This reference summarizes and tabulates most of the published knowledge of its time, providing a comprehensive presentation of more than 60 elements found in marine organisms.

Extensive data, including 327 tables, on various marine groups from planktonic and nonplanktonic algae through fishes should be particularly valuable to investigators in biochemistry and physiology, geology, chemical oceanography, and nutrition. This edition, translated from the original Russian publications by Julia Efron and Jane K. Setlow, contains additional data and observations, not previously published elsewhere, which were added by Vinogradov in the preparation of the translation. The extensive bibliography of more than 2,000 titles was prepared by Virginia Odum.