The Saguenay Fjord

In July of 1996, a catastrophic flood in the Saguenay headlands eroded 9-15 xlO6tons of post-glacial sediments and carried them into the fjord. At the head of the fjord, several tens of centimeters of sandy clays were rapidly deposited over the indigenous sediment (Pelletier etal., 1999). 

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Smith, J.N. and D.H. Loring. 1981. Geochronology for mercury pollution in the sediment of the Saguenay Fjord, Quebec. Environ. Sci. Technol. 15 944-951. 

Lun, R., K. Lee, L. De Marco, C. Nalewajko, and D. Mackay. 1998. Model of the fate of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the Saguenay Fjord, Canada. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 17 333-341. 

Tremblay, G.H. and C. Gobeil. 1990. Dissolved arsenic in the St. Lawrence estuary and the Saguenay Fjord, Canada. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 21 465 168. 

Mucci, A. et al. 2000. The differential geochemical behavior of arsenic and phosphorus in the water column and sediments of the Saguenay Fjord Estuary, Canada. Applied Geochemistry, 6, 293-324. 

Louchouaran, P, Lucotte, M., Canuel, R., Gagne, J.P, and Richard, L.F. (1997) Sources and early diagenesis of lignin and bulk organic matter in the sediments of the lower St. Lawrence estuary and the Saguenay Fjord. Mar. Chem. 58, 3-26. 

Viglino, L., Pelletier, E., St-Louis, R. (2004) Highly persistent butyltins in northern marine sediments a long-term threat for the Saguenay Fjord (Canada). Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 23 2673-2681. 

Gagne, F., Blaise, C., Pellerin, J. and Gauthier-Clerc, S. (2002a) Alteration of the biochemical properties of female gonads and vitellins in the clam Mya arenaria at contaminated sites in the Saguenay Fjord. Mar. Environ. Res., 53, 295-310. 

Sulfate reduction rates in the deep basin sediments of the Saguenay Fjord are relatively low in comparison to other coastal environments (32 nmol cm-2 d-1 integrated over the top 30 cm), and the pore water is only weakly depleted in sulfate. Sulfate reduction is more intense, however, in the rapidly accumulating... 

The conditions required for pyrite formation (reduction of sulfate and availability of reactive iron phases) exist in the Saguenay Fjord. Indeed, the high... 

Fig. 3.3 Proposed reaction scheme of sulfur in the Saguenay Fjord sediments. The width of the arrows provides a qualitative indication of the relative importance of each step.

The similarities and the differences in geochemical properties of phosphorus and arsenic are reflected in the way these elements respond to diagenesis in the Saguenay Fjord (Mucci etal., 2000a). Both the elements are supplied to the sediment on settling particles, which appear to scavenge both P and As from... 

Louchouarn, P. and Lucotte, M. (1998) A historical reconstruction of organic and inorganic contamination events in the Saguenay Fjord/St. Lawrence system from preindustrial times to the present. The Science of the Total Environment, 2213, 139-150. 

Smith, J.N. and Walton, A. (1980) Sediment accumulation rates and geochronologies measured in the Saguenay Fjord using the Pb-210 dating method. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 44, 225-240. 

St-Onge, G. and Hillaire-Marcel, C. (2001) Isotopic constraints of sedimentary inputs and organic carbon burial rates in the Saguenay Fjord, Quebec. Marine Geology, 176, 1-22. 

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