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Distribution and Abundance of Arsenic in the Soils and Sediments of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i

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Abstract

Lack of high-spatial-resolution soil and sediment arsenic data for Hawai‘i has generated substantial disagreement between researchers and regulators regarding the magnitude of natural levels of arsenic in Hawai‘i and rendered difficult the defining of areas of anthropogenically elevated arsenic. Our earlier research into the occurrence of arsenic in terrestrial and marine environments revealed widely disparate concentrations of arsenic with no apparent spatial pattern. To better understand the distribution and abundance of arsenic in soils and sediments of O‘ahu, we collected an additional 64 samples at locations chosen to represent different environments with varying degrees of human impact. We found surface arsenic values that ranged from 0.28 to 740 ppm with a median concentration of 8.1 ppm, which is above the global median of 5 ppm and US soil median of 5.2 ppm. Higher concentrations of arsenic (up to 913 ppm) were encountered at depth in soil cores. The median arsenic in streambed sediments from one of our earlier studies of 6.1 ppm was comparable to the conterminous US median of 6.3 ppm; however, we encountered arsenic concentrations as high as 43.9 ppm (median = 8.60 ppm, n = 75) in marine sediments in recent work off the leeward coast of O‘ahu. Overall, arsenic in the soils and sediments of O‘ahu is elevated relative to world and national values, but there still is no readily discernible pattern in the distribution of arsenic to explain these elevated values.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the comments received from two anonymous reviewers and the contributions of Messrs. Didier Dumas (ICPMS) and Chuck Fraley (ICPOES) and the support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sea Grant Program and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety, and Occupational Health (Ordnance Reef).

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  1. Laura E. deGelleke

    Present address: Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, B3H 4R2, Canada

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  1. Department of Oceanography, University of Hawai‘i, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Eric Heinen De Carlo, Michael S. Tomlinson, Laura E. deGelleke & Sara Thomas

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  1. Eric Heinen De Carlo
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De Carlo, E.H., Tomlinson, M.S., deGelleke, L.E. et al. Distribution and Abundance of Arsenic in the Soils and Sediments of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Aquat Geochem 20, 87–113 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-013-9212-9

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