Suspended organic matter in the Barents Sea

A comparative estimation of the suspended organic matter content in the seawater in various regions of the Barents Sea was performed on the basis of the materials collected by the authors in August-September 1997. It is shown that the major feature of the near-bottom distribution of the suspended organic matter is a distinct decrease in its content from the off-shore areas of the Murman and Novaya Zemlya coasts and the Franz Josef Land Archipelago toward the central part of the Barents Sea. Using the method of mean and maximum concentrations of suspended organic matter, an attempt was made to estimate its fluxes from the surface to the bottom.