Abstract
Contamination of groundwater is a pervasive and serious problem in many developed coastal areas1–3, but potential interactions of groundwaters with, and their impact on, adjoining coastal waters have generally not been considered. Although submarine ground-water discharge could be an important source of nitrogen to coastal marine environments4, there has been no direct evidence for this. Recently, subsurface discharge has been shown to account for about 10–20% of the freshwater input to Great South Bay, New York5. The upper aquifer is the presumed source of this discharge and, because it is heavily contaminated with nitrate6, we suggest that groundwater is an important source of nitrate to the bay. Our determinations of the interstitial nutrient chemistry of freshly collected cores from nearshore sediments support this hypothesis. Although highly variable in time, cores taken after substantial rainfall showed increasing nitrate concentrations and decreasing salinities with depth. We conclude that submarine groundwater discharge is indeed a source of nitrate which should be considered in estimates of nitrogen influx to coastal marine ecosystems.
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Capone, D., Bautista, M. A groundwater source of nitrate in nearshore marine sediments. Nature 313, 214–216 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/313214a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/313214a0
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