Staten Island is located in one of the most densely populated regions of the US: the New York/New Jersey Estuary. Marine and industrial oil spills are commonplace in the area, causing the waterways and adjacent marshes to become polluted with a range of petroleum-related contaminants. Using Rock-Eval pyrolysis, the hydrocarbon impact on a salt marsh was assessed at regular intervals down to 90 cm, with several key sampling depths of interest identified for further analysis. Ultrahigh resolution data are obtained by direct infusion (DI) atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) on a 12 T solariX Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer (FTICR MS) allowing trends in the compositional profile with depth to be observed, such as changes in the relative hydrocarbon intensity and the relative contributions from oxygen- and sulfur-containing groups. These trends may correlate with the timing of major oil spills and leaks of petroleum and other industrial chemicals into the waterways. The use of gas chromatography (GC) coupled to a 7 T solariX 2XR FTICR MS equipped with an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) ion source offers retention time resolved and extensive compositional information for the complex environmental samples complementary to that obtained by DI-APPI. The compositional profile observed using GC-APCI FTICR MS includes contributions from phosphorous-containing groups, which may be indicative of contamination from other anthropogenic sources.
Keywords: Environmental monitoring; Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance; Mass spectrometry; Oil spill; Soil contamination.
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