Chemistry in the Oceans 



EDWARD D. GOLDBERG 



Scripps Inst it itt ion of Oceanography, University of California. La Jolla, California 



STUDIES in marine chemistry have gone through several phases 

 since its birth with the first quantitative assays of sea water by 

 Torbern Bergman, the famed Swedish scientist, and Antoine 

 Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, at the turn of the 

 eighteenth century. The seas were depicted as arising from the 

 washings of the surface of the earth by natural waters, and investi- 

 gations on both its chemistry and that of the organisms had a 

 significant role in the development of chemistry. As you are well 

 aware, the elements bromine and iodine were discovered in sea 

 salt and marine algal ash, respectively. 



When the rather dramatic effects of primary plant production 

 on the distribution of some chemical species in the oceans were 

 established during the first several decades of the twentieth 

 century, impetus was given to work on the fertility of surface 

 waters and the results of the combustion of the organic material 

 in the deeper waters. 



In the mid-twentieth century some attention again has been 

 focused on the inorganic chemistries in the oceans, work paralleling 

 and reflecting advances made in the mother science, chemistry. 

 The geochemical behavior of elements during their residence in 

 the sea, subsequent to their introduction from the continents and 

 atmosphere, has provided the background for many recent 

 investigations. 



Although the discovery of new elements is apparently limited to 

 a small group of people working in the foothills of Berkeley, 

 California, two naturally produced radioisotopes have been 

 initially found in the marine domain. Both of these isotopes, Be^" 

 and Si'^- are produced in the upper atmosphere by the cosmic ray 

 fragmentation of the earth's enveloping gases, Be'° from nitrogen 



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