Antifoulant concentrations at the site of the Bunga Teratai Satu grounding, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

In November 2000, the cargo ship Bunga Teratai Satu ran aground on Sudbury Reef within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Australia. Sediment samples were collected in the area after the ship was removed, and the extent of antifoulant contamination was assessed. The concentrations of tributyltin in the vicinity of the grounding site ranged from less than 1 to 17,000 ng/g, with the concentrations highly variable with both direction and distance. Elevated concentrations of both copper and zinc were also detected in sediments collected from within the ship grounding scar, and the sediment tributyltin concentrations were correlated significantly with sediment Cu and Zn concentrations.