Alkanes, Alcohols, and Fatty Acids Record Complementary Signals in Fluvial Sediments: Insights From a Three Year Congo River Time Series

Abstract:

The concentrations, distributions, δ¹³C and dD of plant waxes carried by fluvial suspended sediments contain valuable information about terrestrial ecosystems and climate. To properly interpret past changes recorded in sedimentary archives it is crucial to understand the sources and variability of exported plant waxes in modern systems on seasonal to inter-annual timescales. Here, we present distributions, δ¹³C, and δD composition of three compound classes (n-alkanes, n-alcohols, n-alkanoic acids) in a 34-month time series of suspended sediments from the Congo River. We show multiple end-members contribute differentially to n-alkanes, as evidenced by a large δ¹³C spread of 4.2 ± 0.7‰ across homologues and low correlation between homologue concentrations. n-Acids and n-alcohols exhibit less δ¹³C variability, indicating dominance of C3 end-members.

Temporally, n-acid and n-alcohol concentrations, distributions, and δD values are much more influenced by seasonal changes in discharge than n-alkanes. Increasing discharge through the low-lying swamp forest likely biases n-acids and n-alcohols toward this highly productive source area, while n-alkanes are less affected due to their more refractory nature and persistence during transport. This is reflected in large changes in n-alcohol/acid minus n-alkane δD (∆δD) between high and low discharge of 15-20‰. We conclude that the n-alkanoic acids and n-alcohols respond to seasonal/inter-annual changes in source area while n-alkanes better represent a seasonally stable signal, and that multiple n-alkyl lipid classes therefore record complementary information in sedimentary archives.