Community based seawater monitoring for organic contaminants and mercury in the Canadian Arctic (English)

View metadata and access the original English file: Community based seawater monitoring for organic contaminants and mercury in the Canadian Arctic.

Format

File

Access

file-only

Publisher-reported update

2019-01-17

This dataset contains the ambient dissolved concentrations of organophosphate esters (OPEs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in North Atlantic Ocean (Greenland Sea) as well as a summary of the passive polyethylene samplers (PEs) deployed. Organophosphate esters (OPEs) have been found in remote environments at unexpectedly high concentrations, but very few measurements of OPE concentrations in seawater are available, and non are available in subsurface seawater. Passive polyethylene samplers (PEs) deployed on deep-water moorings in the Fram Strait and in surface waters of Canadian Arctic lakes and coastal sites were analyzed for a suite of common OPEs. Organophosphate esters are poorly understood contaminants in remote marine environments. The Northern Contaminants Program(NCP, http://www.science.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_7A463DBA.html) was established in 1991 in response to concerns about human exposure to elevated levels of contaminants in wildlife species that are important to the traditional diets of northern Aboriginal peoples. Early studies found a wide variety of substances, many of which had no Arctic or Canadian sources, but which were, nevertheless, reaching…

Access original file