I am writing a story and am looking at how chemicals from artillery weapons from a sunken WWII ship in close proximity to an island might show up in
that island, or a chain of island's, sand.
The idea is a ship, up current from an island, would leave traces of chemicals down stream for a certain distance. Diluting the chemical stream out
as the distance became greater. Therefore sand nearest to the sunken ship would show signs of chemical contamination, even 70 years later, as would
be the case with WWII warships.
The location would be near the Philippines.
I have done some research and possibly tabun and phosgene from rusted out artillery would be an example.
Any ideas on this or where to go for further research?smuv - 25-6-2011 at 13:31
Phosgene wouldn't be a good chemical to write about, because it reacts quickly with water to form CO2 and HCl, which are no big deal in terms of
environmental impact. I don't know much about tabun, but looking at its structure I would assume it would hydrolize (react) with water at a
reasonable rate.
In essence, you need to not only consider the proximity of the ship to the shore, but also determine what the lifetime of the chemical being released
into the sea water is. I don't know where you are going to go with this, but it is a complex issue with a HUGE number of variables. I fear that
unless you take the route of unscientific sensationalism it will be hard for someone without a firm scientific background and access to a lab to come
up with anything worthwhile.hissingnoise - 25-6-2011 at 14:49
Quote:
I am writing a story and am looking at how chemicals from artillery weapons from a sunken WWII ship in close proximity to an island might show up in
that island, or a chain of island's, sand.
Contamination from shells containing, say, Japanese secret chemical agents for 'trial in the field', as it were . . . ?
Artistic license?
AJKOER - 25-6-2011 at 15:16
An quick idea, focus on the brass shells themselves. Brass contains copper. In sea water, I will guess the possible creation of Copper Oxygen
Chloride, a fungicide. In general, many Cu salts are seriously toxic to lower organisms (you will need to research the particulars of this as it
relates to marine life and coral reefs and the like).
So how do you measure the impact? I was thinking of the same way after many years one can detect a comparative reduction in vegetation, or in our
case, fish, plant or coral growth, etc.Neil - 25-6-2011 at 15:41
look up "Sable Island" and mustard gas. Much of the coast line around Nova Scotia has hidden troves of dumped munitions/gasses from americain/canadian
navies post world wars. Lots of info available.
