Hazard potential of widespread but hidden historic offshore heavy metal (Pb, Zn) contamination (Gulf of Cadiz, Spain).

Autor: Hanebuth TJJ; Department of Coastal and Marine Systems Science, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC, USA. Electronic address: thanebuth@coastal.edu., King ML; Department of Coastal and Marine Systems Science, Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SC, USA., Mendes I; Centro de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal., Lebreiro S; Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Calle Ríos Rosas, 23, 28003 Madrid, Spain., Lobo FJ; Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, CSIC-Universidad de Granada, Armilla, Granada, Spain., Oberle FK; Department of Chemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA., Antón L; Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Calle Ríos Rosas, 23, 28003 Madrid, Spain., Ferreira PA; Instituto Oceanográfico da Universidade de São Paulo, Praça do Oceanográfico, São Paulo, Brazil., Reguera MI; Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Calle Ríos Rosas, 23, 28003 Madrid, Spain.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2018 Oct 01; Vol. 637-638, pp. 561-576. Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 May 10.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.352
Abstrakt: Natural and human-induced seabed sediment disturbances affect wide areas of the global coastal ocean. These recurrent to chronic disturbances mobilize significant amounts of material, including substances that have the potential to significantly harm the environment once re-released. This very challenging issue is difficult to deal with if sub-surface contaminant concentrations are unknown. Based on the analysis of 11 new, up to 5-m long sediment cores taken offshore in the Gulf of Cadiz, the contamination history (using the trace elements lead and zinc) is well documented over major parts of the gulf. Ore mining and metal processing industries on the southwestern Iberian Peninsula started five thousand years ago and experienced a first peak during the Roman Period, which can be detected over the entire gulf. The Industrial Era added a massive, shelf-wide heavy metal excursion of unprecedented dimension. This metal contamination to the coastal ocean decreased in the 1990s and appears to be today limited to larger areas off the Tinto/Odiel and Guadiana River mouths. The unforeseen, significant finding of this study is that the gulf-wide, peak heavy metal concentration, stemming from the Industrial Era, is widely overlain by a modern sediment veneer just thick enough to cover the contaminant horizon, but thin enough to have this layer within the reach of natural or human-induced sediment mobilization events.
(Published by Elsevier B.V.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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