John Martin was an oceanographer.

Born in Old Lyme, Connecticut

Old Lyme, Connecticut

Old Lyme is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The Main Street of the town is a historic district. The town has long been a popular summer resort and artists' colony...

, he is best known for his research on the role of iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 as a phytoplankton

Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton are the autotrophic component of the plankton community. The name comes from the Greek words φυτόν , meaning "plant", and πλαγκτός , meaning "wanderer" or "drifter". Most phytoplankton are too small to be individually seen with the unaided eye...

 micronutrient

Micronutrient

Micronutrients are nutrients required by humans and other living things throughout life in small quantities to orchestrate a whole range of physiological functions, but which the organism itself cannot produce. For people, they include dietary trace minerals in amounts generally less than 100...

, and its significance for so-called "High-Nutrient, Low Chlorophyll

HNLC

HNLC stands for "high-nitrate, low-chlorophyll" - a term used in marine ecology to describe areas of the ocean where the number of phytoplankton are low and fairly constant in spite of high macro-nutrient concentrations...

" regions of the ocean

Ocean

An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...

s. He is also known for advocating the use of iron fertilization

Iron fertilization

Iron fertilization is the intentional introduction of iron to the upper ocean to stimulate a phytoplankton bloom. This is intended to enhance biological productivity, which can benefit the marine food chain and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Iron is a trace element necessary for...

 to enhance oceanic primary production

Primary production

400px|thumb|Global oceanic and terrestrial photoautotroph abundance, from September [[1997]] to August 2000. As an estimate of autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential, and not an actual estimate of it...

 to act as a sink

Carbon dioxide sink

A carbon sink is a natural or artificial reservoir that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period. The process by which carbon sinks remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is known as carbon sequestration...

 for fossil fuel

Fossil fuel

Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...

 carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

.

John Martin died from prostate cancer

Prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly...

 at the age of 58.

Quotes

“Give me a half tanker of iron, and I will give you an ice age.” - John Martin, from a lecture at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers. Established in 1930, it is the largest independent oceanographic research...

External links

• The Iron hypothesis, Caroline Dopyera, Earth, October 1996
• "On the shoulders of giants" biography, NASA Earth Observatory
  NASA Earth Observatory
  NASA Earth Observatory is an online publishing outlet for NASA which was created in 1999. It is the principal source of satellite imagery and other scientific information pertaining to the climate and the environment which are being provided by NASA for consumption by the general public...