Biogeochemistry of persistent bioaccumulative toxicants: processes affecting the transport of contaminants to remote areas

Abstract

We release a very wide variety of synthetic chemicals to the environment. The persistence, environmental behavior, and toxicity of these chemicals will determine the severity of their impacts on our ecosystems. In some cases, contaminated areas are far from the source of pollution. The study of contaminants in remote environments, however, provides important information about a chemical's environmental behavior. For example, when anthropogenic chemicals are recorded in very remote arctic environments, we know that these chemicals arrived by long-range transport. When we examine contaminants on a global scale, we observe a global distribution that is not random, but rather represents a systematic geochemical behavior that is affected by atmospheric and ocean transport, deposition from the atmosphere, and concentration in food chains. This paper reviews the nature and processes involved in long-range transport of chemicals to remote environments and explores some of the pathways taken by persistent bioaccumulative toxicants following their release.