Dear Anna:

I have read your paper, the reviews and your rebuttal. The three referees believe that your paper is a nice contribution to the literature that is acceptable after minor revision. The issues raised have been adequately addressed in the rebut and I therefore invite you to submit a revised version that can be published in Biogeosciences.
Thank you for submitting this nice work to BG.

Jack Middelburg, Associate editor

Dear Anna:

Thank you for submitting this high quality paper to Biogeosciences. It utilizes MARUM-MPI-AWI technology to its full extent. There are few, if any, groups that can use such a wide range of tools to investigate this interesting and important problem.
I have read your revised version and I am happy to accept it for publication but for some minor technical corrections, see below.

• In many places you use bottom water or water column as an adjective to concentration or alike. Please hyphen in these cases: e.g. bottom-water oxygen levels, water-column oxygen concentrations, solid-phase concentrations….
• P.6, bottom part: It is unclear on which pH scales your numbers are reported. Please communicate that to the reader (pHnbs, pHtot, pHfree, pHsws).
• P.9, line 28: sedimentation is vague. Do you mean sediment accumulation or sediment deposition.
• P. 11, line 17: I do not understand this citation to Fig. 6 here. One, it is not in sequence, because cited before 4 and 5. Two, I believe you should cite Fig. 1 or 2 here.
• On a more generic level. Figure 6 is not cited in the text at all, but for the above occasion, which is not right. Should it not be cited on p. 13?
• P. 15: a word of caution. A linear decrease in lnPb with depth does not imply there is no bioturbation. In fact, in heavily bioturbated sediments one uses the slope to quantify Db (square root of Db/decay constant sets slope).

With best regards,

Jack Middelburg
Associate Editor Biogeosciences