Occurrence of tar balls on the beaches of Fernando de Noronha Island, South Equatorial Atlantic.
This work reports on the widespread occurrence of tar balls on a pebble beach of Sueste Bay on Fernando de Noronha Island, a Brazilian national marine park and a preserve in the South Equatorial Atlantic. Environmental regulations preclude regular visitors to the Sueste Bay beach, and the bay is a pristine area without any possible or potential sources of petroleum in the coastal zone. In this work, these tar balls were observed for the first time as they occurred as envelopes around beach pebbles. They are black in color, very hard, have a shell and coral fragment armor, and range in average size from 2 to 6 cm. The shape of the majority of the tar balls is spherical, but some can also be flattened ellipsoids. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon analyses of the collected samples revealed the characteristics of a strongly weathered material, where only the most persistent compounds were detected: chrysene, benzo(b,k)fluoranthene, dibenzo(a,h)antracene and benzo(a)pyrene.
Departamento de Geologia, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Av. General Milton Tavares de Souza, 24210-346, Niterói, RJ, Brazil, jabneto@id.uff.br.
José Antônio
JA
Baptista Neto
Thomas Ferreira
TF
da Costa Campos
Carala Danielle Perreira
CD
de Andrade
Susanna Eleonora
SE
Sichel
Estefan Monteiro
EM
da Fonseca
Akihisa
A
Motoki
D001266:Atlantic Islands; D001493:Bathing Beaches; D001938:Brazil; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D059392:Petroleum Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons / Q000032:analysis; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
D011084:Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical