This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
GEOTRACES is a newly initiated international oceanographic program to identify processes and quantify fluxes that control the distributions of key trace elements and isotopes in the oceans and to establish an understanding of the sensitivity of these distributions to changing environmental conditions. During the GEOTRACES cruise to the North Atlantic basin in 2010, a scientist from the University of Southern Mississippi will determine gallium, vanadium, manganese, and rare earth elements in surface samples and throughout the water column. Samples will be taken from sites that exhibit the physical and biogeochemical processes that influence trace metals and their isotopes, namely strong meridional advection, boundary scavenging and sources, aeolian deposition, and input of intermediate waters from the Mediterranean and Labrador Seas. The resultant dataset should provide insight into cross margin exchange of these elements, as well as investigate redox processes and atmospheric inputs. As regards broader impacts, this project would contribute funds for the 'Our Ocean World', a podcast broadcast daily on hundreds of radio stations including the Voice of America. The goal of this outreach effort is to inform listeners around the world about news items and information related to ocean matters. One graduate student would be supported and trained as part of this project.
