Environmental Science 1021F/G Lecture 9: Environmental Science Lecture 9
14 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
Metals and other elements are naturally occurring substances. If the detection limits of the available analytical chemistry are low enough, any of the elements can be detected in any environmental sample (air, water, rock, soil) or in any organism. In this sense, there is a universal contamination" with these substances: ubiquitous: occurring everywhere. If the exposure is intense enough, all of these elements are potentially toxic to organisms. Metals: aluminum, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, silver, tin, zinc. At a high enough exposure, all of the elements may be toxic to biota. Bioavailability: the degree to which an element/compound can be absorbed and/or metabolized by an organism. Tolerant" species: some others will biomagnify ; occur at increasing levels as trophic level increases, with the highest concentrations in top predators (aka: food-web magnify) Naturally high levels of toxic elements can occur due to metal-rich minerals being exposed at or near the soil surface. e. g. seleniferous and serpentine-influenced soils.
