Boron chemistry in relation to its variations in eastern Arabian Sea

Abstract

Boron varied from 3.96 to 5.3 mg.kg-1 in the coastal and from 3 to 4.74 mg.kg-1 in the offshore waters. B/Cl showed a wide variation from 0.202 to 0.269 in the coastal region while significantly low ratios (0.2) to as high as 0.238 were observed in the offshore waters. Percent addition and removal of boron computEd. by taking into consideration the world average B/Cl of 0.232 indicated an addition up to 16% and removal up to 11.65% resulting in a net addition of boron to the coastal waters. At few stations boron was found to be released from the oxidation of organic matter while its removal was attributed to the net effects of suspended solids and the primary productivity. In the offshore waters, significant decrease of boron in the euphotic zone was mainly due to biological removal during high productivity