Assessment of Hydrocarbon State of Soil and Bottom Sediments of Arctic Zone of Yakuti

Abstract

The study of soil samples and bottom sediments from the Arctic region of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in the coastal zone of the East Siberian Sea (Nizhnekolymsky region) was conducted. The yield of chloroform extracts and the nature of the IR spectra were used to evaluate the hydrocarbon composition of the samples taken. The localized areas with high levels of pollution were identified. All of them were located within the territories of man-made objects. The remaining territories correspond to the background indicators or have insignificant traces of pollution. Following the results of microbiological studies the degree of enrichment with microorganisms of studied soil and bottom sediment samples belong to the category of poorly enriched. It was possible to identify hydrocarbon oxidizing microorganisms, which differ only by their poor qualitative and quantitative composition in some oil-contaminated samples. The low activity of hydrocarbon oxidizing microflora against poor soil enrichment with microorganisms indicates the sluggishly ongoing self-healing processes of soils of the Arctic region.