Bulk sediment geochemistry for seagrass meadows in three California estuaries

Seagrass meadows are a significant global carbon sink. Most of the carbon sequestered in these ecosystems is found as sedimentary organic carbon, which can vary spatially across seagrass meadows and can be derived from a variety of sources. Here, we investigate intra- and inter-meadow spatial variability in sediment organic carbon storage and quantify potential organic matter sources in three Zostera marina seagrass meadows spanning three estuaries across California (USA). Seagrass sediment organic carbon storage varies as much intra-meadow as it varies across regions. At the intra-meadow scale, we find significant correlations between organic carbon content and mud content (fraction of sediment grains <63 Î¼m, %), C/N ratios, and δ13C values in surface sediments across two meadows. At the regional scale greater organic carbon storage in the presence of seagrass compared to adjacent unvegetated sediments. Additionally, we find that mud content is the best predictor of sediment or..., , , # Bulk sediment geochemistry for seagrass meadows in three California estuaries

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.5hqbzkhft](10.5061/dryad.5hqbzkhft)

## Description of the data and file structure

Sediment samples were collected between 2017 and 2019 as per the methods outlined in the published article: [https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JG008526.](https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JG008526)

Sediment geochemistry provided in this data set was rinsed with distilled water, dried in an oven at 60-70 degrees Celsius, and homogenized before elemental and isotopic analysis and loss on ignition. This dataset includes geochemical data from a study of carbon storage in seagrass meadows from three California estuaries.

#### File: 25_6_seagrass_geochem.xlsx

**Parameters**

All sediment samples are bulk rinsed samples. They have not been acidified to remove carbonates.

Note: No data in row/column contains blank boxes.

#### Variables

**\"sediment\" Sheet Description:** Sheet with name \"sediment\" = sediment geo...,