong currents and low sedimentation rate where rocks resting on the bottom act as centers to which Mn-oxide particles suspended in the bottom water are apparently being cemented.