SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science-led research cruise leaves for the deep Atlantic Ocean 50 miles southeast of Bermuda on Monday for a week of science at sea aboard the 171-foot R/V Atlantic Explorer. Scientists will be sampling the depths of the ocean and analyzing bacterial diversity and function to better understand the marine carbon cycle in the ocean.

"To fully understand the carbon cycle you have to understand what's happening in the ocean," said chief scientist Michael Gonsior at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "80% of organics dissolved in the ocean are unknown on the structural level."

The team of scientists and graduate students will be collecting marine carbon cycle [data].

The ocean plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. Nearly 50% of CO2 generated by human activities, such as fossil fuel burning, is absorbed by the ocean. Carbon moves in and out of the ocean daily, but it is also stored there for thousands of years. The ocean is called a carbon "sink" because it takes up more carbon from the atmosphere than it gives up.

"This collaborative study will lead to a better understanding on the role of microbial carbon pump processing and transport of recalcitrant DOM into the deep ocean," said Gonsior. "It has the potential to fundamentally advance our understanding of a presumably important marine CDOM source as well as addressing key issues in marine carbon cycling. We are on the hunt to describe at the structural level the first rather stable fluorescent organic compounds in the open ocean."

Original Submission