A baseline study of trace metals in a coral reef sedimentary environment,Lakshadweep Archipelago |
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| Authors: | Anu Gopinath S M Nair N C Kumar K V Jayalakshmi D Pamalal |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Chemistry, St. Teresa’s College, Cochin, India;(2) Department of Chemical Oceanography, School of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin-16, India;(3) National Institute of Oceanography, Cochin, India;(4) Centre for Earth Science Studies, Trivandrum, India; |
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| Abstract: | Surficial and core samples collected from the sedimentary microenvironments of Lakshadweep Archipelago were analysed for their
trace metal contents. The synoptical relations in spatial distributions with respect to environmental conditions such as pH,
organic carbon and sediment texture were inter-correlated. Some of the metals exhibited good correlations with Fe/Mn, which
reflect their similarity in distribution rather than anthropogenic enrichment. Inter-relating the variations in metal—pH relationships
with metal—organic carbon, in general, those which exhibited positive correlations with pH, displayed negative interactions
with organic carbon content and vice versa. Comparatively, higher values of Fe in the mangrove area of one of the islands
highlight the possibility of precipitation of Fe as iron sulphides, which are common in mangrove ecosystem. Based on the contamination
factors for Pb, Zn and Cd, as well as the geo-accumulation index of Cd, it can be generalised that some of the islands remain
polluted with respect to these elements. An evaluation based on pollution load index shows that none of the islands surveyed
for this study posed a serious threat in trace metal pollution. Bray Curtis similarity index was computed to find out the
similarity among metals/islands, using non-transformed data of metal concentrations. Group linkage clustering technique was
used for drawing dendrograms to show the similarity among them. |
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