The Biogeochemistry of Cadmium

Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, 153 Guyot Hall, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA 

For many years, however, oceanographers have had a different interest in Cd. They have discovered that the distribution of Cd in the oceans is similar to that of the major algal nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus. In view of the remarkable correlation between Cd and P concentrations observed throughout the oceans (Fig. 1), the concentration of Cd—as recorded, for example, in the CaC03 tests of fossil foraminifera—can be used as a proxy for that of P. Recently, it has become apparent that the nutrient-like behavior of Cd in the 

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