Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination in Topsoil of Northern Coasts of Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf and its coastal areas are the world's largest source of crude oil and related industries govern the region. One of the contaminants in this area is heavy metals associated with oil spill. More importantly, vanadium, nickel and zinc can be named in this regard. In this study, the contamination of northern coasts of Persian Gulf is selected to investigate for trace metals of V, Ni, Cd, Co, Zn, Cu, and Pb pollution in soils, their distribution and levels of contamination. The study was carried out on the northern coasts of Persian Gulf including three provinces of Bushehr, Khuzestan and Hormozgan. The results revealed a great increase in the amount of vanadium in most of the sampling sites to be higher than background values for soil. In Southern Pars Gas Field there was the concentration of 7713.77 mg Kg-1. The concentration of other metals was almost high and a great relationship between vanadium, zinc, cadmium and lead was found.