Collaborative Research: GEOTRACES N Atlantic Section, shipboard and shorebased determination of key trace elements

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The international GEOTRACES program has been developed to produce a global framework of key trace elements and isotopes that will describe the contemporary distributions of these properties in the ocean. This information can then be used to constrain models of the processes and fluxes of biogeochemically important elements and key tracers that frame flux processes and transformations. Scientists from the University of Hawaii and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science will participate in the first GEOTRACES cruise to the North Atlantic and determine on board ship dissolved iron, aluminum, manganese, and zinc concentrations using Flow Injection Analysis. These on board analyses would enable them to identify and rectify any sampling equipment problems and/or adapt the sampling strategy for unexpected features in the water column. In the laboratory, the samples would be reanalyzed for these elements as well as Cd by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to calibrate the shipboard data sets, fill in gaps in the shipboard analyses, and provide quality control on the accuracy/precision of the measurements. Determining the concentrations of these elements should significantly improve our knowledge of how global ocean biogeochemical cycles operate, allow for a more accurate prediction of the role of the atmosphere in providing biogeochemically important trace elements to the surface ocean, and the mechanisms by which they are transferred to the interior of the ocean. This research will also provide an understanding of the sensitivity of trace element distributions to changing environmental conditions. One postdoc from the University of Hawaii and one graduate student from Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences would be supported and trained as part of this project. It is anticipated the postdoc and the graduate student would participate in the multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary GEOTRACES cruise in the North Atlantic.