Chemical and radioactivity study of sea alga distribution along the Syrian coast

Three types of sea alga distributed along the Syrian coast have been studied from the chemical and radioactivity point of view. Results have shown the metals that red alga contains the highest levels of Ca and Mg while brown alga were found to contain relatively high concentrations of other elements and non metals such as Cl, I and Br. In addition, sup 1 sup 3 sup 7 Cs concentrations in all the analyzed sample were low while the levels of naturally occurring radionuclides such as sup 2 sup 1 sup 0 Po, sup 2 sup 1 sup 0 Pb and radium isotopes were found to be high in red alga which indicates their selectivity to these isotopes. On the other hand, brown alga and especially Cysteseira has shown a clear selectivity for some trace elements such as As, Cr, Cd, Cu and Co, this selectivity may encourage the use of brown alga as biological indicator for trace elements pollution. (author)