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.
