by Pavel Povinec, Scott Fowler, and Murdoch Baxter I he Chernobyl nuclear accident in April 1986 had a significant impact on both the terrestrial and marine environments. The total activity of the nuclear debris released was so high (1-2.10 becquerel) that the radioactive fallout distributed widely after the accident actually dominated anthropogenic environmental levels in various parts of the ...

Samples of marine sediment were taken on 4 selected sites close to the shipyard industry in Kostrena coastal area. Concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals (Cu, Pb, Zn, Hg, Fe) were analyzed from chemical-analytical and toxicological aspect. For toxicity detection, the bacterial bioluminescence test (Vibrio fisheri) was used. Co...

Interacting river discharge, tidal oscillation, and tropical rainfall across the 22,000 km Orinoco delta plain support diverse fresh and brackish water ecosystems. To develop environmental baseline information for this largely unpopulated region, we evaluate major coastal plain, shallow marine, and river systems of northeastern South America, which serves to identify principal sources and contr...

The depth variation of total organic carbon (TOC), organic matter composition, and porewater composition in marine sediments suggests that different components of the organic matter undergo decomposition at widely different rates. The decomposition of 14C-labeled organic substances was followed in sediment microcosms in the laboratory. The substances used were chosen to simulate a portion of ma...

The widespread contamination by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has created a need for cost-effective bioremediation processes. This research studied a chronically PAH-contaminated estuarine sediment from the East River (ER; NY, USA) characterized by high concentrations of PAHs (approximately 4-190 ppm), sulfide, and metals and a marine sediment from New York/ New Jersey Harbor (NY/NJH;...

An international workshop on marine integrated contaminant monitoring (ICON) was organised to test a framework on integrated environmental assessment and simultaneously assess the status of selected European marine areas. Biota and sediment were sampled in selected estuarine, inshore and offshore locations encompassing marine habitats from Iceland to the Spanish Mediterranean. The outcome of th...

Carbonate mud is a major constituent of recent marine carbonate sediments and of ancient limestones, which contain unique records of changes in ocean chemistry and climate shifts in the geological past. However, the origin of carbonate mud is controversial and often problematic to resolve. Here we show that tropical marine fish produce and excrete various forms of precipitated (nonskeletal) cal...

[1] The causes for discordant radiocarbon results on multiple species of planktonic foraminifera from highsedimentation-rate marine sediments are investigated. We have documented two causes for these anomalous results. One is the addition of secondary radiocarbon for which we have, to date, only one firm example. It involves an opal-rich sediment. The other is the incorporation of reworked mate...

Introduction. Marine and freshwater sediments are major sinks of both natural and anthropogenic materials (5). Although microbial activity is recognized to control the transformation of these materials and influence processes in the overlaying water, relatively little is known about the contributing populations. This is mostly a consequence of the well-recognized limitations of pure-culture met...

OBJECTIVES The marine benthic nitrogen cycle is affected by both the presence and activity of macrofauna and the diversity of N-cycling microbes. However, integrated research simultaneously investigating macrofauna, microbes and N-cycling is lacking. We investigated spatio-temporal patterns in microbial community composition and diversity, macrofaunal abundance and their sediment reworking acti...