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Park & Schlesinger 2002
Park, H. and Schlesinger, W.H. (2002). Global biogeochemical cycle of boron. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 16: doi: 10.1029/2001GB001766. issn: 0886-6236.

The global Boron (B) cycle is primarily driven by a large flux (1.44 Tg B/yr) through the atmosphere derived from seasalt aerosols. Other significant sources of atmospheric boron include emissions during the combustion of biomass (0.26--0.43 Tg B/yr) and coal, which adds 0.20 Tg B/yr as an anthropogenic contribution. These known inputs to the atmosphere cannot account for the boron removed from the atmosphere during rainfall (3.0 Tg B/yr) and estimated dry deposition (1.3--2.7 Tg B/yr). In addition to atmospheric deposition, rock weathering is a source of boron (0.19 Tg B/yr) for terrestrial ecosystems, and humans mine about 0.31 Tg B/yr from the Earth's crust. More than 4.8 Tg B/yr circulates in the biogeochemical cycle of land plants, and about 0.53--0.63 Tg B/yr is carried from land to sea by rivers. The biogeochemical cycle of boron in the sea includes 4.4 Tg B/yr circulating in the marine biosphere, and an annual loss of 0.47 Tg B/yr to the oceanic crust via a variety of sedimentary processes that collectively remove only a small fraction of the total annual inputs to the oceans. Thus with our current understanding of the global biogeochemistry of B, the atmospheric budget shows outputs > inputs, while the marine compartments show inputs > outputs. Despite these uncertainties, it is clear that the human perturbation of the global B cycle has more than doubled the mobilization of B from the crust and contributes significantly to the B transport in rivers.

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Abstract

Keywords
Atmospheric Composition and Structure, Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801), Atmospheric Composition and Structure, Geochemical cycles, Global Change, Atmosphere (0315, 0325), Global Change, Biogeochemical processes, Oceanography, Biological and Chemical, Geochemistry
Journal
Global Biogeochemical Cycles
http://www.agu.org/journals/gb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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