The Contribution of Siliceous Sponges to the Export of Biogenic Silica to Marine Sediments

The cycling of silicon (Si) in the various marine compartments plays a pivotal role in the complex biogeochemical network of the ocean. Major Si fluxes related to diatom populations haven been quantified and discussed over the last decades. Nevertheless, very little information is still available about the contribution that siliceous sponges might make to those Si fluxes. Because extensive, dense populations of highly silicified sponges are long known to be a common feature of many shelfs and slope areas of the ocean, the current gap in knowledge may be critical to improve current quantifications of both global and regional Si budgets. Here we present data about the relative contribution of sponge, diatom, and radiolarian silica to marine sediments, using cores collected from 9 different environments across the worlds’ oceans, including the Antarctic Ocean. We also show that standard protocols based on wet alkaline digestions of marine sediments are little efficient to reliably retrieve the contribution of sponge silica. We discuss problems, uncertainties, and alternative approaches for estimating the silica in sediments.