Hunt for ocean's vital nutrients

Science - Pete Wilton | 15 Oct 10. Normally we think of metals in our water supply as a bad thing, but when it comes to trace amounts of metals welling-up from the ocean's depths we should count ourselves lucky that they appear. That's because metals such as iron and zinc are essential to all kinds of marine life - they act rather like a 'fuel' that powers ocean ecosystems. On 17 October an Oxford University-led expedition will set sail for the South Atlantic to study these 'micronutrient' metals. 'Because they are present in seawater at such low concentrations they are difficult to measure but with this new expedition we hope to revolutionise our understanding of the metal 'micronutrient' cycle and gain insights into the past, present and future of Earth's climate,' explains Gideon Henderson of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences and the Oxford Martin School, who is leading the UK-GEOTRACES consortium. Gideon will lead a team of 24 scientists from 10 UK institutes aboard the Royal Research Ship Discovery , one of NERC 's research vessels, collecting samples and carrying out experiments on the 39-day cruise from Cape Town to Montevideo. The RRS Discovery will head to the South Atlantic where the ocean is particularly rich in life, but where the sources of micronutrients are a mystery.