Laboratory and Field Investigation of the Accumulation and Depuration of Petroleum Hydrocarbons by Black Mussels

Abstract

Black mussels, choromytilus meridionalis, were exposed for both short-term periods of less than one week and for longer-term periods of one to three months to water-soluble fractions of Qatar light crude oil under laboratory conditions. After exposure, the mussels were transferred to clean seawater and depurated for periods of two weeks to three months. In addition, mussels from chronically polluted field sites were depurated in the laboratory. Mussels were digested in alkali overnight and extracted with ether before being passed through a silica-alumina column (Mason (in prep.)). The column effluent was collected for flourescence analysis at an excitation wavelength of 280nm and an emission wavelength of 374nm.