PRECISE IN SITU MEASUREMENTS OF 

 CHEMICAL PARAMETERS OF SEAWATER: 



A REPORT OF MISSION 1-50, TEKTITE II 



Paul D. Cratin, Ph.D., Principal Investigator 



Professor and Chairman, Department of Chemistry 



Central Michigan University 



Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 48858 



Roger J. Dexter, M.S., Co-Principal Investigator 

 Graduate Student, Department of Oceanography 

 Texas A and M University 

 College Station, Texas 77843 



Richard W. Curry, B.S., Co-Principal Investigator 



Graduate Student, Department of Functional Biology 



University of Miami 



Miami, Florida 33149 



INTRODUCTION 



Oceanographers have long been concerned about the possibility that many 

 important parameters change as a sample of sea water is removed from 

 its environment and brought to the surface. Because of this concern, 

 they have sought to develop instrumentation capable of measuring these 

 oceanographic parameters in situ . Obviously, if the oceanographer were able 

 to bring the instrumentation into the marine environment itself, it would 

 be possible to analyze the sample precisely at the time and position it had 

 been taken. Although this is not yet feasible in all cases, the use of sub- 

 merged habitats enables us to approximate the ideal situation. 



It has long been our feeling that many pressure-dependent processes occur 

 as a sample of sea water is brought from its native environment to the 

 surface. Two such phenomena are the degassing of oxygen and the continuation 

 of biological activity in the sample. Whereas many equilibrium processes can 

 be calculated by using conventional physico-chemical methods, virtually no 

 understanding of kinetic processes exists. Even if such an understanding did 

 exist, it would be impossible to account for, let alone prevent, these changes 

 with conventional sampling equipment and techniques. The undersea research 

 and living facilities offered by TEKTITE II afforded us an opportunity to 

 check the validity of our hypotheses. The results which are discussed below 

 not only offer conclusive proof that our hypotheses were correct but, further- 

 more, attest to the fact that undersea laboratories can serve very real and 

 useful purposes --without which we would probably not have been able to 

 answer those questions that had "bugged" us for many years. 



VI-15 



