P317-WE PAH DISTRIBUTIONS IN THE FRASER RIVER BASIN AND ARCTIC OCEAN: NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE USE OF PAH RATIOS AS INDICATORS OF PAH SOURCE AND COMPOSITION

• Main Authors: Mark B. Yunker, Robie W. Macdonald
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Barents Sea; Canada; Fraser River; Greenland; Beaufort Sea; Central Arctic; Chukchi; Greenland Sea; laptev
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.549.5246; http://www.imog2007.org/files/Wednesday Posters/Wednesday Environment and Pollution/P317-WE Yunker.pdf

In recent sediments the parent and alkyl-substituted PAHs may derive from anthropogenic (fossil fuels and combustion) and natural sources (oil seeps, bitumens, coal, plant debris, forest and prairie fires). Since the PAH compositions of the two sources overlap, especially for parent PAHs, the significance of anthropogenic PAH in the environment must be evaluated against a dynamic background of natural PAH. Despite this source dichotomy, PAHs provide some of the most definitive and ubiquitous tracers of organic matter in aquatic systems (Yunker et al., 2002, and references therein). Sediment and suspended particulate samples used for this study have been obtained from the Fraser River basin, B.C., Canada (Yunker et al., 2002), the Beaufort, Chukchi, Barents and Laptev Seas, and from the central Arctic Ocean basins (Canadian, Eurasian and Greenland Sea basins). PAH analyses were performed by Axys Analytical Services Ltd. of Sidney, B.C. using selective ion monitoring GC/MS. The original laboratory chromatograms from Axys were used to obtain concentration data for all of the mass 276 and 278 PAHs and 1,7- and 2,6-dimethylphenanthrene. Literature for the last 6 years has been reviewed to update the characteristic PAH ratios for An/(Pn + An), Fl/(Fl + Py), BaA/(BaA + Ch) and IP/(IP + Bghi) for petroleum, single-source combustion and environmental samples presented in Yunker et al., (2002), and to add source PAH ratios for BF/(BF + BeP) (see PAH abbreviations below). PAHs in Arctic Ocean sediments demonstrate a continuum of inputs that range from primarily petroleum (the Beaufort Sea) to primarily combustion (the Barents Sea) and also exhibit negligible anthropogenic input. Such a data set is ideal for calibrating PAH ratios for PAHs with little or no literature source data available. In the Arctic Ocean data set there are significant (p < 0.001) linear relationships