Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:50:56.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Relationship Between Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Pelagic Tar in the Mediterranean Sea, 1974–75

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Adam Zsolnay ,
Byron F. Morris  and
James N. Butler
Adam Zsolnay
Affiliation:
Duke University Marine Laboratory, Beaufort, North Carolina 28516, U.S.A.
Byron F. Morris
Affiliation:
Research Associate, Bermuda Biological Station, St George's West, Bermuda.
James N. Butler
Affiliation:
Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Chemistry, Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, U.S.A.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the winter of 1974–75, both tar and aromatic hydrocarbons were sampled in the Mediterranean Sea. A detailed report of the tar findings were given in a previous paper (Morris et al., 1975). Aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations at a depth of 1 m averaged 167 ng/1 (expressed as phenanthrene equivalents). This is only about 60% as great as the average aromatic hydrocarbon concentration found in the Baltic Sea, but is 5 times greater than what was found in the north-west Atlantic—including the Sargasso Sea (Zsolnay, 1977).

No relationship was found between tar and aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations. This would indicate that the concentration of the latter is dependent upon other factors—such as the presence of other organic compounds that are capable of keeping the hydrophobic hydrocarbons in the water column by ‘solubilization.’

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , Winter 1978 , pp. 295 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boylan, D. B. & Tripp, B. W. (1971). Determination of hydrocarbons in sea-water extracts of crude oil and crude oil fractions. Nature (London), 280, pp. 44–7.Google Scholar
Horn, M. H., Tfal, J. M. & Backus, R. H. (1970). Petroleum lumps on the surface of the sea. Science, 168, pp. 245–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, E. M. & Walton, A. (1976). High-seas oil pollution: particulate petroleum residues in the North Atlantic. J. Fish. Res. Bd Canada, 33, pp. 2, 781–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, B. F. (1971). Petroleum: tar quantities floating in the North-west Atlantic taken with a new quantitive neuston net. Science, 173, pp. 430–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, B. F., Butler, J. N. & Zsolnay, A. (1975). Pelagic tar in the Mediterranean Sea, 1974–75. Environmental Conservation, 2(4), pp. 275–81, 7 Figs.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zsolnay, A. (1973). Determination of aromatic hydrocarbons in submicrogram quantities in aqueous systems by means of high-performance liquid chromatography. Chemosphere, 6, pp. 253–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zsolnay, A. (1977). Inventory of nonvolatile fatty acids and hydrocarbons in the oceans. Mar. Chem., 5, pp. 465–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar