Geospatial Synthesis of Biogeochemical Attributions of Porphyrins to Oil Pollution in Marine Sediments of the Gulf of México

Porphyrins are highly persistent in the environment and represent a helpful biogeochemical attribute to assess spatial distribution of effects oil spills on ecosystems their resilience. In areas prone natural human-originated spills, measurement VO– nickel–porphyrins marine–sediment samples can identify pollution across spatiotemporal scales. The goal is explore whether or not these compounds be useful indicators geospatial attributions contamination surficial sediments. We hypothesize that gradients porphyrins marine sediments from petroleum seepage activities—related traditional indices pollution, such as heavy metals polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—can identified small sediment concentrations. objectives two-fold: (1) extract measure using high-pressure liquid chromatography, (2) use cluster analysis canonical correlation between VO–porphyrins another index extracted analyzed Campeche Shelf, Gulf Mexico. High-pressure chromatography with diode array detectors, two inverse phase columns an isocratic separation method, was used analyze 5.1 ng/g 240.3 concentrations toward potential sources pollution. Similar patterns were present for nickel–porphyrins, values orders magnitude below those VO–porphyrins. results valuable opportunity biomarkers associated samples. Furthermore, find drawbacks benthic ecosystem