Molybdenum in Some Ocean and Estuarine Waters

Abstract

Knowledge of the distribution of molybdenum in sea water is needed for an understanding of the behaviour of the element in the geochemical cycle of weathering and sedimentation and for the assessment, in relation to environmental levels, of its possible utilization by marine organisms. The principal measurements of molybdenum in sea water are summarized in Table 1; the results of earlier investigations (Ernst & Hoermann, 1936; Bardet, Tchakirian & Lagrange, 1938; Noddack & Noddack, 1940) are excluded from this summary as later work suggests that they were inaccurate. The summary indicates that molybdenum is a comparatively uniformly distributed trace element in sea water with a concentration usually in the range of 9–13 µg/l. Except for waters directly affected by continental drainage or other localized influences, the only values appreciably below this range appear to be those reported by the early workers cited above, by Zhavoronkina (1960) for a single sample from the Atlantic, and by Brooks (1965) for waters off New Zealand.