Abstract
Porphyrins are highly persistent in the environment and represent a helpful biogeochemical attribute to assess the spatial distribution of the effects of oil spills on ecosystems and their resilience. In areas prone to natural and human-originated oil spills, the measurement of VO– and nickel–porphyrins in marine–sediment samples can identify the effects of oil pollution across spatiotemporal scales. The goal is to explore whether or not these compounds can be useful indicators of the geospatial attributions of oil contamination in the surficial sediments. We hypothesize that the geospatial gradients of porphyrins in marine sediments from petroleum spills and seepage activities—related to traditional indices of oil pollution, such as heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—can be identified in small sediment samples and concentrations. The objectives are two-fold: (1) extract and measure VO– and nickel–porphyrins from small marine sediment samples using high-pressure liquid chromatography, and (2) use cluster analysis and the canonical correlation analysis to identify the biogeochemical and geospatial attributions between VO–porphyrins and another index of oil pollution extracted and analyzed from sediments of the Campeche Shelf, in the Gulf of Mexico. High-pressure liquid chromatography with diode array detectors, two inverse phase columns and an isocratic separation method, was used to analyze the marine sediments. We identified 5.1 ng/g to 240.3 ng/g to VO–porphyrins concentrations with gradients toward areas identified as potential sources of oil pollution. Similar patterns were present for nickel–porphyrins, with values two orders of magnitude below those for the VO–porphyrins. The results represent a valuable opportunity to measure the biomarkers associated with oil pollution in small sediment samples. Furthermore, the results can find the potential drawbacks of benthic ecosystem resilience.
Highlights
Porphyrins are the diagenetic product of chlorophyll and are considered part of a complex mixture of organic compounds in oil [1,2,3]
When the extraction processes are applied to sediment matrices, the sample size becomes critical for extraction, identification, and their use as environmental indices of oil pollution
We present the geospatial attributions of distributed VO– and nickel–porphyrins in the marine sediment of the Campeche Sound
Summary
Porphyrins are the diagenetic product of chlorophyll and are considered part of a complex mixture of organic compounds in oil [1,2,3]. Oil activities such as exploration, exploitation, and transport may result in contamination affecting the vicinity of the working areas after the occurrence of recorded and non-recorded oil spill events [5]. Both direct and indirect methods can study these effects. [6,12] studied the hydrocarbon content in sediments and organisms to illustrate the effect of oil activity on the biological distribution at the species level. [16] evaluated the presence of Ni– and VO–porphyrins in soils associated with oil pollution, and [9,17] have studied the effect of such pollutants on organisms in the ocean and rivers
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