Chemical properties of marine sediments sampled during the Thala Valley Long Term Monitoring (TV-LTM) 2014-15 field season

The aim of this project is to examine changes in the marine benthic ecosystem in the vicinity of Casey station following clean-up of the abandoned Thala Valley waste disposal ('tip') site in 2003-04. The chemical parameters are: (1) 1 M hydrochloric acid-extractable elements (mainly metals) by ICP-AES (inductively coupled plasma - atomic emission spectrometry) (2) water-extractable nutrients by FIA (flow injection analysis) (3) petroleum hydrocarbon fractions (TPH: total petroleum hydrocarbons) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) - polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) - by GC-FID, GC-ECD and GC-MS (gas chromatography - flame ionization detector / electron capture detector / mass spectrometry), respectively (4) Loss on Ignition at 550 degrees Celsius (LOI; as a proxy for Total Organic Matter) and Dry Matter Fraction (DMF) by gravimetric analysis.

Data sets 1, 3 and 4 were obtained for composite samples prepared from the 0-5 cm section of 51 marine sediment cores collected by SCUBA divers from impacted (contaminated) and control (pristine) locations around Casey. Data set 2 was obtained for a subsample of the surface section (0-1 cm) of each of 74 marine sediment cores collected during the same sampling campaign. Sample locations: