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HI!!! Thank you so much for the ask I appreciate you!!!
Did you know that iron is actually a limiting nutrient for life in a lot of our oceans? In areas such as Bermuda and coral reefs, iron is the main component for life that is limiting, like a limiting reagent in a chemical reaction!
Chemicals such as vitamin B-12 (or cyanocobalamin) that we take in vitamin form are an example of siderophores, or chemical compounds that attach to iron in all environments so our bodies, or marine organisms, can actually use the iron present all around us and in our diet!
This right here is the structure of vitamin B12, and it is considered one of the least complicated forms of siderophores! In iron starved areas, they tend to be even more complex!
But, there is some research going on that looks at iron in our oceans and the possibility of adding iron to our oceans to stimulate localized growth and work to store carbon in our oceans! This would help with the decline in fisheries, supporting more growth in our oceans, as well as be a good way to speed up the carbon storage in our ocean! The concept is called "iron fertilization", and there is a lot of research on this, but no conclusive results. It may help, it may cause a crash of the ecosystem, or maybe it will store carbon, but only for a short period of time.
Someone actually illegally dumped it though, in an attempt to restore salmon fisheries in Alaska! With only vague hypothesis, this dude lied to the native tribes in the area and said there was definitive proof the iron would help, and went out and dumped iron on their behalf! There was a huge thing about it, it's pretty crazy stuff! The tribe has refused to comment a lot of the case, so no one is really sure of what all happened there.
