Marine chemistry articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • Article |

    The Southern Ocean makes a substantial contribution to the oceanic carbon sink. Observationally based estimates of carbon subduction suggest that carbon sequestration depends on physical properties, such as mixed layer depth, ocean currents, wind and eddies, that are potentially sensitive to climate variability and change.

    • Jean-Baptiste Sallée
    • , Richard J. Matear
    •  & Andrew Lenton

  • News & Views |

    The prediction of marine microbial responses to ocean acidification is a key challenge for marine biologists. Experimental evolution offers a powerful tool for understanding the forces that will shape tomorrow's microbial communities under global change.

    • Sinéad Collins

  • Letter |

    Uncertainty in the future atmospheric burden of methane—a potent greenhouse gas—represents an important challenge to the development of realistic climate projections. Airborne observations of methane suggest that the remote Arctic Ocean could prove to be a potentially important methane source.

    • E. A. Kort
    • , S. C. Wofsy
    •  & M. A. Zondlo

  • Article |

    Ocean acidification may seriously impair marine calcifying organisms. Emiliania huxleyi, the world’s single most important calcifying organism, may be able to evolve in response to ocean acidification conditions, according to laboratory selection experiments.

    • Kai T. Lohbeck
    • , Ulf Riebesell
    •  & Thorsten B. H. Reusch

  • Letter |

    Eutrophication increases the acidity of coastal waters. Model simulations suggest that the drop in pH in coastal waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico since pre-industrial times is greater than that expected from eutrophication and ocean acidification alone.

    • Wei-Jun Cai
    • , Xinping Hu
    •  & Gwo-Ching Gong

  • Commentary |

    Research into the biological threat of reduced ocean pH has yielded many insights over the past decade. Further progress requires a better understanding of how the interplay between ocean acidification and other anthropogenic stresses impacts marine biota.

    • Philip W. Boyd

  • Letter |

    Monomethylmercury is a neurotoxin that accumulates in marine organisms. Incubation experiments suggest that methylation of inorganic mercury accounts for around half of the monomethylmercury present in polar marine waters.

    • Igor Lehnherr
    • , Vincent L. St. Louis
    •  & Jane L. Kirk

  • News & Views |

    How the chemical composition of sea water changes on its journey through the world's oceans is poorly understood. Systematic measurements of dissolved trace metals across the Pacific Ocean suggest that these metals may help track sources and mixing of water masses.

    • Martin Frank

  • Letter |

    Trace elements and their isotopes have been explored as tracers for the movement of water masses. Measurements of the high-field-strength elements Zr, Hf, Nb and Ta along two meridional sections of the Pacific Ocean suggest higher ratios of Zr/Hf and Nb/Ta than expected, suggesting that these ratios will be useful for tracking water masses.

    • M. Lutfi Firdaus
    • , Tomoharu Minami
    •  & Yoshiki Sohrin

  • News & Views |

    Massive amounts of natural gas catastrophically released into the Gulf of Mexico last year are missing. Two investigations suggest that a bloom of tiny specialized bacteria is responsible for this heavy-duty scrubbing job.

    • Gérard Nihous

  • News & Views |

    The neurotoxin methylmercury accumulates in marine biota and their predators. An analysis of seabird egg shells suggests that sea-ice cover reduces the breakdown of this highly toxic compound in sea water.

    • Joel D. Blum

  • Editorial |

    The sea floor is emerging as a source of carbon to the overlying ocean. Scientific exploration of the sea bed is essential for a full understanding of the global carbon budget and the safety of deep-sea carbon storage proposals.

  • News & Views |

    Bromine facilitates the oxidation of elemental mercury in the lower atmosphere in polar and subpolar regions. Measurements over the Dead Sea suggest that bromine also generates large quantities of oxidized mercury in the mid-latitudes.

    • Parisa A. Ariya

  • Letter |

    Marine sediments contain large quantities of carbon, primarily in the form of gas hydrate. Isotopic analyses suggest that carbon derived from fossil methane accounts for up to 28% of the dissolved organic carbon in sea water overlying hydrate-bearing seeps in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.

    • John W. Pohlman
    • , James E. Bauer
    •  & N. Ross Chapman

  • Editorial |

    The deep ocean is largely uncharted territory. The aftermath of the BP oil spill has been a poignant reminder that its relative inaccessibility hinders exploration, but does not extend much protection from human interference.

  • Review Article |

    Iron controls phytoplankton growth in large tracts of the global ocean, and thereby influences carbon dioxide drawdown. Recent advances reveal the importance of iron-binding ligands and organic matter remineralization in regulating ocean iron levels.

    • P. W. Boyd
    •  & M. J. Ellwood

  • Letter |

    The deposition of iron formations ceased about 1.84 billion years ago. Reconstructions of ocean chemistry suggest that the advent of euxinic conditions along ocean margins preferentially removed dissolved iron from the water column in the form of the mineral pyrite, inhibiting widespread iron-oxide mineral deposition.

    • Simon W. Poulton
    • , Philip W. Fralick
    •  & Donald E. Canfield

  • News & Views |

    Low atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during glacial periods must have been accompanied by changes in surface-ocean carbonate chemistry. But it is unclear whether concurrent changes in the deep sea contributed to the glacial carbon dioxide decline.

    • Richard E. Zeebe
    •  & Thomas M. Marchitto Jr

  • News & Views |

    The ocean's nitrogen budget has escaped quantification. A modelling study shows how a small shift in the nitrate-to-phosphate uptake ratio of phytoplankton has a large effect on calculated nitrogen fixation rates.

    • Wolfgang Koeve
    •  & Paul Kähler

  • Letter |

    Mineral dust and marine sediment resuspension are generally considered the primary sources of the nutrient iron to the oceans. Numerical model results suggest that iron released by hydrothermal activity is also an important source of dissolved iron, particularly in the Southern Ocean.

    • Alessandro Tagliabue
    • , Laurent Bopp
    •  & Catherine Jeandel

  • News & Views |

    About 94.5 million years ago, oxygen levels in the deep ocean dropped while carbon burial rapidly increased. Geochemical analyses suggest that the release of sulphate from extensive volcanism set off a sequence of biogeochemical reactions that led to ocean anoxia.

    • Haydon P. Mort

  • Letter |

    Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in sea water are driving a progressive acidification of the ocean, with as yet unclear impacts on marine calcifying organisms. Simulations with an Earth system model suggest that future changes in the marine environment could be more severe than those experienced during the Palaeocene–Eocene thermal maximum, both in the deep ocean and near the surface.

    • Andy Ridgwell
    •  & Daniela N. Schmidt

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