Diatoms Discovered To Remove Phosphorus From Oceans

Georgia Tech researchers found that diatoms naturally remove phosphorusfrom the oceans. (Credit: Image courtesy of Georgia Institute ofTechnology)ScienceDaily (May 5, 2008) - Scientists at the GeorgiaInstitute of Technology have discovered a new way that phosphorus isnaturally removed from the oceans - its stored in diatoms. The discoveryopens up a new realm of research into an element that's used forreproduction, energy storage and structural materials in every organism.Its understanding is vital to the continued quest to understand thegrowth of the oceans. The research appears in the May 2, 2008 edition ofthe journal Science.Ellery Ingall, associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Earth andAtmospheric Sciences, along with Ph.D. student Julia Diaz, collectedorganisms and sediments along an inlet near Vancouver Island in BritishColumbia. During their investigation on the boat, Diaz used atraditional optical microscope to discover that diatoms, microscopicorganisms that live in oceans and damp surfaces, were storing blobs ofvery dense concentrations of phosphorus called polyphosphates."These polyphosphates have been missed in classic studies because theyhaven't been recovered by the typical measurement techniques," saidIngall. "No one measured or treated the samples because no one knew theywere there - they didn't even think to look for it."For a long time, scientists have been unable to account for thedifference in the amount of phosphorus that's in the oceans and theamount that's washed in from rivers."We're getting the initial clues as to how this phosphorus gets to thebottom of the oceans," said Diaz. "These diatoms are sinking from thetop to the bottom of the ocean, and as they're sinking, they'retransporting the phosphorus in the form of intracellular polyphosphate."After making their initial discovery, the team made another. They wentto Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago to delve deeper and foundthat some of the blobs were polyphosphate, some were a mineral known asapatite, and some were a transitional material between the two.Now that they've proved a link between polyphosphate and apatite,they're next step is to try and capture the chemical transition betweenthe two by running controlled experiments in the lab.Adapted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology.