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Avaliação da contaminação por metais traço e hidrocarbonetos de petróleo nos sedimentos de um estuário tropical da Baía de Todos os Santos, Brasil

2008; Sociedade Brasileira de Geologia; Volume: 38; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

2177-4382

Joil José Celino, Olívia Maria Cordeiro de Oliveira, Gisele Mara Hadlich, Antônio Fernando de Souza Queiroz, Karina Santos Garcia,

Heavy metals in environment

As part of the environmental assessment within Todos os Santos Bay, State of Bahia - Brazil, in summer of 2005, superficial water and sediments samples of the mangrove were collected at five locations to determine the spatial distribution of anthropogenic pollutants in the Dom Joao estuary at the Sao Francisco do Conde Region. Sandy sediments with low organic matter content dominate the studied area. Trace metal levels indicated that sediments were moderately polluted with Cu (overall mean: 21.48 +/- 4.76 µg.g- 1 dry sediment), but not with Pb (15 +/- 8), Zn (38 +/- 10), Cr (15 +/- 7), Ni (13 +/- 6) and Cd (0.4 +/- 0.2). Depending on location, total petroleum hydrocarbons ranged from 1.6 to 10.6 µg.g- 1. To discriminate pattern differences and similarities among samples, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed using a correlation matrix. PCA revealed the latent relationships among all the stations investigated and confirmed our analytical results. Principal components analysis confirmed two regions according to their environmental quality. The results pointed out that almost all the area presented some substances that can cause adverse biological effects, especially in the outermost region where some metals are above TEL level