Ecological Impacts of Coral Reefs, Egyptian Red Sea Coast: Elemental Characterization and Spatial Distribution with INAA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) is a well-accepted technique that has the ability to simultaneously determining 30–40 elements. INAA is also capable of determining major, minor, and trace elements as well as rare earth elements. It was utilised to determine the concentration of heavy elements and elemental contents of coral reef samples collected from three locations on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. The coral reef samples were prepared with their standard materials and together irradiated in Egypt Second Research Reactor (ETRR-2). For short and long irradiations, samples were separately irradiated at a convenient thermal neutron flux 4 × 1011cm−2s−1 for 2 min in a pneumatic rabbit system and samples were irradiated at a thermal neutron flux 1.5x1014cm−2s−1 for 32 mins, respectively. All samples were counted two times in a HPGe detector with a relative efficiency of 100% for short and long irradiations. The following elements have been determined Al, Ti, Na, K, Mg, V, Cl, Ca, Mn, Cr, As, Co, Zn, Ni, Fe, Br, Tb, Zr, Hf, Sb, Ba, Sc, Nd, La, Sm, Ce, Eu, Yb, Ta, U, and Th. In the Quseir harbour, the maximum concentration of Al, Fe, Mn Zn, U, and Th were 3487 ± 74, 2007 ± 22, 33 ± 0.5, 119 ± 0.5, 4 ± 0.3, and 0.52 ± 0.04 mg/kg, respectively. These concentrations were higher for these elements compared to other areas. The present work is concerned to achieve precise information about the elemental content in coral reef samples along the Red Sea coast in specific locations and the effect of detected concentrations on the surrounding environment.