83 DOI: 10.14203/mri.v42i2.170 ASSESSMENT OF Fe, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd AND Hg IN AMBON BAY SURFACE SEDIMENTS Corry Yanti Manullang 1 *, Lestari 2 , Yosmina Tapilatu 1 , Zainal Arifn 2 1 Research Center for Deep-Sea, Indonesian Institute of Sciences. Ambon, Indonesia. 2 Research Center for Oceanography, Indonesian Institute of Sciences. Jakarta, Indonesia. *Correspondence author: manullang.corry@gmail.com/corr001@lipi.go.id Received: January 2017 Accepted: June 2017 ABSTRACT In this study, the concentration of Fe, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd and Hg were determined in marine surface sediment to assess the impact of pollution sources around the Ambon Bay by application of Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS). The metals concentrations (in mg/kg DW) found were in the following ranges: 27,598 to 51,716 for Fe, 13.7 to 44.8 for Cu, 51.3 to 163 for Zn, 0.1 to 0.66 for Cd, 0.04 to 0.44 for Hg and 14.4 to 24.5 for Pb. The results indicated the strong contribution of heavy metals pollution from the urban waste, residential sources, farming industry, shipping activities and ship repair activity from dockyard around the Ambon Bay. This study provides the most updated information regarding heavy metals (Fe, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd and Hg) concentrations in Ambon Bay marine sediment. Keywords: marine pollution, sediment, heavy metals, Ambon Bay INTRODUCTION Ambon Bay is an important area for fshery and aquaculture that also grows rapidly in terms of population number and industrial activity. The increased industrialization and human population concentrated in coastal regions have generally led to an increase discharges of pollutants which afect marine environment quality. The kind of waste that needs to be concerned is heavy metal. Heavy metals are causing concern in particular due to their bioaccumulation and toxic efects in most living beings. Heavy metal contamination due to anthropogenic activity has been reported in Ambon Bay waters in the past 20-30 years (Sellano et al., 2008; LIPI, 2008). The anthropogenic activities that could potentially contribute to heavy metal pollutants into Ambon Bay are the urban waste, farming, shipping activities and ship repair activity from dockyard around the Ambon Bay (LIPI, 2008). Iron (Fe), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd) and mercury (Hg) are some of heavy metals that we should be aware of because their toxic efects to humans. At low levels, Cu, Fe and Zn are important for enzymatic activity, but toxic at higher concentrations in living organisms (Prashanth et al., 2015). Cd, Pb and Hg are known as the three most toxic metals in the environment without a known essential role in living organisms (Baker et al., 2003; Diaz et al., 2006, Ebrahimi and Taherianfard, 2010). In aquatic organisms, the toxic efects of heavy metals on aquatic invertebrates cause reduction of the developmental growth, increase of developmental anomalies, reduction of fshes survival even cause extinction of entire fshes population in very polluted waters (Khayatzadeh and Abbasi (2010). Mar. Res. Indonesia Vol.42, No.2, 2017: 83-92