Posteraward at the EGU for VIRIS Lab

The rewarded poster entitled: "Comparison of the elemental composition of different hard parts (otoliths, scales, fin rays, vertebrae and eye lenses) of freshwater fish using ICPMS" shows first results of Leo Kirchmaier´s master thesis currently carried out in the VIRIS Lab, Division of Analytical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry under the supervision of Thomas Prohaska, Andreas Zitek and Johanna Irrgeher. The European Geosciences Union is Europe’s premier geosciences union. The EGU General Assembly is an annual international conference series with more than 10000 participants. The renowned prize includes the admission for the EGU General Assembly 2014 and the publication of a paper showing the results in an EGU open access journal free of any charge. The aim of the master thesis is the comparison of the multi-elemental composition of fish hard parts as a basis to give recommendations for different applications, e.g. monitoring environmental pollution by heavy metals. Furthermore, the analysis of fish hard parts by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) is optimized and validated. The spatially resolved analysis of incrementally grown hard parts gives time-resolved information on e.g. fish migration, origin or environmental pollution. Scales and fin-rays serve as non-lethal sampling alternatives to otoliths, which is important for the investigation of rare and endangered fish species.
Website VIRIS team: http://www.chemie.boku.ac.at/3374.html