Principal Investigator Edward Boyle
The arrival of multi-collector plasma mass spectrometry has made it possible to analyze transition metal isotopes. Most workers in this field are focusing on high-metal concentration samples such as rocks, ores, and ferromanganese crusts and nodules; they have found evidence for significant iron and zinc isotope fractionations in time and space. Because these elements occur at very low levels in the ocean, and because sample contamination is a serious problem, few people are investigating these isotopes in seawater and other low-level marine samples. By analogy to the utility of carbon and nitrogen isotope systems, we propose that the iron and zinc isotope systems will help us better understand the biogeochemistry of these biologically-essential trace elements: after the basic ground rules are established.