The oxidation of organics adsorbed on surfaces by ozone is of fundamental chemical interest and potentially important in the lower atmosphere. Studies of the oxidation of the three-carbon and eight-carbon vinylterminated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs, C3d and C8d) on a silicon ATR (attenuated total reflectance) crystal by gas-phase O 3 at 296 K are reported. Oxidation of the SAMs was followed in real time by ATR-FTIR using ozone concentrations that spanned 5 orders of magnitude, from ∼10 11 to 10 16 molecules cm -3 . For comparison, some studies of the saturated C8 SAM were also carried out. The films were also characterized by atomic force microscopy and water contact angle measurements. The loss of CdC and the formation of CdO were measured in real time and shown to be consistent with a Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism in which O 3 is rapidly adsorbed on the surface and then reacts more slowly with the alkene moiety. This is supported by molecular dynamics (MD) calculations which show that O 3 does not simply undergo elastic collisions but has a significant residence time on the surface. However, the kinetics measurements indicate a much longer residence time than the MD calculations, suggesting a chemisorption of O 3 . Formaldehyde was observed as a gas-phase product by infrared cavity ring down spectroscopy. Possible mechanisms of the ozonolysis and its atmospheric implications are discussed.