Total particulate iron (pFe) concentration
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The following dataset contains particulate iron data collected during the 2018 occupation of the CLIVAR SR03 (GEOTRACES GS01) transect south of Tasmania, Australia. This data is used ancillary to measurements of dissolved iron in the same transect for a manuscript in preparation by Traill et al. (2023). While modelling efforts have furthered our understanding of marine iron biogeochemistry and its influence on carbon sequestration, observations of dissolved iron (dFe) and its relationship to physical, chemical and biological processes in the ocean are needed to both validate and inform model parameterisation. Where iron comes from, how it is transported and recycled, and where iron removal takes place, are critical mechanisms that need to be understood to assess the relationship between iron availability and primary production. To this end, hydrographic and trace metal observations across the GO-SHIP section SR3, south of Tasmania, Australia, have been analysed in tandem with the novel application of an optimum multiparameter analysis. From the trace-metal distribution south of Australia, key differences in the drivers of dFe between oceanographic zones of the Southern Ocean were identified. In the subtropical zone, the source of dFe was constrained by waters advected off the continental shelf, and by remineralization in recirculated modified mode and intermediate water masses of the Tasman Outflow. In the subantarctic zone, the seasonal replenishment of dFe in Antarctic surface and mode waters appears to be sustained by iron recycling in the underlying mode and intermediate waters. In the southern zone, the dFe distribution is likely driven by dissolution and scavenging by high concentrations of particles along the Antarctic continental shelf and slope, entrained in high salinity shelf water. This approach to trace metal analysis may prove useful in future transects for identifying key mechanisms driving marine dissolved trace metal distributions.