engleski

Elemental depth profiles in marine sediments of Singapore coastal waters

Thirty -eight core sediment samples were recently collected from different locations of the Singapore coastal region. The aim of the project was to trace the history of marine pollution in various coastal regions and to determine the impact of industrial activities. Two nuclear analytical techniques were employed in this study: PIXE, RBS as well as XRF. Combined together these techniques provide an excellent tool to determine elemental concentrations of more thn 30 elements with detection limits as low as few ppm. Our results show that elemental concentration in most of regions do not show a significant variation with depth. However, in regions where industrial and shipping activities are high, for example the Port of Singapore area and the northern part of Johore Straits, the concentration of metals like Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Sn and Pb were found to have an obvious decreasing trend with depth. In these cores, concentrations in the top 10-15 cm were sometimes ten times higher than the corresponding base line conentrations. Elemental depth profiles of Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Sn and Pb and their mean concentrations in various regions are reported and discussed.

marine pollution; metals; sediments

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