Hello. We're H1 Geography students.
We're doing a case study on the
Indian Ocean Tsunami that occured in 2004.
We hope this blog will be of help
for you to have a better understanding of the incident.
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Friday, April 2, 2010
/ Hazards
Impact of Tsunami on the Heavy Metal Accumulation
in Water, Sediments and Fish at Poompuhar
Coast, Southeast Coast of India
http://www.e-journals.in/PDF/V5N1/16-22.pdf
- Marine ecosystems are very complex and are affected by many internal and external factors that can change over time.
The tsunami that struck the Indian coasts on 26th December 2004 with the speed of more than 700 km/hr has caused significant changes in the marine eco system by polluting the marine environment with
high turbidity and also breaking the coastal vegetations.
- Extensive damage to the life and activities of the living aquatic organisms can be caused by the pollutants that enter the inshore waters.One of which is of significant importance is the accumulation of heavy metals. The heavy metals generally enter the aquatic environment via atmospheric deposition, domestic sewage and mining wastes. The contaminants usually remain either in soluble or suspension form before finally tending to settle down to the bottom and are taken up by the organisms. The variation in heavy metal concentration was due to the continuous stirring of sediments by the high speed of tsunami tidal actions.
Due to their toxicity, the accumulation of these metals in various organs of marine creatures will lead to metal related diseases in the future. This will endanger the aquatic habitat as well as the other organisms.
- Fishes is one of the main aquatic organisms in the food chain and thus, they may often accumulate large amounts of certain metals such as iron, Zinc, Lead, Cadmium, Copper and Magnesium. These metals are common toxic pollutants for fish. Fishes usually assimilate these heavy metals through ingestion of suspended particulates, food materials and / or by constant ion-exchange process of dissolved metals across lipophilic membranes like
the gills / adsorption of dissolved metals on tissue and membrane surface
3:19 AM !
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