Normalization to lithium for the assessment of metal contamination in coastal sediment cores from the Aegean Sea, Greece

Sediment cores from the harbour and the coastal zone of Mytilene, island of Lesvos, Greece, were used to study the metal contamination caused by the discharge of untreated urban effluents into the sea. In the harbour, the upper layers were highly enriched in Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn, while no metal enrichment was recorded in the cores from the wider coastal zone. The metal data were normalized to Li (conservative element) to compensate for the natural textural and mineralogical variability. It was found that only the upper 18 cm of the core collected from the harbour of Mytilene could be reported as metal contaminated. Also, through the normalization procedure, it was found that the surface layers of coastal sediments assumed ‘clean’ were enriched in Pb, probably as a result of atmospheric transportation of the metal from the nearby town.