US GEOTRACES
GEOTRACES is an international research program with the goal of better understanding marine biogeochemical cycles and the distribution of trace elements and their isotopes in the oceans. MTEL participates in US GEOTRACES and has recently received several hundred seawater samples from the North Atlantic transect. Currently, efforts are being made to measure iron, zinc, and cadmium isotopes in these samples. With these data, we aim to improve our knowledge of the sources, sinks, and cycling of these elements and their roles in the marine environment.
In order to accomplish these goals, we must be able to cleanly extract the dissolved elements from seawater, purify the samples in preparation for analyses, and accurately measure the isotopic values via MC-ICP-MS. Our current lab setup is optimized for these tasks.
