| St. John's Harbour is an estuarine environment that has been at the centre of much of Newfoundland and Labrador's industrial, commercial and social activity since the settlement of the province's first immigrants. Historical practices such as atmospheric discharges from coal burning and current activities such as high-volume municipal sewage dumping and frequent ocean vessel trafficking has thus led to contamination of this environment by a range of pollutants associated with such activities. Surprisingly there is little published quantitative information regarding seawater metal abundance and distribution within the harbour. In this study, the concentrations of 12 metals (Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Sr, Cd and Pb) were determined in the soft tissue of indigenous blue mussels that were collected from 6 sites within St. John's Harbour and 5 outer harbour sites, including one control site. The tissue was dissolved in a closed-vessel microwave system and analyzed by ICPMS. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
