Recent sediments and contaminant history of Apalachicola Bay, Florida
- Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States)
The Apalachicola River of northwest Florida is Florida's largest river system and fourth largest in the northern Gulf of Mexico basin. The river drains a 51,000 sq. km. watershed in the Piedmont and Gulf Coastal Plain of Florida, Georgia and Alabama. Throughout much of the Tertiary the Apalachicola has been the principal source of clastic sediment to the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Within the past two millennia the river has established and built an extensive delta that is rapidly infilling the Apalachicola Bay estuary. Today virtually all of the river's annual sediment load of more than one million metric tons is being deposited in the delta and bay, with negligible release of sediment to the gulf of Mexico. A set of sediment cores from Apalachicola Bay was analyzed for texture, mineralogy organic contaminants and lead-210 sedimentation rate. Sedimentation rates in the range of 10 mm/yr document a rapid rate of infilling. Organic carbon in the sediments correlates roughly with distance from delta distributaries. Polyaromatic hydrocarbons, PCBs and chlorinated pesticides and herbicides are found at or below trace levels and only near the tops of the cores, indicating that contaminant levels are low in the estuarine sediments.
- OSTI ID:
- 6819125
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9404221-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 26:4; Conference: 43. annual meeting of the Southeastern Section of the Geological Society of America, Blacksburg, VA (United States), 7-8 Apr 1994; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Aging and sediment characteristics of northern Gulf of Mexico estuaries
Recent sediments of the St. Marks River coast, northwest Florida, a low-energy, sediment-starved estuary