DISURIBUTION U;LjS-LITED" Stable Carbon Isotopes in Sea Water

(1) Long-Range Objectives and SummaryI iE w'" _i The program aims at an understanding of the relationships that exist between the many va ' ed phases of carbon in the ocean, their relation to other phases in the oce-nic environment, and the source, fate and regeneration of carbon phases. Stable isotopes provide an excellent means for detecting many of these relationships because they represent characteristic natural labels which allow us to trace the path of carbon in its natural cycle from one phase to another. Our results have a direct bearing on the identificatiorl. < of water masses and the extent and rate of vertical and horizontal mixing in the ocean.--CThus far our efforts have been concentrated on the distribution of the carbon isotopes in the dissolved inorganic and organic carbon phases. We have LLJ ~.Jfound a pronounced correlation between the concentration of dissolved oxygenLC and the C13/C12 ratio of the dissolved inorganic carbon (Deuser and Hunt, 1969)