Zooplankton distribution and isotope turnover during Operation Swordfish

Abstract

An evaluation was made of the importance of marine zooplankton in elemental cycling and transport of elements through the thermocline. Zooplankton density was measured in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Some measurement of elemental elimination rates were made using zooplankton labeled by fallout from a nuclear test; other measurements used animals tagged with tracer Il31 or ca58. The turnover time for cobalt in the upper 100 m of the sea is not more than 100 years based on cobalt flux rates in zooplankton alone (U).