Marine Chemistry

Research areas

The marine chemistry section is concerned with questions of basic research and contributes to the environmental monitoring program of the Baltic Sea. Priorities include the examination of spatio-temporal variations, transport and transformation of chemical variables in marine ecological systems, particularly those of the Baltic.

The primary focus of this research is natural and anthropogenic water components, such as gases, nutrients, inorganic carbon compounds, as well as heavy metals, oil components and halogeneous-organic contaminants. The areas of investigation are the water column, suspended particulate matter and sediments, as well as the biota and atmosphere.

A goal of this research is the identification and budgeting of elemental fluxes and the documentation of long-term variations of chemical variables, as these are prerequisites for the stepwise modelling of marine ecosystems. Hence, our research projects and monitoring tasks are highly interdisciplinary.