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Sub-surface sampling

WHOI scientist Phoebe Lam (right), WHOI-MIT joint program student James Saenz (center), and Pericles Silva (left) from Instituto Nacional de Desenvolvimento das Pescas in Cape Verde, deploy a vane sampler during a September 2008 cruise off the coast of West Africa. The sampler, which has no external metal surfaces, is used to prevent contamination of water samples that will be analyzed for trace amounts of iron. Lam, of WHOI’s Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department, and colleagues are testing the hypothesis that the continental margin of northwest Africa provides significant amounts of iron to the eastern tropical Atlantic. (Photo by Alexander Dorsk, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)