CARIACO Time-Series

The CARIACO Ocean Time-Series was a long-term biogeochemical and oceanographic study of the Cariaco Basin, an anoxic basin off the Venezuelan continental shelf, running monthly sampling from November 1995 to 2017. CARIACO (Carbon Retention in a Colored Ocean) tracked primary production, particle flux via sediment traps, hydrography, and the redox transition between the oxic surface and the sulfidic deep water, one of the few open-ocean settings with a permanently anoxic interior. Funded by the US NSF and Venezuela’s FONACIT, it linked upwelling-driven productivity to the anoxic carbon and sulfur cycling, informing paleoclimate reconstruction from the basin’s laminated sediments. It is a reference site for tropical ocean deoxygenation research.