Third source of oceanic iron is found

upi.com ^ | March 25, 2008 | NA

[neverdem]

Published: at 12:34 PM

BERKELEY, Calif., March 25 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists are challenging a theory that assumes most iron needed to fertilize plankton blooms comes nearly entirely from wind-blown dust.

Phoebe Lam of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and James Bishop of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have shown the key source of iron in the Western North Pacific is not dust, but the volcanic continental margins of the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands.

Understanding the origins, transport mechanisms and fate of naturally occurring iron in high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll surface waters is important in calculating climate change, the scientists said.

"In the open ocean, the biopump wants to grab all the iron it can," said Bishop, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley. "There were two recognized natural sources of iron out there, atmospheric dust and upwelling from below. Where we've looked in the North Pacific, we're seeing a new and important third source -- the continental margins. The rules for the role of iron in the ocean carbon cycle need to be revised."

The study is to be reported in a forthcoming issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

© 2008 United Press International

[neverdem]

CC/GW PING

[PeterPrinciple]

Understanding the origins, transport mechanisms and fate of naturally occurring iron in high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll surface waters is important in calculating climate change, the scientists said.

---

and there it is.................

They must not have gotten the memo that it is now called climate weirdness.

[agere_contra]

Climate-hater! You're a flat-earth Climate-hater! /lefty gibberish

[farlander]

I kind of understood this one as ‘the current models for global warming are bull now that we know this...’

But I could be wrong. What do I know.

[BlueDragon]

While bottom fishing on the Santa Lucia Bank, West of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant, I trawled up a strange looking more or less flat rock, (out of approx 250 fathoms depth), that was covered with deeply pitted and very iron rich, iron ore. I kept it (but by now, have since mislaid it)
It wasn't until some years later, that the rock broke in two, exposing a hard, bluish dull shining core, much different than the outer covering of rusty material. The inner portion certainly looked like fire formed igneous rock to me.

It's long been known there are various exposed ore bodies on the sea floor. Who knows what's underneath the sediments? Or how long things were exposed that are now long covered? The idea that iron ores would migrate, bit by bit into the water, isn't unexpected.

The Western Pacific isn't the only place the iron could be coming from...

The "Ring of Fire", circles the Pacific from the Asian side, up and around, all the way down to South America.

But maybe Wood's Hole is right, and the major portion of the iron came from the Kamchatka Kuril Island areas.

[OrioleFan]

Just add iron:

[sauron]

Cobalt?!

[BlueDragon]

Cobalt? You mean the core material? Maybe.
It was dull, bluish gray. But hard and shiny...glazed, almost tending towards translucence, like if it could have been sliced thin enough...

I wondered if it were not some fragment of meteorite, once it broke in two, allowing the core to be seen. But probably not. More like a flat geode, but with the outer covering rusty enough to stain a white cotton cloth, or other surfaces, too, if left allowed to sit upon them long enough while exposed to weather. I have no way to test a sample to make comparison now, since I haven't seen the rock or it's pieces for years now. I doubt that I still have it. And the house where half of the rock was left at (after it broke into two pieces) has now long been occupied by others than ones I was friendly with. Part of the rock was in the backyard there.

[RightWhale]

the biopump wants to grab all the iron it can

This phrase needs to be in the ice skaters' thread.

[GOPJ]

They must not have gotten the memo that it is now called climate weirdness.

Nice, very nice.

[SunkenCiv]

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[Renfield]

Probably oxidized iron (ferric iron, in its 3+ state) on the exterior, and reduced iron (ferrous iron, in its 2+ state) on the interior. If you examine soils in regions below the seasonally fluctuating water table, you will find this sort of thing is quite common.

[Renfield]

By the way, at the normal pH of ocean water (8.2), ferric iron is present as very insoluble compounds (various oxides and hydrated oxides of ferric iron). So, to be useful in “seeding” the ocean, iron has to be in its ferrous state. Trouble is, in an oxidative aqueous environment, ferrous iron wants to convert to ferric iron, and does so quickly. So iron has to be chelated in order to be used in seeding, and this is expensive.

[BlueDragon]

Good info.

[Cold Heart]

Fe TTT

[cerberus]

Did you catch any fish that glowed in the dark?

Just wondering.

[kitchen]

By the way, at the normal pH of ocean water (8.2), ferric iron is present as very insoluble compounds (various oxides and hydrated oxides of ferric iron).

I must have slept through the class (hey, it happens!) on plankton metabolism. So, I infer from your comments that plankton physiology is not capable of utilizing very insoluble [iron] compounds. Can you expand that a little? Is this case restricted to single cell organisms?

[Renfield]

“...I must have slept through the class (hey, it happens!) on plankton metabolism. So, I infer from your comments that plankton physiology is not capable of utilizing very insoluble [iron] compounds. Can you expand that a little? Is this case restricted to single cell organisms?...”

The ferric oxides precipitate out and sink to the bottom, so they just aren’t present in sea water in appreciable quantities.

Chelators are compounds that keep an element (usually, we are referring to a metal) present in a state that it normally would not occupy under ambient conditions. Hemoglobin is a good example of a chelator. Our blood is buffered to pH 8.2 (not coincidentally, the same as sea water). Hemoglobin chelates the iron atom so it can cycle from ferric (oxidized, and carrying oxygen) to reduced (ferrous, having released its oxygen), and back again, without precipitating out as an insoluble oxide. Chlorophyll is another example of a chelator.

In ocean seeding, a chelator keeps an iron atom in a soluble state, making it accessible to plankton.

[kitchen]

Thank you!