GeochemicalJournalVol. 17,pp. 247to 255,1983 D istrib u tio n a n d c o rrelati o n o f to tal o r g a n ic c ar b o n a n d m erc ur y in A nt ar ctic dr y v alley soils, s e dim e nts a n d o r g a nis m s G ENKI M ATSUM OTol, K AZUO CHIKAZAW AI, H ARUTA M URAYAM A2 TETSUYA ToRI13 HIROSHI FUKUsn IMA4 and TAKAHISA H ANYA1 DepartmentofChemistry,Faculty ofScience,Toky o Metropolitan University,Setagaya-ku ,Tokyo 1581, Facu]ty ofEducation,Yokoham a NationaiUniversity,Toki wadai,Hodogaya-ku ,Y okoham a 2402, ChibaInstituteofTechno]ogy,Narashino-shi,Chiba 2753,and Tokyo W om en'sCo]lege of Physical Education,Aoyagi,Kunitachi-shi,Tokyo 1864,Japan (R eceived January 24,1983:Accepted M ay 12,1983) M ercury contents of 19 soi]s,13Iake and pond sedim ents,8 epibenthicalgae (m ost]y blue-green algae) and 3 m osses(m ost]y Sarconeu ru m glaciale)from the dry va]1eys of Victoria Land and RossIslan din the Antarctic ranged from 3.0 to 54 krg kgﾖ1 with an average of14:i:5.1 at90% confidencelim its,from 2.4to 71 with an average of 17:!: 10, from 12 to 710 with an average of190:!:160 and from 99to 290 with an average of 170 :!: 180 ,rg kgﾖ1 dry base,respective]y. It wasindicated that epibenthic aigae and m osses accum ulatem ercury. Thecorrelation coefficient betw eentota]organiccarbon and m ercury contentsfora]] the sam plesstudied wasfound to be +0.69,indicatingthat total organic carboncontentsare anim portan t factor controllingthe distribution ofm ercury in soils,sedirn ents and organismsintheA ntarctic dry valley areas. INTRODUCTION the soilsand sedim ents are considerably low, but M ercury , the m ost volatile heavy m etal organism s concentrate m ercury . It has also been elem ent, occursin the naturalstate only in sm all show n that soil/air ratios of A ntarctic m ercury am ounts. It is estim ated to be 50 to 80 pg kgﾖl are low, resulting from the low m ercury con- of the earth, w hich is used widely in oursociety centrations on the ground and not from its (V OSTAL, 1972). It has been studied by m any atm ospheric value. W e report here the distri- scientists in the m id and low er latitudes princi- bution and correlation of total organic carbon pally in relation to environrn ental pollution, (TO C) and m ercury in soils, sedim ents, algae since m ercury and its com pounds are toxic and and m osses from the dry valley areas ofV ictoria cause seri ous environm ental problem s such as L and in the A ntarctic. M inam ata Disease. H ow ever, Iittle is know n on the distribution of m ercury in A ntarctica. EXPERIM ENTAL K OGA (1977) has reported the concentrations of m ercury in soils and D V D P (Dry V alley Drilling D uring austral sum m ers 1976- 77, 1980- 81 Project) sedim ent cores from the dry valley and 1981- 82, soil, Iake and pond sedim ents, areas and Syow a O asis and discussed them in epibenthic algae (m ostly blue-green algae) and connection with geotherm al sources. M ercury m oss (m ostly Sarconeurum glaciale) sam ples contents of air, soil, evaporite, sedim ent and w ere obtained from Balham , W right, Taylor, certain biological sam ples from the dry valley Pearse and M iers V alleys and O lym pus R ange of areas and R ossIsland have also been investigated Victoria Land and R oss Island in the A ntarctic (M CM URTRY et al., 1980; SIEGEL et al., 1980). (Table 1-3). T he general characteristics of the They have revealed that the levels of m ercury in dry valley areas and R oss Island have been 241 242 G.M ATSUM OTO etal. Table1. Total organic carbon (TOC) and m ercury concentration in soilsfrom the dry valley areas of Victoria Land in theA ntarctic TOC Hg Locality (gkg~1)* (p;gkg~1)* Remarks Balham Valley(77"25'S,161'O1'E) WestsideofBalham Lake 0.17 3,0 Coarsesand OlympusRange(77'29'S,161'30'E) Mt.Jason 0,037 4.2 Fine sand WrightValley(77'31'S,161'50'E) Labyrinth-1 0.15 5.5 Coarseandfinesand Southfork-2 0.15 3.2 Finesand Southfork-3 0.080 54 Coarseandfinesand Southfork-4 0.27 18 Finesand Southfork-5 0.74 9.4 Coarseandfinesand,andsilt Southfork*8 0.24 6.9 Coarse an dfinesand Southfork-9 0.81 23 Silt Southfork-10 O.18 5.0 Finesand SouthsideofLakeVanda 0.066 19 Coarseandfinesand NorthsideofLakeVanda 0,063 3.3 