Indication of Geographic Variations of Organochlorine Concentrations in the Blubber of Antarctic Weddell Seals

This dataset highlights that samples of Weddell seals blubber from King George Island (the region with the mildest climate in the Antarctic) in 1994 showed the lowest DDT (11 to19 ng/g)and PCB (1 to 2.5 ng/g) concentrations so far detected in comparable marine mammals from all over the world and one order of magnitude lower than in samples of the same species from other sites in Antarctica (located between 69°S and 78°S).

This suggests a wide variability of organohalogen levels in the Antarctic, depending on the geographic site. This raises the question whether high proportions of organohalogens are being deposited on the Antarctic continent where they are not available to marine organisms and clearly demonstrates that it is complicated to derive time trends in concentrations of POPs in biota from different reference sites in the Antarctic.