Phytoplankton fix CO2 in the euphotic zone using solar energy and produce particulate organic carbon (POC). POC formed in the euphotic zone is processed by microbes, zooplankton and their consumers into organic aggregates (marine snow), which is thereafter exported to the mesopelagic (200–1000 m depth) and bathypelagic zones by sinking and vertical migration by zooplankton and fish. Export flux is defined as the sedimentation out of the surface layer (at approximately 100 m depth) and sequestration flux is the sedimentation out of the mesopelagic zone (at approximately 1000 m depth). A portion of the POC is respired back to CO2 in the oceanic water column at depth, mostly by heterotrophic microbes and zooplankton, thus maintaining a vertical gradient in concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). This deep-ocean DIC returns to the atmosphere on millennial timescales through thermohaline circulation. Between 1% and 40% of the primary production is exported out of the euphotic zone, which attenuates exponentially towards the base of the mesopelagic zone and only about 1% of the surface production reaches the sea floor.

Adapted from:

• Passow, U. and Carlson, C.A. (2012) "The biological pump in a high CO2 world". Marine Ecology Progress Series, 470: 249–271. doi:10.3354/meps09985.
• Turner, J.T. (2015) "Zooplankton fecal pellets, marine snow, phytodetritus and the ocean’s biological pump". Progress in Oceanography, 130: 205–248. doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2014.08.005.