RESUMO
We surveyed macronutrients and dissolved iron (DFe) concentrations and speciation in a transect over the shelf of the South Brazil Bight (SBB) at Santa Marta Grande Cape (SE Brazil) during a coastal downwelling episode. Driven by dominant NE winds, coastal downwelling is a common feature during the austral summer and force after water convergence, with contribution of internal wave breaking at the shelf edge, upwelling of macronutrients into the nutrient-depleted waters of the southbound Brazil Current at ~100 km from the coastline. As a result, we found a plume of high turbidity that reached the euphotic layer, a deepening of the silicate, nitrate, and phosphate isolines over the shelf and a bulging of the nitrate and phosphate isolines over the shelf edge and the slope. Our first measurements of DFe concentration and speciation in the area revealed that against prior findings in other coastal areas, macronutrients, DFe, and iron ligand cycles were disentangled. Higher DFe concentrations were often found at the surface indicating aerial deposition. Secondary DFe maxima over the sediment-water interface and in the upwelled plume indicated DFe fluxes from the sediment and from resuspended instable colloids. Iron ligand concentrations were higher than DFe concentrations in most stations with a clear land-to-ocean gradient. Subtraction of HS iron ligands revealed that except in upwelled water, the bulk of surface ligands was the result of local biological processes. The analysis of the concentrations of Fe-HS complexes showed that the contribution of HS to DFe was dominant in upwelled waters, significant in waters close to the coast, but nearly negligible in the rest of the studied area. We hypothesize that the injection of iron-humic complexes into the euphotic layer during summer upwelling episodes is the key to understanding the persistent high chlorophyll meanders found over the shelf edge of the SBB coast.
RESUMO
This work proposes an analytical strategy utilizing digital images (DI) for the iron inorganic speciation in white wine. The method was established by the reaction of iron(II) ions with 1,2 ortho-phenanthroline as a chromogenic reagent. Total iron was determined using the same reagent after the addition of hydroxyl ammonium chloride as a reducing agent. In both cases, digital images of the standards/chromogenic reagent and samples were acquired and stored in JPEG format. The region of interest (ROI) was determined with a constant square shape for all images. The ROI was submitted to decomposition in color values according to the RGB additive color model. However, the data obtained by the blue channel was the one used in the construction of the analytical curves because it presented the highest sensitivity. The optimization of the experimental conditions of the procedure was performed by employing multivariate techniques. The precision was evaluated using a wine sample with iron (II) and total iron contents of 0.41 and 0.69â¯mgâ¯L-1, respectively. The results expressed as relative standard deviations were 3.57% for iron (II) and 4.76% for total iron contents. A comparison between the results obtained for total iron by the DI method with the results found using flame atomic absorption spectrometry confirmed the method accuracy. The DI procedure was applied for speciation analysis in six white wine samples and the contents found varied from 0.41 to 1.67â¯mgâ¯L-1 for iron (II) and from 0.69 to 1.71â¯mgâ¯L-1 for total iron. These results are in agreement with those found for speciation analysis of iron in wine samples. Iron (III) contents can be found by the difference between the total iron and iron (II) contents.