Abstract:

Sediment core samples were collected from the continental shelf of the Chukchi Sea in July 1999 and rare earth elements (REEs) were measured by instrumental neurton activation analysis (INAA). The abundance of the REEs is very similar to values for fine grained continental shelf sediment. The downward profiles of the REEs show a slightly increasing trend with depth and the variation of the REEs is relatively smooth. The shale normalized REEs distribution pattern is rather flat with Ce negative anomaly, suggesting there exists biological source to the REEs in the sediment. The REEs is positively correlated with Al and enrichment factos calculated with respect to the crustal abundance is close to 1, which indicates the REEs in Chukchi Sea sediment are predominantly of continental origin.