It is by far the most abundant river in the world. One fifth of the Earth's entire freshwater supply flows from its mouth into the Atlantic pushing the ocean's salt water several hundred kilometers out to sea. In April, Andrea Koschinsky, Professor of Geochemistry at Jacobs University, will travel to the estuary of the Amazon – as head of a recently approved, interdisciplinary research project on board the research ship, Meteor.
The Amazon River is almost 7,000 km long and is not only tremendously abundant but it also transports large quantities of trace metals such as iron and copper and dissolved organic materials. It is these materials that interest the team comprising Andrea Koschinsky, Prof. Thorsten Dittmar from the University of Oldenburg and Prof. Martin Frank from GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel as well as the four Brazilian partner organizations.
"We want to gain a better understanding of the material cycle in the ocean," says Andrea Koschinsky about the M 147 research trip's aims. "We will only be able to reliably predict the human impact on this cycle if we succeed in this". Trace elements such as carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus play an important role in the ocean as they are essential elements for the formation of biomass. However, all life needs iron – even the smallest marine organism requires it.
The Amazon River carries many elements into the sea, including iron. Part of the elements flocculate when the freshwater meets the salt water and mixes, they drop down and settle on the bottom of the river mouth as sediment. However, another part remains in the water and forms part of the material cycle in the ocean. On their research trip, the scientists want to find out exactly how these processes work, their interdependencies, interactions and quantities. Their focus is on the flow of iron as well as other important trace elements and organic molecules.
The scientists will take the first water samples from the river where the freshwater is the purest. The ship will then follow the course of the river via the brackish salt water and freshwater water system until its keel reaches the pure seawater. Sediment samples will taken from the seabed, from the river at a depth of up to 100 m and from the sea at a depth of up to 2,000 m.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stretch611 on Monday December 25 2017, @06:07AM (1 child)
The story is from innovations-report.com. This is innovative research?!?
Back when I was in school (and that was a few decades ago...) It was pretty well known about the Amazon's current bringing fresh water separated from the salty water miles into the ocean.
With all the millions of dollars spent on climate research, and all the money spent on saving the rainforest... no one has ever thought to do this before? Really??? WTF?!? Not to mention just doing it for general earth sciences.
I do consider this good scientific research. My point here is that the real shock is that not only is this new and innovative research, but why the hell haven't we been doing this already? Truly, I'm surprised that this isn't done annually to check for trends. The article itself calls it a "fragile ecosystem." How can you spot changes if you are not checking it regularly?
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 25 2017, @11:54AM
Why haven't we been carefully measuring Earth's climate for the past 4.5 billion years? Seems quite the obvious thing to do, right? There's a first time for everything, usually in the near past due to our relative lack of technology and observation discipline prior to the last few centuries. And a lot of this stuff will be obvious in hindsight, but not in foresight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @01:31AM
And dope the sheets with tiny amounts of the 'material' marine life requires.
If you can't beat 'em...