Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contamination and recovery characteristics in some organisms after the Nakhodka oil spill

Following the oil spill from the Russian tanker Nakhodka in 1997 in the Sea of Japan, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) were monitored for three years in some molluscs from the Mikuni-cho shore in Japan. Total PAH concentrations in marine organisms except for spiny top shell, ranged from 5.3 to 32.7 ng/g wet weight, but no trends were evident. Total PAH concentration in spiny top shell (Turbo cornutus) was 44 ng/g w.w. in the first month after the oil spill. However, it rapidly decreased to less than 5.4 ng/g w.w. from the second month. Spiny top shell, which was exposed to dietary Nakhodka heavy fuel oil, concentrated benzo(a)pyrene to 17.1 ng/g w.w. after two weeks of exposure and then rapidly eliminated it during an elimination phase. These results suggest that spiny top shell accumulates PAHs because of their low ability to metabolize PAH, but it can excrete parent PAHs rapidly when removed from the source of contamination. Thus it is suitable as an indicator organism in monitoring oil contamination. It can also be inferred from these field and laboratory investigations that, in three years, organisms from the Mikuni-cho shore seem to have adequately recovered from the Nakhodka oil spill contamination.     

Upper crustal podiform chromitite from the northern Oman ophiolite as the stratigraphically shallowest chromitite in ophiolite and its implication for Cr concentration

A new type of podiform chromitite was found at Wadi Hilti in the northern Oman ophiolite. It is within a late-intrusive dunite body, possibly derived from olivine-rich crystal mush, between the sheeted dike complex and upper gabbro. This chromitite forms small (<30 cm in thickness) pods with irregular to lenticular shapes. Neither layering nor graded bedding is observed within the pods. The chromitite is in the upper crust, by far shallower in ophiolite stratigraphy than the other podiform chromitites that have ever been found in the Moho transition zone to the upper mantle. It is distributed along a small felsic to gabbroic melt pool within the dunite body, which was formed by melting of gabbroic blocks captured by the mush. Chromian spinel was precipitated due to mixing of two kinds of melt, a basaltic interstitial melt from the mush and an evolved, possibly felsic, melt formed by the melting of gabbro blocks. The podiform chromitite reported here is strikingly similar in petrography and spinel chemistry to the stratiform chromitite from layered intrusions. The former contains plagioclase and clinopyroxene as matrix silicates instead of olivine as well as includes euhedral and fine spinel with solid mineral inclusions. Chromian spinel of the upper crustal podiform chromitite from Oman has relatively low content of (Cr₂O₃ + Al₂O₃), the Cr/(Cr + Al) atomic ratio of around 0.6, and the relatively high TiO₂ content ranging from 1 to 3 wt%. We conclude that assimilation of relatively Si-rich materials (crustal rocks or mantle orthopyroxene) by olivine-spinel saturated melts can explain the genesis of any type of chromitite.Editorial responsibility: V. Trommsdorff