Minerals From Sea Water
There are a number of marine invertebrates that use minerals that are present in the sea in such minute quantities that they were undetectable until the advent of spectroscopy. Vanadium is concentrated by some tunicates for use in their blood cells to a level ten million times that of the surrounding seawater. Other tunicates similarly concentrate niobium and tantalum. Lobsters use copper in their respiratory pigment hemocyanin, despite the proportion of this metal in seawater being minute. Although these elements are present in vast quantities in the ocean, their extraction by man is not economic.
Read more about this topic: Marine Invertebrates
Famous quotes containing the words sea and/or water:
“The sea cries with its meaningless voice,
Treating alike its dead and its living,”
—Ted Hughes (b. 1930)
“We have to learn how to come out of unclean situations cleaner than we were, and even how to wash ourselves with dirty water when we need to.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)