Accumulation of Thallium in the Sediments of River Kortalaiyar in Tamilnadu, India

Kortalaiyar River is a source of freshwater for the residents of Tiruvallur district. It is one of the three rivers that flow in the Chennai metropolitan. The industries along the river mainly in Tiruvallur and Manali industrial belts open up their effluents into the river. In the present study samples of sediment was collected from 30 locations starting from Poondi Lake to Ennore creek to analyze the spatio-temporal variation of Thallium in the river sediments. The analysis was made more significant by determining the Geo-accumulation index, Enrichment factor and Contamination factor. Thallium is found to contaminate the river with its average composition of 2 ppm in comparison with a very low Upper Continental Crust composition of 0.75ppm.