Coarseandfinesand TaylorValley(77'37'S,163"OO'E) Westside ofLakeBonney-1 ** 18 Carbonates W estsideofLakeBonney-2 2.3 16 Finesandandsilt SouthsideofLakeBonney-1 o.95 27 Coarseandfinesand andsilt SouthsideofLakeBonney-2 0.46 28 Coarseandfinesand,andsilt EastsideofLakeBonney 0.58 18 Finesandandsilt MiersValley(78'06'S,164'OO'E) WestsideofLakeMiers 3.2 4.8 Finesand SouthsideofLakeMiers 1.1 3.6 Finesandandsilt Averagei 90% confidencelimits 0.64 i0.35 14 ~5.1 *. Drybase. **. Mostofthesamplewasdissolvedwhenhydrochloricacidwasadded, reported by m any scientists (e.g., T ORII and until analys is. Y AMAGATA, 1981). A Iarge variety of rocks are T O C w as determ ined using a C H N analyzer distributed com m only on the surface of these (Y A N A K O M T 2 C H N CO R DE R) after treat- cold deserts. V ascular plants are absentin the m ent of the sam ples with 6 M hydrochloric acid areas studied, although rare isolated lichens to rem ove inorganic carbon. T he concentrations and m osses are distributed. The lakes and ponds of m ercury of the w et sam ples (10-100 m g) studied are all saline. L akeshore and ponds are w ere directly analyzed w ithought any treatm ent usually covered with epibenthic algae com prised using m ercury analyzer (RIG A K U M E R C U R Y m ostly of blue-green algae. Soil, epibenthic SP), w hich has a 900'C furn ace for m ercury algae, m oss and pond sedim ent sam ples w ere analysis and no digestion procedures are re- collected with a sm all stainless steel scoop. quired. Spiked experirn ents show ed that the Lake sedim ents w ere taken using a Kitahara- recovery of m ercury for soil, sedim ent, algae type w ater sam pler or by a diver directly. T hese and m oss sam ples w ere 88.5 (standard deviation, sam ples w ere w rapped each with a tefl on sheet, S.D., 2.6), 101 (S.D., 5.1), 100 (S.D., 1.1) and transferred into a polyethylene bag or glass 104% (S.D., 10% ), respectively. bottle with a glass cap and kept at - 20'C Totalorganiccarbon and m ercury 243 Table2. TO Cand mercury concentrationinlakeand pondsedim entsfrom the dry valley areas TOC Hg Locality (gkg~i)* (,rg kg~1)* Remarks Victori aValey B-1 Pond* * 5.7 12 Coarseandfine sand,andsilt Wright Valley DonQuix otePond-1 Coarseandfinesand,andsalts 0.69 5.3 DonQuixotePond-2 0.36 2.6 Coarseandfinesand,and salts Coarseandfinesand,andsalts D onJuanPon d-1 O.18 4,2 D onJuanPon d-2 0.40 7.8 Coarsean dfinesand,andsalts L- 9Pond ** 1.7 6.8 Coarseandfinesand L-8Pond** Coarseandfinesand 2.3 6.6 L-4Pond** 0.94 2.4 Coarseandfinesand Coarseandfinesand LakeVa nda 1.9 12 TaylorValley W es tlobeo fLa keBonne y 2.3 50 Silt LakeFryxell-1 17 18 Finesand LakeFryxel- 2 20 25 Finesand Pearse Valley (77'43'S,161'32' E) Coarseandfinesand Lak eJoyce 3.6 71 Average~:90% confidencelimits 4.4 i3.2 17 ｱ10 *. Drybase. **. Unnamedponds. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION sam ples. The T O C contents of the algae and T O C values in the soil sam ples from the dry m oss sam ples were considerably low as pure valley areas ranged from 0.037 to 3.2 g kgrl dry organism s, because they contain sandy m aterials base with an average of 0.64 ~ 0.35 g kgﾖ1 at as im purities, but m uch higher than those ofthe 90% confidence lim its (Table I ), w hich are soiland sedim ent sam ples (Table 3). com parable with those of the previous studies T he concentrations of m ercury in the soil (M ATSUM OTO et al., 1979), but m uch lowerthan sam ples ranged from 3.0 to 54 ,!g kgﾖ1 dry base those of soil typical of vegetated areas (B R OWN with an average of 14 d: 5.1 ktg kgﾖ1 (T able l), et al., 1972; M A TSUM OTO and H ANYA, 1980). w hich are com parable w ith the values (1.1- The T O C contents of the lake and pond sedi- 169 pg kgﾖ1) of K OGA (1977). T hey are also m ents ranged from 0.18 to 20 g kg~1 with an sim ilar to those of soils around a large coal- fired pow er plant, w hich did not differ sta- average of 4.4 i 3.2 g kg~1 (T able 2), w hich are also sim ilar to those ofthe results ofM ATUM OTO tistically from unpolluted background level et al., (1979), although they are appreciably (6-45 pg kg~1 with an average of 16 pg kg~l low er than C ROCKETT and KlNNISON, 1979).