Organochlorine pollutants in soils and mosses from Victoria Land (Antarctica)

Abstract

The major organochlorine (OC) pollutants, i.e. pentachlorobenzene (PCBz), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs), polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs) and DDTs have been analyzed in soils and mosses from coastal areas of Victoria Land (70–80°S, 160–170°E). PCBs (23–34 ng g−1 dry wt.) and PCBz (0.38–1.3 ng g−1 dry wt.) were the dominant OCs in mosses and soils, respectively. In general, the concentrations of OC in soils, i.e. HCB (0.034–0.17 ng g−1 dry wt.), PCBs (0.36–0.59 ng g−1 dry wt.) and 4,4'-DDE (0.053–0.086 ng g−1 dry wt.), range among the lowest reported in remote regions. These concentrations exhibited high correlation coefficients when represented vs. total organic carbon (TOC) which is consistent with the general correlation between OC and TOC in soils from remote areas recently observed (Meijer, S.N., Ockenden, W.A., Seetman, A., Breivik, K., Grimalt, J.O., Jones, K.C., 2003. Global distribution and budget of PCBs and HCB in background surface soils: implications for sources and environmental processes. Environ. Sci. Technol. 37, 667–672). Statistically significant dependences between reciprocal of temperature and log-transformed concentrations of HCB and 4,4′-DDE in mosses and α-HCH in soils have been found. These observations provide further data illustrating that temperature is a major factor determining the planetary scale distribution and accumulation of OCs giving additional ground to the general validity of the global distillation effect for description of planetary OC distribution.