Nanoparticles and Ocean Optics
Abstract
Our long-term goal is to understand the role of the two most abundant nanoparticles in the sea, viruses and polymer aggregates and their impact on the inherent ocean optical properties of seawater. This work is important to our understanding of the impact of viral infection on the optical properties of seawater and its suspended microbial communities. In particular, it is critical to know the magnitude of changes in inherent optical properties, the rates of change and host specificity. Our field and laboratory dilution experiments have provided this. Along with changing the size spectrum of the particulate matter, viruses essentially convert Case I waters (where the optical properties can be easily indexed to chlorophyll a) to Case II-like waters (where the optics are dominated by dissolved organic matter, not chlorophyll a). Results of this work have provided important understanding of the time scales of optical changes for the numerically-abundant nano- and picoplankton following infection. The discovery of the virus phi 43 demonstrates that viral infection rates of eukaryotic hosts are even faster than we originally postulated. Our longterm goals are to better understand time-space optical variability associated with viruses, which ultimately provides improved observational capabilities, ocean color algorithms, and predictive-multidisciplinary models. This work also is important for understanding the optical properties associated with polymer-gel formation. Polymer gels begin as nanometer-sized colloids of dissolved organic matter (DOM) that aggregate, producing micron-sized colloids. Polymer gels and viruses represent two of the most abundant particles in the sea; thus, our results have far-reaching implications for ocean optical properties, for both molecular and particle scattering.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA518845
Entities
People
- James Vaughn
- Joaquim I. Goes
- William M. Balch
Organizations
- Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences