Biogeosciences www.biogeosciences.net 1726-4170 1726-4189 5 4 2008 10.5194/bg-5-1101-2008 http://www.biogeosciences.net/5/1101/2008/ http://www.biogeosciences.net/5/1101/2008/bg-5-1101-2008.html http://www.biogeosciences.net/5/1101/2008/bg-5-1101-2008.pdf 1101 1117 2008-08-04 Calcite production by coccolithophores in the south east Pacific Ocean L. Beaufort beaufort@cerege.fr M. Couapel N. Buchet H. Claustre C. Goyet CEREGE, Aix-Marseille Université – CNRS, BP80 cedex4, 13545 Aix en Provence, France CNRS, Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France; Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche, 06230 Villefranche-sur-Mer, France Université de Perpignan, 52, Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan, France BIOSOPE cruise covered an oceanographic transect through the centre of the South Pacific Gyre (SPG) from the Marquesas archipelago to the Peru-Chile upwelling (PCU). Water samples from 6 depths in the euphotic zone were collected at 20 stations. The concentrations of suspended calcite particles, coccolithophores cells and detached coccoliths were estimated together with size and weight using an automatic polarizing microscope, a digital camera, and a collection of softwares performing morphometry and pattern recognition. Some of these softwares are new and described here for the first time. The coccolithophores standing stocks were usually low and reached maxima west of the PCU. The coccoliths of <i>Emiliania huxleyi, Gephyrocapsa</i> spp. and <i>Crenalithus</i> spp. (Order Isochrysidales) represented more than 30% of all the suspended calcite particles detected in the size range 0.1–46 μm (22% of PIC in term of calcite weight). These species grew preferentially in the Chlorophyll maximum zone. In the SPG their maximum cell concentrations were recorded between depth of 150 and 200 m, which is unusually deep for these taxa. 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