海洋への隆起源有機物の寄与

抄録

Organic matter in sea water is ultimately derived from various species of marine plants and river run-off abd airborne materials of terrestrial origin. Direct addition of organic matter especially due to the direct drainage and oil spill is also important source for organic matter in sea water. Recent advances of the studies on the chemistry and biochemistry of the particulate organic matter in sea water clearly indicate that almost of the organic materials produced by photosynthetic reaction of phytoplankton is decayed until the particulate matter has been reached to the bottom of the ocean floor. This fact suggests that the processes of primary production may not be contributed so much to the input of organic matter to the ocean. Average concentration of organic carbon in river water is estimated to be 10mgC/1. Thus, annual input of organic matter to the ocean can be calculated as 3.0x10¹⁴gC. However, several workers have stated that the contribution of the dissoved organic matter in the rivers to the ocean must be ignor because of rapid precipitation of the organic matter during the mixing processes of river water with sea water. The organic matter carried by winds may be somewhat more important to contribute to the organic matter in the ocean comparing river system. The isolation, identification and elucidation of the organic matter from airborne particles of urban areas and from exhaust gases derived from the internal combution engines have been developed extensively last decade. Very limitted information as to the contribution of these organic compounds to the ocean are available at present time. Organic materials from the land sources must be transported to the ocean by mainly the trade winds since pesticides and PCBs have been determined in marine aerosols collected from Barbados, a remote Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Quantitative estimation of the contribution of airborne particulate organic matter to the ocean is an important problem to solve in future in view of the mass-balance of the organic matter in the ocean.