Course Credit: 3
Introduction, Background:
Introduction, the composition of seawater, what is salinity? The properties of water and seawater, the global hydrologic cycle, general oceanic circulation, rneridional overturning circulation', global salinity distribution, density and vertical density profiles.
Intro to Earth Processes; Seawater and Salt, Salinity and Chemical Transformations. Gas Solubility and Air Sea exchange. Elemental composition of' seawater. Conservative and non conservative behaviour. Salinity, its measurement and applications.
Steady vs non steady state of ocean composition. Mean oceanic residence times, the thermocline and the 2 box model of ocean chemistry; thermohaline circulation.
Estuaries, Evaporites, Primary productivity and particle fluxes.
Geochemical Cycling through the Oceans:
Compositions and Residence Times. Major ions and salinity, box models, mass balances, river input, weathering, cyclic salts, hydrothermal systems and sediments, speciation of major ions. Tools for studying geochemistry.
Introduction to stable isotopes. Introduction to radiochermstry, chart of the nuclides, Applications. eg. Carbon 14 dating, particle scavenging rates, air sea gas exchange, quantification. The Global Journey inputs to and outputs from the ocean. Rivers and estuaries, weathering, hydrothermal processes, gas exchange across the air sea interface, atmospheric deposition, sediments.
Inorganic Carbon Chemistry 1: The oceanic chemistry of dissolved inorganic carbon, pH, the alkalinity of seawater, ion activity products.
Biogeochemical Cycling within the Water Column:
Life Processes in the Ocean, Redfield ratios, nutrients, nutrient limitation, photosynthesis, respiration, particles and scavenging in the water column, transport and removal of particles, 234 Th methods, controls of primary productivity, nutrient distributions. trace element distributions, trace elements and phytoplankton, quantifying fluxes and rates.
Biogeochemical Cycling in the Sediments:
Sediment Chemistry, The importance of oxygen, redox geochemistry, early diagenesis, sequence of terminal electron acceptors, organic matter preservation, global distribution of sediments.
Inorganic Carbon Chemistry II: Preservation of carbonate sediments, alkalinitv
budgets, paleo oceanographic implications of ocean carbonate chemistry.
Global Biogeochernical Cycles:
The Carbon Cycle long term cycles, weathering, preservation in sediments, anthropogenic impacts. The Nitrogen Cycle denitrification, nitrogen fixation, annamox, paleo oceanographic applications.
The biolimiting elements: P, N and Si. Biological cycling of other elements. CaCO3) biogeochemistry and changing pH of oceans. Dissolved oxygen and anoxia. Scavenged elements. Geochemistry of ocean sediments.
Oxygen, Organic Matter, Nutrients and Biolimiting Elements, Trace Metals, Diagenesis. Nitrogen and Phosphorus Cycles, Production of DOM, Silica and Evaporites, Inorganic Chemistry of Seawater, Marine Carbon Cycle and Global Climate Change.
Introduction, basic terms, zonation of the oceans, history, physical & chemical properties of seawater, water masses, density, pressure, salinity.
Light, temperature, ocean heat budget, physics of waves & currents, major current systems, Upwelling.
Nitrogen, phosphorus, silicate, biogeochemical cycles, carbon cycle and the marine carbonate system.
Photosynthesis, primary production, phytoplankton systematics, zooplankton systematic, ecology of zooplankton, secondary production and zooplankton activity, food chains, food webs and the "microbial loop".
Nutrient uptake and competition, zonation of the benthos, seafloor, macroalgae. seagrass, benthic animals, ecology of benthic communities and mangroves, coral reef's.
Fisheries oceanography, marine mammal ecology, deep sea ecology and hydrothermal vents, alien species and harmful algal blooms, human impacts oil the oceans.
Books Recommended:
Emerson, S.R and Hedges, J.1. Chemical Oceanography and the Marine Carbon Cycle. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2008.
Pilson, M.E.Q. An Introduction to the Chemistry of the Sea. Prentice Hall, Ne\N, Jersey. USA, 1998.
Sarmiento, J. and Gruber, N. Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J, USA, 2006.
Berner. Elizabeth Kay and Robert A. Berner. Global Environment: Water, Air, and Geochemical Cycles. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1996.
Broecker, Wallace and Peng, Tsung hung, Tracers in the Sea, Palisades, N.Y. Lamont¬Doherty Geological Observatory, Columbia University. 1982.
Burdige David, Geochemistry of Marine Sediments. Princeton University Press, 2006.
Morel, Francois M. M. and Janet G. Hering. Principles and Applications of Aquatic Chemistry. Wiley Interscience, New York, 1993.
Millero, Frank J. Chemical Oceanography, Third Edition. CRC Press, New York, 2006.
Marine Biogeocheinical Cycles, 2nd Edition by Rachel James. The Open University,
ISBN: 0750667931
Seawater: Its Composition, Properties and Behavior, 2nd Edition by The Open University, ISBN: 0750637153
Marine Biogeochemical Cycles (second edition). Open University. ISBN07506679l
Marine Geochemistry. H.D. Schulz and M. Zabel (eds.). ISBN 354066453X
Carol M Lalli & Timothy Parsons (1997) Biological Oceanography: An Introduction, 2nd edition. Butterworth Heinemann Publishers. ISBN 0750633840.
J. Levinton (2009) Marine Biology: Function, Biodiversity, Ecology. (3rd edition, Oxford University Press).
Sumich, James, L. & Morrissey, John, F. (2008) Introduction to the Biology of Marine Life, 9th edition. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. ISBN: 0 7637 3313 X.
M. Takahashi, B. Hargrave & T. R. Parsons (2005) Biological Oceanographic Processes, 344 pages, 3rd Edition. Pergamon Press.
Jumars, P. A. (1993) Concepts in Biological Oceanography: An Interdisciplinary Primer. Oxford University Press, New York. 348 p. ISBN 0 19 506732 0.