Environmental magnetism and geochemical characteristics of estuarine sediments Beypore Kerala SW India

Abstract

Estuaries are semi-enclosed coastal bodies of water that are occasionally or newlinepermanently open to the ocean. The physico-chemical properties of the estuary such as newlinesalinity, pH, type of sediments, varies considerably from the landward to the seaward newlineside. Ebb-flood tides, salinity incursion, and geomorphology are some of the few of newlinevariables that contribute to the complexity of the estuary. Being a semi-enclosed coastal newlinebody of salt water connected to the open sea with an influx of fresh river water can newlineeffectively flush the pollutants to the sea. The transformation of heavy metals at the newlinesediment-water interface is largely influenced by post depositional (or early diagenetic) newlinealterations in the sediments. During the early diagenetic cycles, metals can be newlinetransferred from the sediment into the water or vice versa. The SW coast of India, newlineespecially the Kerala coastal region encompasses large number of inland water bodies newlinecalled as esuarine-backwater system. Among the estuary the Beypore estuary is known newlinefor its biodiversity and houses many industries like timber processing and chemical newlinefactory. Due to this the estuary is experiencing pollution over the years. Chaliyar river newlineis the main water resources to this estuary. Keeping this in background the Beypore newlineestuary situated in the northern Kerala was selected to make an understanding of the newlineenvironmental conditions using multivariate approach. Several studies related to newlinephysio-chemical activities have been carried out by various researchers but the study newlinebased on environmental magnetism along with the sedimentological-geochemical newlineaspect is lacking. Many authors have used the proxies like grain size and geochemistry newline(trace elemental distribution). In addition to this, environmental magnetism, a new tool newlinehas been used by many researchers to know the environmental conditions of the newlineestuary. Environmental magnetism is the study of magnetic materials such as dust, soil, newlineand sediments which is formed under various environmental processes.