Abstract
There has been an increasing concern for the geochemical fate of trace metals in the marine
environment. Many baseline studies have been made to determine the total concentration
of these metals in the solution phase, the gas phase, and the solid phase (i.e., on and in
living and nonliving material). Although these studies have been useful in indicating the
fate of trace metals in the marine environment, little progress has been made in determining the mechanisms involved (physical, chemical, and biological) in the transfer of
metals between phases. Part of the reason for this lack of understanding of trace metals in
the marine environment comes from the diffculties in detecting experimentally the true
activity (both thermodynamic and biochemical) of the trace metals; because of their low
concentrations, conventional electrode methods of determining thermodynamic activity
are diffcult to apply. Although it is possible to detect the activity of some metals, we are at
present forced to use models to estimate the thermodynamic activity of most trace metals
to make comparisons with biological studies.