The Gordon Research Conference in Chemical Oceanography is a major forum for the discussion and exchange of ideas at the frontiers of a field that encompasses the chemical components, reaction mechanisms, and biogeochemical processes within the ocean, present and past, and at its interfaces with the atmosphere and solid earth. The main purpose of the conference is to bring together many of the leading contributors in the chemical oceanography research community (from academic, industry and government laboratories) with a healthy mix of young scientists (junior faculty, postdocs, graduate students) to discuss and disseminate the significant new advances shaping this highly interdisciplinary field. Productive cross-fertilization of ideas and the establishment of scientific connections for future research are also conference goals.

The Chemical Oceanography Gordon Research Conference has been held approximately every two years for almost four decades. Part of its continued success has been that nearly all conference attendees participate directly through the oral or poster presentations. The informal nature and relatively small size of the conference promote valuable scientific and personal exchange, which often leads to collaboration on field projects, instrument and methods development, new laboratory experiments, and the incorporation of new research into the courses taught by many of the attendees at academic institutions around the world. In this way Gordon Research Conferences play a critical facilitating role in the advancement of the field of Chemical Oceanography as a whole.