Novel techniques for chemical characterization in marine systems

The ability to identify and characterize chemical species in marine and freshwater systems has seen a dramatic improvement in recent years with the advent of a variety of novel chemical techniques. This special volume of papers presented at the 2002 AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting highlights some of the latest advances in chemical characterization as they are being applied to marine and freshwater systems. These techniques include both new technologies and new applications incorporating analytical chemistry and mass spectrometry advances and new biomolecular and immunological methods. This issue presents current research using two-dimensional gas chromatography; applications for enzyme-linked bioassays and biomolecular reporters; mass-spectrometry with a variety of inlet and ionization processes (AP-ESI, MALDI, MIMS, and DT-MS); as well as the combination of more traditional chromatographic, and nuclear staining techniques with mass spectrometry detection. These advances in chemical characterization strive to address molecular-level questions including the composition and bioavailability of DOM; the identification of metal–ligand complexes and metal bioavailability; preservation and cycling of proteins, and the identification of biopolymers. The identification and quantification of organic and inorganic compounds is allowing new insight into the biological and chemical interactions that influence the rates and processes controlling chemical distributions; metal speciation and metal–organic interactions; surface chemistry; and the distribution of specific compounds in complex mixtures.