Acid sulfate (AS) soils are characterized by a large pool of sulfates which may provide significant amounts of acidity and heavy metals – commonly nickel (Ni), Cobolt (Co), Zinc (Zn) and Arsenic (As) - to surrounding surface waters. The occurrence of AS soils is widespread, covering 17 million ha globally, and they are known for threatening freshwaters in Australia, North America as well as in many tropical regions. Mobilization of mercury (Hg) from AS soils is however poorly studied and could potentially be an environmental problem of concern due to its toxicity and capacity of bioaccumulating in food webs. In this study I investigated whether Hg is mobilized from AS soils by conducting chemical analyses on sediment samples from a 1,6 m deep lake core and a transect of surficial sediment samples in an adjacent sea bay. Here, I used zircon (Zr) and zinc (Zn) as proxies for silicate sources and sulfide soil sources, respectively. I found that Zn and Hg concentrations normalized to the organic matter content (LOI) showed a significant correlation in the lake core; hence, Hg in the sediment co-varied with my sulfide proxy and showed no correlation to my silicate proxy, and I then conclude that a considerable fraction of mercury in the studied sediment has a likely origin from AS soils.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-171611 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Markström, Jimmy |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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