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vol-34THE DISTRIBUTION OF SOME LEACHABLE AND TOTAL
HEAVY METALS IN CORE SEDIMENTS OF MANZALA
LAGOON, EGYPT
KHALIL, M. KH.* AND FARAGALLAH, H.M.
National Institute of Oceanography anf Fisheries, Alexandria, Egypt
[email protected]
Keywords: Manzala Lagoon, Heavy metal, Leachable, sediments, Metal pollution Index
ABSTRACT
Five sediment cores from Manzala lagoon were collected in December 2005 in order to
determine the total and leachable copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) beside grain
size, total organic carbon (TOC) and total carbonate (CaCO3). The results showed that, the
sediment were composed of sand and mud enriched with carbonate (8.45 – 59.31%) and
TOC (0.89 – 2.88%). The concentrations of leachable forms ranged from 5.86 to 36.19,
15.29 to 68.85 and 0.65 to 3.66 µg/g for Cu, Zn and Cd respectively, and varies between
12.03 to 95.24, 45.08 to 229.31 and 2.33 to 7.45 µg/g for total forms of the three metals
respectively. The study revealed that most of Cd (64%) is dominant in the leachable form
(labile) i.e available for any biotic process, while the reverse was observed for Zn where
66% of the total form is present in residual form (non-labile). In case of Cu, the leachable
and residual forms are mostly the same. The metal pollution index (MPI) showed that the
contamination is restricted to eastern part of the lagoon. The total fraction of Cu and Zn
were lower than Effect Range – Low (ERL), while Cd showed a reveres trend.
