Heavy metal concentrations in marine sediments around Casey station, East Antarctica - long-term monitoring

Sediment cores (5cm diameter x 10cm deep), collected as part of the long-term monitoring of the Thala Valley waste disposal site clean-up (Casey station), were sectioned and a portion of each core analysed for a range of heavy metals. Metals were extracted from the sediment via a 4 hour 1M HCl acid extraction. Concentrations were gained from ICP-MS analysis of the resulting extracts (ICP-MS conducted at the School of Chemistry, University of Tasmania). Cores were collected from various control and potentially impacted sites in the Windmill Islands around Casey station.

This work was conducted as part of ASAC 2201 (ASAC_2201).