Title: Exchange of Pollutants (Trace Elements) at the Sediment Boundary
Abstract: Marine sediments are the final depositories of trace elements entering the marine environment but they can also act as a source. In the Mediterranean Sea, because of domestic and industrial effluent discharges from land-based pollution sources, coastal sediments have accumulated important amounts of anthropogenic trace elements. These elements can be re-introduced to the overlying water after diagenetic transformations within the sediment column. There are indications that in marine coastal areas, benthic fluxes of trace elements could be in the same order of magnitude as fluxes from rivers or urban/industrial discharges. In the deep Mediterranean Sea, benthic fluxes of trace elements may also influence deep-seawater chemistry. In both near-shore and deep-sea Mediterranean environments, contaminated sediments represent a potential source of recycled trace elements that may play an important role in the cycling of natural or anthropogenic trace elements.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 4
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