Formula omitted] and [formula omitted] isotopes in water and sediments of the southern Baltic

Abstract

The aim of this work was to determine the concentration of 234 U and 238 U and calculate the values of the 234 U/ 238 U activity ratio in waters and sediments from the various regions of the southern Baltic Sea: Gdańsk Deep, Słupsk Narrow and Bornholm Deep. The concentration of uranium in analysed sediments from southern Baltic increase with core depth to what probably is connected with diffusion from sediments to water through interstitial water, where uranium concentration is much higher than in bottom water. The highest concentrations of uranium were observed in sediments of Słupsk Narrow (0.66–7.11 mg kg −1 d.w.) and Słupsk Bank (0.61–6.93 mg kg −1 d.w.), the lowest in sediments from Bornholm Deep (0.54–3.77 mg kg −1 d.w.). The 234 U/ 238 U activity ratio results indicated that the sedimentation of terrigenic material and Vistula River transport are the general sources of uranium in the southern Baltic sediments. The value of 234 U/ 238 U activity ratio in sediments from reduction areas from southern Baltic (Gdańsk Deep and Bornholm Deep) indicated that reduction process of U(VI) to U(IV) and removing of anthropogenic uranium from seawater to sediments constitutes a small part only in Gdańsk Deep.