Occurrence of tar balls on the beaches of Fernando de Noronha Island, South Equatorial Atlantic

• DOI: 10.1007/s10653-014-9623-6
• Publication Date: 2014-05-21T10:45:59Z
• Authors: José Antônio Bapt...; Thomas Ferreira d...; Carala Danielle P...; Susanna Eleonora ...; Estefan Monteiro ...; Akihisa Motoki
• Keywords: 0106 biological sciences; Atlantic Islands; Petroleum Pollution; 14. Life underwater; Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons; 01 natural sciences; Bathing Beaches; Brazil; Water Pollutants, Chemical; Environmental Monitoring

This work reports on the widespread occurrence of tar balls on a pebble beach of Sueste Bay on Fernando de Noronha Island, a Brazilian national marine park and a preserve in the South Equatorial Atlantic. Environmental regulations preclude regular visitors to the Sueste Bay beach, and the bay is a pristine area without any possible or potential sources of petroleum in the coastal zone. In this work, these tar balls were observed for the first time as they occurred as envelopes around beach pebbles. They are black in color, very hard, have a shell and coral fragment armor, and range in average size from 2 to 6 cm. The shape of the majority of the tar balls is spherical, but some can also be flattened ellipsoids. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon analyses of the collected samples revealed the characteristics of a strongly weathered material, where only the most persistent compounds were detected: chrysene, benzo(b,k)fluoranthene, dibenzo(a,h)antracene and benzo(a)pyrene.