Hydrocarbons of the hypersaline basins of Shark Bay,Western Australia |
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| Authors: | RW Dunlop PR Jefferies |
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| Institution: | Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, 6009 Australia |
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| Abstract: | Shark Bay is an 8000 sq. km shallow marine embayment on the western coast of Western Australia. The waters exhibit a well established salinity gradient from oceanic to hypersaline. The chemical assemblage of sediment hydrocarbons along the salinity gradient may be classified into two distinct chemogeographic types. Firstly, oceanic sediments contain n-alkanes and a suite of highly branched and branched/cyclic C25 alkenes. Hypersaline sediments are characterised by a high relative abundance of a C25H50 alkene together with an analogous C20H40 alkene and its parent C20H42 alkene (2,6,10-trimethyl-7-(3-methylbutyl)-dodecane). A pair of alkanes C21H42 and C22H44 increase in concentration and relative abundance with depth. The hydrocarbons of the hypersaline basins are found in only trace amounts in oceanic sediments. These chemical signals are overlain by further input indicative of the immediate biotic community. |
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| Keywords: | sediment hydrocarbons branched alkenes hypersaline cleistanthane |
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