Sediment pigment concentrations from lagoon sites along the Alaska Beaufort Sea coast, 2018-ongoing

The Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (BLE LTER) project seasonally collects undisturbed surface sediments during full ice cover (April), ice break-up (mid-June to early July), and open water (late July and August) periods from lagoon sites along the Beaufort Sea (Elson, Simpson, Jago, and Kaktovik lagoons, plus Stefansson Sound) to quantify algal pigment concentrations. Pigments reported are chlorophyll a, pheophorbide, pheophytin, chlorophyllide, fucoxanthin, zeaxanthin, alloxanthin, and peridinin. Pigment concentrations are measured using high-precision liquid chromatography (HPLC). Concentrations are represented both as an areal basis (mg/m2 of surface sediment) and a mass basis (μg/g of dry sediment). In 2022 we found that a post-analysis mathematical error generated incorrect concentration values for pigments. This error was identified in subsequent QA/QC and immediately corrected since the raw data were not in error. The entire dataset to date (2018-2021) was revised in spring 2022 with the corrected data (revision knb-lter-ble.12.2).