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Geochemical evidence of terrigenous influence in sediments of Buckingham canal, Ennore, Southeast coast of India

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Abstract

Five sediment cores were collected in July 2008 from Buckingham Canal, Ennore, India, a water body that is influenced by domestic and industrial effluents. Downcore variations in trace metal concentrations—Ni, Pb, Mn and Zn at every 2.5 cm increment was determined through acid extraction (hydro fluoric acid, nitric acid and sulphuric acid) and analysed by atomic emission spectrophotometer. The sandy clay environment is composed mostly of medium sized grains. Among the four trace metals studied in five cores, Mn and Ni are the highest and the least occurring metals respectively. Quantitative indices such as geoaccumalation index, anthropogenic factor, enrichment factor, contamination factor and degree and pollution load indices were computed. All these analyses classify Ennore as uncontaminated or moderately contaminated. Zn has the highest anthropogenic factor (2.29) indicating the increasing concentration of Zn in the recent times. Zn enrichment is observed only at surface sediments (top 7.5 cm) C4.

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  1. Centre for Water Resources, Anna University, Chennai, 600025, India

    B. R. R. Seshan, Usha Natesan & K. Deepthi

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  1. B. R. R. Seshan
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  2. Usha Natesan
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  3. K. Deepthi
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Seshan, B.R.R., Natesan, U. & Deepthi, K. Geochemical evidence of terrigenous influence in sediments of Buckingham canal, Ennore, Southeast coast of India. Environ Earth Sci 66, 489–503 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-1258-7

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