Variations of silver in the sea water around Monaco

Silver determinations in the sea-water around Monaco were carried out using a procedure consisting of preconcentration of silver with lead sulfide, followed by dithizone extraction and spectrophotometric mono-colour measurement of silver-dithizonate. The average concentration of silver in the surface sea-water around Monaco was found to be 0.14Μg Ag/l. It was also concluded that observed variations of silver content in seawater were not related to the fresh water run-off from the neighbouring coast. This suggests that the variations have to be attributed to some other factor or a combination of factors. On the basis of the observed values of the silver content of the Var River water, an upper limit of silver supply by fresh waters into the sea-area around Monaco is estimated to be 2.3Μg Ag per liter of fresh water. Considering the mixing of the fresh water with sea-water, an increase of up to 0.09Μg Ag/l in the sea-water might be expected. The fact that the increase of silver in the sea-water was not observed in connection with the fresh-water mixing suggests that some effective removal process of silver may be in operation at the immediate vicinity of the injection of fresh-water into the sea.