Produção Nacional
Revisado por pares
Mercury in sediments from the Paraíba do Sul River continental shelf, S.E. Brazil
1993; Elsevier BV; Volume: 26; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/0025-326x(93)90626-u
ISSN1879-3363
AutoresLuiz Drude de Lacerda, Carlos Eduardo Veiga de Carvalho, Carlos Eduardo de Rezende, W.C. Pfeiffer,
Tópico(s)Water Quality and Pollution Assessment
ResumoSediments are important for the study of heavy metal contamination in aquatic environments, and generally reflect the overall quality of ecosystems in terms of metal pollution. It is also possible to derive information on the historical contamination of a system from the analysis of sediment cores. In the case of mercury, this technique has been successfully used in various coastal and lake areas (e.g. see Baldi & DAmato, 1986: Lacerda el al., 1991 ). Riverine inputs can affect the spatial distribution of metals in continental shelf sediments. For example, the distribution of various metals of anthropogenic origin in North Sea sediments is predominantly determined by riverine inputs (Irion & Muller, 1990). In the Tvrrhenian Sea, Cinnabar deposits and chlor-alkali plants result in a characteristic pattern of mercury distribution in shelf sediments (Baldi & DAmato, 1986). The Parml~a do Sul River is the major freshwater supply to the South-eastern Brazilian coast. It also drains an important industrial park and the second largest sugar cane production area in the country. The river has received many impacts from anthropogenic activities, including the discharge of various metallic pollutants (Maim eta/., 1989a). Mercury uses in the lower basin of the Parafba do Sul River originate mostlv from two major sources: from agriculture, where it was widely used as fungicide in the sugar cane plantations until 1980, when its use was banned (Camara, 1986); and from the early 1980s onwards, from gold mining which uses Hg to amalgamate fine gold particles from river sediments, It Marine Pollution Bulletin
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