Jellyfish Lake, Palau

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Abstract
Elemental cycling in suboxic to anoxic marine environments has received considerable attention in the past few years. The recent expeditions of the RIV Knorr to the Black Sea, for example, illustrate the interest in deciphering the geochemical processes active in such environments “Murray, 1988”.This interest has been stimulated by the recognition that the type of elemental cycling that occurs in restrictive basins such as the Black Sea also occurs in many other environments. Examples include hydrothermal systems, estuarine and marine sediments, and other water columns with restrictive circulation. In addition, evidence that widespread anoxia has occurred in oceans of the geologic past “Fischer and Arthur, 1977; Jenkyns, 1980” requires us to obtain a better understanding of geochemical processes under such conditions. We report here on preliminary geochemical measurements made in a stratified marine lake—an unusual, yet useful environment as an analog of an anoxic ocean.