Potential transport pathways of terrigenous material in the Gulf of Papua

• Published in: Geophysical research letters Vol. 33; no. 4; pp. L04608 - n/a
• Main Authors: Keen, Timothy R., Ko, Dong Shan, Slingerland, Rudy L., Riedlinger, Shelley, Flynn, Peter
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Geophysical Union 01.02.2006; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Biological and Chemical; Brackish; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Freshwater; General or miscellaneous; Marine; Marine pollution; Oceanography; Papua New Guinea; Solomon Sea; New Guinea; West Pacific; Equatorial Pacific; Coral Sea; Pacific Ocean; Torres Strait; Papua; ISEW, Coral Sea; ISEW, Papua New Guinea, Papua Gulf; ISEW, Solomon Sea; INW, Asia; ISEW, Australia, Queensland, Torres Strait; rivers; inner shelf; Lagrangian; Australasia; tracers; metals; Malay Archipelago; concentration; transport; Ocean model; currents; Asia; sheet silicates; silicates; clay minerals; Pacific Ocean; terrigenous materials; particles; Vortex
• ISSN: 0094-8276; 1944-8007
• DOI: 10.1029/2005GL025416

This work discusses potential transport pathways of terrigenous material in the Gulf of Papua (GoP), New Guinea, using Lagrangian tracers as proxies for clay minerals and finer particles. The tracers are transported by currents from the East Asia Seas implementation of the Navy Coastal Ocean Model. The results suggest that clay minerals input from rivers along the northwest coast of the GoP accumulate on the inner shelf with high concentrations near the mouth of the Fly and Purari Rivers. Finer particles, which are also representative of dissolved metals, are transported eastward along the GoP coast into the Solomon Sea as well as into the Torres Strait to the west. The results also suggest that some finer particles are entrained by eddies within the northern Coral Sea. These results are in qualitative agreement with observations from the region.