ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Geotraces

GeoTraces is a really smart project that tries to understand more about the ocean. The ocean is like a big sea of water, but it's not just a big bowl of the same water. There are different types of water in it, and there are different things that live in it.

Scientists who work on GeoTraces want to know what kinds of things are in the ocean, where they are, and how they got there. To do this, they have to take water samples from lots of different places in the ocean. Just like you would scoop up some water from your bathtub to see what's in it, the scientists scoop up water from the ocean to see what's in it.

To make sure they get enough samples from different areas, the scientists fill up a big boat with lots of bottles, like soda bottles only much bigger. They put the bottles into the water at different depths, then scoot them back up to the boat when they're full of water.

Once they have all of these water samples, they take them back to a lab to be tested. They can do all kinds of tests to see what's in the water, like measuring the temperature, the saltiness, or how much of certain elements there are.

GeoTraces is really important because it helps scientists understand more about the ocean and the creatures that live in it. By knowing more about what's in the ocean, we can better protect it and everything that lives in it.