Hydrogen sulfides in oxic seawater

ELLIOTT ETAL. Hydrogen Sulfides in Oxic Seawater... 

The members of the hydrogen sulfide family are both thermodynamically and kinetically unstable in oxic seawater. The thermodynamic bias against them can be appreciated in a simple redox couple to sulfate, the predominant form of oceanic sulfur. 

The hydrogen sulfides (H2S, SH-, S2 and their metal complexes) are well known in restricted reducing regions of the world ocean such as anoxic basins (1), but they have traditionally been dismissed as unimportant for, or even nonexistent in, most oxic seawaters 12-41. Several lines of reasoning are now beginning to suggest that sulfides actually do exist in the surface ocean, and enter into a rich metal chemistiy there. Extensive measurements of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) in seawater (5.61 permit the quantification of a mixed layer source, the hydrolysis reactions f7-111... 

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