Evaluation of the sediment pollution status of the south ponds and the west shore of Urmia Lake

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Mahmoud Sharafi ¹
• Raziyeh Lak ²

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences, Hormozgan University, Bandar-Abbas, Iran

² Associate Professor, Research Institute of Earth Science, Geological Survey and Mineral Exploration of Iran, Tehran, Iran

10.22067/sed.facies.2022.47069

Abstract

The tectonic depression Urmia Lake in the northwest of Iran is receiving a lot of erosional sediments of the geological structures and waste materials of the industrial, mining and agricultural activities. Fifteen surface samples including sandy and muddy sand sediments of the studied area have selected and analyzed by ICP. Based on average values of heavy metal concentration the ranking of intensity of heavy metal pollution of the studied area sediments is as follows: Al> Fe> Mn> Ba> Cr> Ni> Zn> Cu> Co. The concentrations of Ni, Mn and Cr are much higher than Consensus-based PEC (probable effect concentration) and Iran Standard (especially in south and southwest sites of the lake) that display very high probability of the harmful biological and environmental effects of heavy metal in these sites. the mean concentration EF in the studied sites displays industrial and mining effects in enrichment of the heaviest metals especially Ni, Cr and Cu (moderate to moderately severe enrichment) in the south and southwest transects and Cu (moderately severe) in the Jabal transect. the mean contamination factor value display considerable enrichment for Ni, Cr and Cu and partly for Mn especially in south and southwest transects. The modified degree of contamination for all of transects with the exception of the Jabal Kendy site in the southwest lake that have moderate contamination, displays low contamination. Geoaccumulation index for all of transects displays no to moderate enrichment. In general, concentration of the toxic metals of the studied sediments displays low biological hazard (except for Cu and Ni).

Keywords

• Urmia Lake
• sedimentary geochemistry
• pollution
• ‍cluster analysis

Main Subjects

• Sedimentology
• Geochemistry & Chemostratigraphy

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