Kamal Momani ; Tayel El-Hasan; Samer  Auaydeh  and Khaled Al-Nawayseh

Abstract

The objective of this work was to study the physioc-chemical characteristics and the distribution of heavy metals in the black mud of the northern basin of the Dead Sea. Therefore, 30 offshore samples from the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, beside 4 freshwater samples from the main freshwater tributaries were collected. The pH of mud was little above 8, while it was around 6 for the seawater. The black mud content of most heavy metals (except Pb) was lesser than other types of mud. This might be due to the effect of pH of the seawater (mild acidic), which enhances the metals solubility rather than precipitation. The sequential extraction results show that Ni and Co prefer the carbonate fraction, whereas Mn found mostly in Fe-Mn oxide chemical form and Cr, Cu, Fe and Pb are preferential of the residual phase. This observation was confirmed by the correlation coefficient results that show none of the heavy metals have positive correlation with LOI and Mn. This study showed that there was no significance effect of mixing on the heavy metal contents of the black mud.