Royal Military College of Canada

Environment

Phytoremediation Paleolimnology - DDT in the Food Chain

By: B.A. Zeeb, BSc, PhD

Paleolimnology

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In close collaboration with PEARL at Queen's, I continue to work on developing the use of chrysophyte stomatocysts as aquatic biomonitors. This work is largely taxonomic and involves building on our current information base of chrysophycean microfossils by describing new morphotypes in terms of their morphology and autecology. Stomatocysts, along with other aquatic biomonitors, can then used to infer historical environmental data (e.g. contaminants loading, trophic state, salinity) from lake sediments.

For example, a current project is investigating the siliceous algal remains in two dated sediment cores from Saglek, Labrador (LAB-2) - one from a contaminated lake and the other from a control lake. In addition, siliceous algal remains are being enumerated in the surface sediments of a suite of lakes in northeastern Labrador. The aim is to match both temporal and spacial shifts in chrysophyte microfossils with PCB levels. This information will provide a historical perspective to environmental change, and also help define the zone of influence of the contaminated site (LAB-2)