ROW: The Marine Geochemistry of Gold

这是一项研究海洋中黄金的提议。金存在于海水中，浓度如此之低，以至于以前所有研究它的尝试都失败了。可用的方法就是不够敏感。苏联科学家最近使用激光共振光谱学进行的测量就属于这种类别，不可靠。这位PI在她的博士论文中取得了突破，开发了一种使用电感耦合等离子体四极杆(ICPMS)进行金分析的方法。她的新方法具有在毫微摩尔范围内(10-15摩尔/L)测定金的灵敏度，这适合于对金的公开海洋研究。她建议使用这种新的分析方法来研究金的地球化学循环及其在海洋中的分布。

This is a proposal to study gold in the ocean. Gold is present in seawater in such low concentrations that all previous attempts to study it have been defeated. The available methodology was just not sensitive enough. Recent measurements by Soviet scientists using laser resonance spectroscopy fall into this catagory and can not be relied upon. The PI has made a "break through" while working on her Ph.D. dissertation by developing a gold analysis using inductively coupled plasma quadrapole mass spectrometry (ICPMS). Her new method has the sensitivity to measure gold in the femtomolar range (10-15 mol/l) which is appropriate for open ocean studies of gold. She proposes to use this new analysis to study geochemical cycling of gold and its distribution in the ocean.