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Quantification and mapping of surficial seabed sediment organic carbon have wide-scale relevance for marine ecology, geology and environmental resource management, with carbon densities and accumulation rates being a major indicator of geological history, ecological function and ecosystem service provisioning, including the potential to contribute to nature-based climate change mitigation. While global analyses can appear to provide a definitive understanding of the spatial distribution of sediment carbon, regional maps may be constructed at finer resolutions and can utilise targeted data syntheses and refined spatial data products and therefore have the potential to improve these estimates. Here, we report a national systematic review of data on organic carbon content in seabed sediments across Canada and combine this with a synthesis and unification of the best available data on sediment composition, seafloor morphology, hydrology, chemistry and geographic settings within a machine learning mapping framework. Predictive quantitative maps of mud content, dry bulk density, organic carbon content and organic carbon density were produced along with cell-specific estimates of their uncertainty at 200 m resolution across 4 489 235 km 2 of the Canadian continental margin (92.6 % of the seafloor area above 2500 m) (10.5683/SP3/ICHVVA, Epstein et al., 2024). Fine-scale variation in carbon stocks was identified across the Canadian continental margin, particularly in the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean regions. Overall, we estimate the standing stock of organic carbon in the top 30 cm of surficial seabed sediments across the Canadian shelf and slope to be 10.9 Gt (7.0–16.0 Gt). Increased empirical sediment data collection and higher precision in spatial environmental data layers could significantly reduce uncertainty and increase accuracy in these products over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quantification and mapping of surficial seabed sediment organic carbon has wide-scale relevance across marine ecology, geology and environmental resource management, with carbon densities and accumulation rates being a major indicator of geological history, ecological function, and ecosystem service provisioning, including the potential to contribute to nature-based climate change mitigation. While global mapping products can appear to provide a definitive understanding of the spatial distribution of sediment carbon, there is inherently high uncertainty when making estimates at this scale. Finer resolution national maps which utilise targeted data syntheses and refined spatial data products are therefore vital to improve these estimates. Here, we report a national systematic review of data on organic carbon content in seabed sediments across Canada and combine this with a synthesis and unification of best available data on sediment composition, seafloor morphology, hydrology, chemistry, geographic setting and sediment mass accumulation rates within a machine learning mapping framework. Predictive quantitative maps of mud content, sediment dry bulk density, and organic carbon content, density and accumulation, were each produced along with cell specific estimates of their 95 % confidence interval (CI) bounds at 200 m resolution across 4,489,235 km² of the Canadian continental margin (92.6 % of the seafloor area above 2,500 m). Fine-scale variation in carbon stocks was identified across the Canadian continental margin, particularly in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean regions. Carbon accumulation was predicted to be concentrated in coastal areas, with the highest rates in the Gulf of St Lawrence and Bay of Fundy. Overall, we estimate the standing stock of organic carbon in the top 30 cm of surficial seabed sediments across the Canadian shelf and slope to be 10.7 Gt (95 % CI 6.6 – 16.0 Gt), and accumulation at 4.9 Mt per year (95 % CI 2.6 – 9.3 Mt y-1). Increased in-situ sediment data collection and higher precision in spatial environmental data-layers could significantly reduce uncertainty and increase accuracy in these products over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tidal salt marshes are known to accumulate "blue carbon" at high rates relative to their surface area, which render these systems among the Earth's most efficient carbon (C) sinks. However, the potential for tidal salt marshes to mitigate global warming remains poorly constrained because of the lack of representative sampling of tidal marshes from around the globe, inadequate areal extent estimations, and inappropriate dating methods for accurately estimating C accumulation rates. Here we provide the first estimates of organic C storage and accumulation rates in salt marshes along the Pacific coast of Canada, within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve and Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, a region currently underrepresented in global compilations. Within the context of other sites from the Pacific coast of North America, these young Clayoquot Sound marshes have relatively low C stocks but are accumulating C at rates that are higher than the global average with pronounced differences between high and low marsh habitats. The average C stock calculated during the past 30 years is 54 ± 5 Mg C ha -1 (mean ± standard error), which accounts for 81 % of the C accumulated to the base of the marsh peat layer (67 ± 9 Mg C ha -1). The total C stock is just under one-third of previous global estimates of salt marsh C stocks, likely due to the shallow depth and young age of the marsh. In contrast, the average C accumulation rate (CAR) (184 ± 50 g C m -2 yr -1 to the base of the peat layer) is higher than both CARs from salt marshes along the Pacific coast (112 ± 12 g C m -2 yr -1) and global estimates (91 ± 7 g C m -2 yr -1). This difference was even more pronounced when we considered individual marsh zones: CARs were significantly greater in high marsh (303 ± 45 g C m -2 yr -1) compared to the low marsh sediments (63 ± 6 g C m -2 yr -1) , an observation unique to Clayoquot Sound among NE Pacific coast marsh studies. We attribute low CARs in the low marsh zones to shallow-rooting vegetation, reduced terrestrial sediment inputs, negative relative sea level rise in the region, and enhanced erosional processes. Per hectare, CARs in Clayoquot Sound marsh soils are approximately 2–7 times greater than C uptake rates based on net ecosystem productivity in Canadian boreal forests, which highlights their potential importance as C reservoirs and the need to consider their C accumulation capacity as a climate mitigation co-benefit when conserving for other salt marsh ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]