Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 2 hours / session
Recitations: 1 session / week, 1 hour / session
Format
This course is offered through The MIT/WHOI Joint Program. Lectures were held at WHOI and broadcast via private video link to students on the MIT campus. Recitations were on the MIT campus and broadcast via private video link to students at WHOI.
Homework
Homework is worth 30 percent of your grade. There will be 9 problem sets, so each problem set will be worth about 3 percent of your grade. The problem sets will be handed out on Tuesdays and due in class on the following Thursday (so you have a week and a half). We prefer you try to do these problems by yourself, but don’t mind if you work in groups.
Mid-term Exam
There will be a mid-term exam after Ses #12. This exam will cover all of the material covered up to that point. It will be worth 30 percent of your grade.
Final Exam
The final exam will cover all material presented over the semester. It will be a 3-hour, closed book, take home exam and will be worth 30 percent of your grade.
Class Participation
This will count for 10 percent of your grade and will be based on attendance and participation in the lectures and recitation.
Lecture Notes and Course Reading
Electronic copies of the lecture notes will be made available in the lecture notes section. For those lectures for which we don’t yet have electronic versions of the figures, we will distribute photocopies prior to lecture. There will not be any formal reading assignments for the course, but you may find the following books to be good references:
Pilson, Michael E. Q. An Introduction to the Chemistry of the Sea. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998. ISBN: 9780132589710.
Libes, Susan M. An Introduction to Marine Biogeochemistry. New York, NY: Wiley, 1992. ISBN: 9780471509462.
Berner, Elizabeth Kay, and Robert A. Berner. Global Environment: Water, Air, and Geochemical Cycles. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1996. ISBN: 9780133011692.
Calendar
Lecturers
SD=Scott Doney
WM=Bill Martin
KC=Karen Casciotti
MKT=Meg Tivey
DT=Dierdre Toole
| SES # | TOPICS | KEY DATES | LECTURERS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction | |||
| 1 | Overview of the determinants of seawater composition | SD | |
| Tools for studying marine geochemistry | |||
| 2 | Introduction to stable isotopes | KC | |
| 3 | Introduction to marine radiochemistry | WM | |
| Physical setting: Atm., ocean circulation, hydrol. cycle | |||
| 4 | Atmospheric circulation and water cycle | SD | |
| 5 | Ocean circulation | Problem set 1 due | SD |
| Major constituents of seawater and controls | |||
| 6 | Major ions and salinity | SD | |
| 7 | Marine carbonate chemistry | Problem set 2 due | WM |
| Inputs to and outputs from the ocean | |||
| 8 | Rivers and groundwater | MKT | |
| 9 | Hydrothermal processes | Problem set 3 due | MKT |
| 10 | Non-conservative processes in estuaries/groundwater/hydrothermal | MKT | |
| 11 | Gas exchange across the air-sea interface | SD | |
| 12 | Atmospheric-ocean interaction | Problem set 4 due | DT |
| Mid-term | |||
| Biogeochemical cycling in the water column | |||
| 13 | Primary production (1) | SD | |
| 14 | Primary production (2) | SD | |
| 15 | New, export, and net community production | Problem set 5 due | SD |
| 16 | Sinking particles and remineralization (1) | SD | |
| 17 | Sinking particles and remineralization (2) | Problem set 6 due | SD |
| 18 | Quantifying biogeochemical fluxes and rates | SD | |
| Biogeochemical cycling in sediments | |||
| 19 | Early diagenesis I | Problem set 7 due | KC |
| 20 | Early diagenesis II and sediment distributions | KC | |
| Special topics | |||
| 21 | Long-term cycles of carbon, oxygen and sulfur | DT | |
| 22 | P cycle | Problem set 8 due | DT |
| 23 | N cycle | KC | |
| 24 | Anthropogenic CO2 (1) | Problem set 9 due | SD |
| 25 | Anthropogenic CO2 (2) and review | SD | |
| Final exam | |||
