Baseline
Copper and lead isotope records from an electroplating activity in sediments and biota from Sepetiba Bay (southeastern Brazil)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.114848Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Electroplating wastes imprint particular metal isotope ratios in legacy sediments.

  • Isotope analysis reveals the anthropogenic Cu and Pb dispersion across the bay.

  • Tidal flat isotope ratios reflect mixing of legacy and fluvial sediment particles.

  • Isotope fingerprints of Cu and Pb in oysters match legacy contaminated sediments.

Abstract

An old electroplating plant in Sepetiba Bay discharged metal-enriched wastes into the surrounding mangroves for 30 years (from the 1960s to 1990s), resulting in a hotspot zone of legacy sediments highly concentrated in toxic trace metals. This study applies Cu and Pb isotope systems to investigate the contributions of past punctual sources relative to emerging modern diffuse sources. The electroplating activity imprinted particular isotopic signatures (average δ65CuSRM-976: 0.4 ‰ and 206Pb/207Pb: 1.14) distinct from the natural baseline and urban fluvial sediments. The isotopic compositions of tidal flat sediments show intermediate isotope compositions reflecting the mixing of Cu and Pb from the hotspot zone and terrigenous materials carried by rivers. Oyster isotope fingerprints match legacy sediments, attesting that anthropogenic Cu and Pb are bioavailable to the biota. These findings confirm the interest in combining two or more metal isotope systems to discriminate between modern and past metal source emissions in coastal environments.

Section snippets

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Hyeryeong Jeong: Visualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Daniel F. Araújo: Conceptualization, Sampling, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Jeremie Garnier: Sampling, Writing – review & editing. Daniel Mulholland: Writing – review & editing. Wilson Machado: Sampling, Writing – review & editing. Bruno Cunha: Writing – review & editing. Emmanuel Ponzevera: Metal and Isotope analysis, Writing –

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the technician team from the CCEM-IFREMER unit, in special Sandrine Bruzac and Teddy Sireau for support in ICP-MS analysis. We are also deeply grateful for the technical and friendly support of Myller Tonhá in field campaigns.

References (84)

  • G.F. Birch et al.

    Sediment quality guidelines for copper and zinc for filter-feeding estuarine oysters?

    Environ. Pollut.

    (2011)
  • J. Chen et al.

    Zn isotopes in the suspended load of the Seine River, France: isotopic variations and source determination

    Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta

    (2009)
  • F. de Carvalho Gomes et al.

    Metal concentrations, fluxes, inventories and chronologies in sediments from Sepetiba and Ribeira bays: a comparative study

    Mar. Pollut. Bull.

    (2009)
  • M. de Freitas Rebelo et al.

    High Zn and Cd accumulation in the oyster Crassostrea rhizophorae, and its relevance as a sentinel species

    Mar. Pollut. Bull.

    (2003)
  • A.A. de Souza Machado et al.

    Metal fate and effects in estuaries: a review and conceptual model for better understanding of toxicity

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2016)
  • F. Deng et al.

    Using sr-nd-pb isotope systems to trace sources of sediment and trace metals to the Weser River system (Germany) and assessment of input to the North Sea

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2021)
  • M.C. Geraldes et al.

    Pb iosotope signatures of sediments from Guanabara Bay, SE Brazil: evidence for multiple anthropogenic sources

    J. Geochem. Explor.

    (2006)
  • L. Hakanson

    An ecological risk index for aquatic pollution control.A sedimentological approach

    Water Res.

    (1980)
  • S.M. Ilina et al.

    Stable (Cu, Mg) and radiogenic (Sr, Nd) isotope fractionation in colloids of boreal organic-rich waters

    Chem. Geol.

    (2013)
  • C.C.M. Ip et al.

    Heavy metal and pb isotopic compositions of aquatic organisms in the Pearl River estuary, South China

    Environ. Pollut.

    (2005)
  • A. Kavner et al.

    Redox-driven stable isotope fractionation in transition metals: application to zn electroplating

    Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta

    (2008)
  • M. Komárek et al.

    Lead isotopes in environmental sciences: a review

    Environ. Int.

    (2008)
  • B. Kříbek et al.

    Variability of the copper isotopic composition in soil and grass affected by mining and smelting in Tsumeb, Namibia

    Chem. Geol.

    (2018)
  • L.D. Lacerda et al.

    Mercury in sediments from the Paraíba do Sul River continental shelf, S.E. Brazil

    Mar. Pollut. Bull.

    (1993)
  • L.D. Lacerda et al.

    The fate of trace metals in suspended matter in a mangrove creek during a tidal cycle

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (1988)
  • L.D. Lacerda et al.

    Three decades of cd and zn contamination in Sepetiba Bay, SE Brazil: evidence from the mangrove oyster crassostraea rhizophorae

    Mar. Pollut. Bull.

    (2006)
  • S.H. Little et al.

    Paired dissolved and particulate phase cu isotope distributions in the South Atlantic

    Chem. Geol.

    (2018)
  • J.-H. Liu et al.

    Copper and gallium isotopic behavior in highly weathered soils

    Chem. Geol.

    (2022)
  • M. Meng et al.

    Mercury isotope variations within the marine food web of chinese Bohai Sea: implications for mercury sources and biogeochemical cycling

    J. Hazard. Mater.

    (2020)
  • M. Mihaljevič et al.

    Tracing the metal dynamics in semi-arid soils near mine tailings using stable cu and pb isotopes

    Chem. Geol.

    (2019)
  • M.M. Molisani et al.

    Water discharge and sediment load to Sepetiba Bay from an anthropogenically-altered drainage basin, SE Brazil

    J. Hydrol.

    (2006)
  • K.N. Nitzsche et al.

    Trace metal geochemical and Zn stable isotope data as tracers for anthropogenic metal contributions in a sediment core from Lake Biwa, Japan

    Appl. Geochem.

    (2021)
  • A.E. Shiel et al.

    Tracing cadmuium, zinc and lead sources in bivalves from the coasts of western Canada and the USA using isotopes

    Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta

    (2012)
  • A.E. Shiel et al.

    Determining provenance of marine metal pollution in french bivalves using cd, zn and pb isotopes

    Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta

    (2013)
  • H. Šillerová et al.

    Stable isotope tracing of ni and cu pollution in north-East Norway: potentials and drawbacks

    Environ. Pollut.

    (2017)
  • I. Snape et al.

    Characterisation of the dilute HCl extraction method for the identification of metal contamination in Antarctic marine sediments

    Chemosphere

    (2004)
  • C.E. Souto-Oliveira et al.

    Multi-isotopic fingerprints (Pb, zn, Cu) applied for urban aerosol source apportionment and discrimination

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2018)
  • C.E. Souto-Oliveira et al.

    Multi-isotope approach of pb, cu and zn in urban aerosols and anthropogenic sources improves tracing of the atmospheric pollutant sources in megacities

    Atmos. Environ.

    (2019)
  • M.S. Tonhá et al.

    Trace metal dynamics in an industrialized Brazilian river: a combined application of Zn isotopes, geochemical partitioning, and multivariate statistics

    J. Environ. Sci.

    (2021)
  • M.S. Tonhá et al.

    Behavior of metallurgical zinc contamination in coastal environments: a survey of zn from electroplating wastes and partitioning in sediments

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2020)
  • C.L. Trevisan et al.

    Development of a dredging sensitivity index, applied to an industrialized coastal environment in Brazil

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2020)
  • D. Vance et al.

    The behaviour of cu and zn isotopes during soil development: controls on the dissolved load of rivers

    Chem. Geol.

    (2016)
  • Cited by (3)

    View full text