抄録
This investigation was made to obtain the control values for estimation of the existing state of sea sediments in Hiroshima Prefectural area contaminated with heavy metals in the Inland Sea. 1. After determination of the concentration of heavy metal elements in 50 samples of sediments obtained from environments scarcely affected by direct industrial influence, correlations between sediment samples were examined by calculating the ratio of elements, and then samples more correlated with others were selected as a representative group. The mean values of heavy metal element concentration in the representative group, were used as control values. 2. It was interesting that the heavy metal elements in the representative group can be divided into two groups by the tendency of their correlations. One group includes Hg, Cd, Pb, and Cu, and the other, Fe, Ni, Zn, Mn, and Cr. 3. It seems that this method is applicable for wider range of samples such as water or biological meterials other than sediments. For these purposes inorganic and organic materials can be selected, as well as heavy metals.
