HR: 1340h
AN: OS43B-0555    [Abstracts]
TI: A Deep-Sea Mass Spectrometer Instrument for Long-Term, In Situ Biogeochemical Monitoring
AU: * Bossuyt, A
EM: abossuyt1904@yahoo.com
AF: SOEST, University of Hawaii, 1000 Pope Road, Honolulu, HI 96822 United States
AU: McMurtry, G M
EM: garym@soest.hawaii.edu
AF: SOEST, University of Hawaii, 1000 Pope Road, Honolulu, HI 96822 United States
AB: Mass spectrometry has been a major analytical tool for more than 100 years, but it has rarely been used to monitor the environment in situ. Furthermore, a deep-water instrument is even more challenging due to a lack of an effective membrane-introduction interface and an efficient high-vacuum system that will work remotely for long periods at very high pressure. Being able to solve these problems could greatly improve scientific work that requires long-term monitoring of the environment (geology, biology, oceanography). Traditional deep-water sampling methods usually involve the collection of water samples and delivery to a laboratory for analysis. This approach can result in degradation of sample quality over time and provide inaccurate results, but mostly, this approach limits a remote, in situ monitoring capability. In situ measurements by an underwater mass spectrometer can eliminate many problems intrinsic to traditional sampling methods and provide data with temporal resolutions that are difficult to obtain by other means. High sensitivity and the ability to simultaneously measure multiple species (e.g. hydrogen, helium, methane, oxygen, H2S or CO2) with the promise of isotopic resolution are its major features. We have developed an underwater mass spectrometer instrument for the in situ study of dissolved gases for six months to a year at up to 3000 m water depth, using battery power. This oceanographic instrument should eventually allow the measurement of dissolved gases and volatile organic compounds in a variety of ocean environments (cold seeps on the continental margins, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, submarine groundwater discharge and pollution in coastal areas).
DE: 4894 Instruments and techniques
DE: 4294 Instruments and techniques
DE: 3094 Instruments and techniques
DE: 1050 Marine geochemistry (4835, 4850)
DE: 1094 Instruments and techniques
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting