『Abstract
We investigated the products and rates of chemical weathering
on the Hawaiian Islands, sampling streams on Kaua'i and both streams
and groundwater wells on the island of Hawai'i. Dissolved silica
was used to investigate the flowpaths of water drained into streams.
We found that flowpaths exert a major control on the observed
chemical weathering rates. A strong link exists between the degree
of landscape dissection and flowpaths of water through the landscape,
with streams in undissected landscapes receiving water mainly
from surface runoff and streams in highly dissected landscapes
receiving a considerable fraction of their water from groundwater
(springs and/or seepage). Total alkalinity in Hawaiian streams
and groundwater is produced exclusively by silicate chemical weathering
. We find that fluxes of total alkalinity (often called “CO2 consumption rate” in the geochemical literature),
from the islands are lower than those observed in basaltic regions
elsewhere. Groundwater is , overall, the major transport vector
for products of chemical weathering from the Hawaiian Islands.
On the youngest island, submarine groundwater discharge (SGD)
transports more than an order of magnitude more solutes to the
ocean than surface water and on the youngest part of the youngest
island, SGD is the only link between the terrestrial weathering
system and the ocean. These results suggest that groundwater,
and particularly SGD, needs to be included in geochemical weathering
budgets of volcanic islands.
Keywords: weathering; Hawai'i; silica; groundwater; carbon consumption;
SGD』
1. Introduction
1.1. Study site
2. Data and methods
2.1. Chemistry
2.2. Hydrology
2.3. Uncertainties
3. Results
3.1. Water fluxes
3.2. Water chemistry
3.3. Chemical fluxes
4. Discussion
4.1. Water chemistry and chemical fluxes
4.2. Groundwater chemical fluxes and geomorphology
5. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Appendix A. Supporting information