Panel 5: Chemical processes at the ocean bottom

Novel techniques and existing knowledge from chemical research that could be applied to understanding processes at the ocean bottom are by and large analytical, but not entirely. Microelectrodes developed for both the study of electron transfer at interfaces and for application in medical research could be readily modified to investigate gradients at the sediment-water interface. The body of knowledge assembled for, and derived from, election transfer research should be a valuable resource of understanding the mechanisms of redox reactions that occur in the ocean. Chemiluminescent methods for measuring metals in seawater would become much more generally applicable if additional luminescing compounds that chelate metals with great specificity could be identified or synthesized. Collaboration with analytical chemists might enable the development of this method to a wide variety of marine analytical problems. Recent advances in optical detector technology should catalize the adaptation of chemiluminescent methods to in situ analysis.A variety of separation techniques developed for chemical research could be applied to the problems of separating both dissolved and particulate organic matter from their natural matrices. If this can be accomplished it will remove a major barrier in the characterization of organic matter in the ocean. A potential approach for determining the biochemical character of this material after separation is degradation using bacterial enzymes, and then identification of subunits of the polymers by techniques such as ¹³C-NMR.Relatively recent application of GC-MS and high pressure liquid chromatography to marine organic analysis has already produced more data than is interpretable by marine organic chemists. Chemometric and statistical methods developed by chemists to maximize data interpretation could be used to interpret large data sets plan future experimental approaches.High analytical precision and extremely low detection limits are prerequisites for solving many of the problems associated with hydrothermal circulation and paleoceanography. Some examples of emerging analytical methodology for improving these are echelle spectrography coupled with highly sensitive charge transfer device detectors to enable determination of elemental ratios at high precision, and ICP-mass spectrometry which achieves very low detection limits for some elements.