Abstract
Sulaibikhat bay is a subsystem of Kuwait bay where intertidal mudflats are extended. It receives variety of discharges from land use activities. Significant changes in the sediment characteristics of the northern territorial waters of Kuwait exist; the construction of the Third River and the effect of draining of the Iraqi marshes. the scope of this study is to evaluate the effects of the previous incidents and investigate the secular variation of the heavy metals in the intertidal sediments of Sulibikhat bay. Geochemical characteristics of these sediments provide us last 50 years environmental change in northern parts of Kuwait. Eight cores were collected from intertidal zone sediments and geochemical analyses were carried out. XRF and ICP-MASS were used to measure the major and the trace elements of the sediments. Initially the longest core was analyzed by XRF and XRD, and the data with depth shows clear secular chemical variation.
