Atlantic Ocean

• Main Authors: Robert M. Gemhey, I Thank P. J. Wangersky, R. A. Duce, M. Moore, B. D. Johnson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Tive; North Atlantic; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.597.3246; http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_28/issue_2/0309.pdf

Samples of organic matter were isolated f?om seawater of the North Atlantic Ocean and Halifax Harbour by a bubble adsorptive technique. The samples thus collected, representa-tive of the organic materials important in the transport of gcochcmical species across the air-sea interface, were characterized by exclusion chromatography, elemental analysis, stable carbon isotope analysis, and assays for “carbohydrate ” and “protein ” levels. The concentra-tion of organic carbon in the aerosol samples was enriched relative to the original seawater samples by factors of 47-573. The chemical composition of the coastal samples varied with the seasons; the aerosols generally contained a higher proportion of low molecular weight compounds (41 % < 500 mol wt) than those generated from oceanic water samples (10 % < 500 mol wt). The influence of the Northeast Atlantic Current can be discerned in the com-position of aerosols generated from North Atlantic surface waters. Described elsewhere (Gcrshey 1983) is a device that concentrates and collects from seawater large quantities of organic materials which are important in physi-cochemical transport processes at the air-sea interface. I describe here the chemi-cal characteristics of samples collected with this device at monthly intervals dur-ing the course of a year in Halifax Har-bour. Samples collected in the mid-North