A study on the sedimentological characteristics and heavy metal contents of Kemaman coastal sediment during pre-monsoon and post monsoon season

Abstract

This study was conducted at Coastal of Kemaman, Terengganu during pre-monsoon (September 2007) and post-monsoon (March 2007). Sediment from Kemaman coastal for two periods of seasons was collected using Van Veen Grab. Samples were brought back to the laboratory then were defrosted and dried for further analysis. The sediments were sieved and the weight of each sample collected from different sieve was weighed for sedimentological characteristic. The sediment less than 63µm was kept for PSA and heavy metal analysis. The element of heavy metals that was analyzed is Cr, Mn, Co, Zn, Sr, Ba and Pb. From the analysis that have been done, the sedimentological characteristic for pre-monsoon differ from post-monsoon season. The mean value shows pre-monsoon has medium coarse sand of particle size while post-monsoon shows very fine sand. Finer mean size indicates high concentration of heavy metals. Sediment taken during the post­ monsoon that has finer particle size has high concentration of heavy metals than pre­ monsoon. There is correlation pattern between heavy metals and particle size of the sediment. There is three and five heavy metals show proportionate relationship for each monsoon. Normalization showed that the selected heavy metals originated from natural sources both for the monsoons.