Hydrocarbons in water, suspended matter and bottom sediments of the Barents Sea were studied based on materials from expeditions to the RV Akademik Mstislav Keldysh in 2016–2019. It is shown that at present there is no oil pollution in open areas of the Barents Sea. With the transition from early summer (2019) to autumn (2016), there was a decrease in hydrocarbon concentrations in surface waters, caused by a change in the biochemical composition of organic matter (possibly due to a decrease in the area of ice). With depth, the HC content decreased mainly. An exception was observed in the area of gutters and deposits, where in the bottom nepheloid layers there was an increase in the concentration of hydrocarbons in suspension and in the surface layer of bottom sediments, and in the thickness of the sediments there was no dependence on their distribution and organic carbon.

The results of the study of hydrocarbons (HCs): aliphatic (AHCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in bottom sediments (2019 and 2020, cruises 75 and 80 of the R/V Akademik Mstislav Keldysh) in the Norwegian-Barents Sea basin: Mohns Ridge, shelf Svalbard archipelago, Sturfiord, Medvezhinsky trench, central part of the Barents Sea, Novaya Zemlya shelf, Franz Victoria trough are presented. It has been established that the organo-geochemical background of the Holocene sediments was formed due to the flow of sedimentary material in the coastal regions of the Barents Sea on shipping routes. The anthropogenic input of HCs into bottom sediments leads to an increase in their content in the composition of Corg (in the sandy sediments of the Kaninsky Bank at an AHC concentration up to 64 μg/g, when its proportion in the composition of Corg reaches 11.7%). The endogenous influence on the of the Svalbard archipelago shelf in Sturfiord and in the Medvezhinsky Trench determines the specificity of local anomalies in the content and composition of HCs. This is reflected in the absence of a correlation between HCs and the grain size composition of sediments and Corg content, as well as a change in hydrocarbon molecular markers. At the same time, the sedimentary section is enriched in light alkanes and naphthalene’s that may be due to emission during point discharge of gas fluid from sedimentary rocks of the lower stratigraphic horizons and/or sipping migration.

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