THE DISTRIBUTION OF DISSOLVED VANADIUM IN EASTERN CANADIAN COASTAL WATERS

Dissolved vanadium measurements from the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Scotian shelf are reported. The Gulf of St Lawrence results reveal an average vanadium concentration of 24 nM in the deep water of the Gulf decreasing to 17·6 nM in the St Lawrence River. The Saguenay River had an even lower vanadium concentration of 5·1 nM. Linear increases in concentration with salinity were seen for both the St Lawrence estuary and the Saguenay fjord. In the Gulf of St Lawrence and on the Scotian shelf, depletion of vanadium in the surface waters and increasing concentrations with depth were observed. The vanadium-salinity relationships for these coastal waters both show increasing vanadium concentrations with increasing salinity and correlations that are indicative of extensive removal of dissolved vanadium from surface waters. On two offshore stations, the average vanadium concentration was 31 nM with no marked variation in concentration with depth. In general, the distributions can be explained in terms of the strengths of the input functions, be they rivers, atmospheric precipitation or oceanic advection, and the removal by biogenic scavenging processes. © 1992 Academic Press Limited.