Hydrocarbons in sediments of a chronically contaminated bay: the challenge of source assignment.

Aliphatic hydrocarbons and 39 PAH (parental and alkylated homologs) determined in ca. 100 sediment samples from the Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, were evaluated for source discrimination using new approaches. Concentrations of total PAH were in the range of 96-135,000 μg kg(-1) similar to other coastal urbanized embayment.