Seawater samples collected from depths ≤ 5 m are treated as surface samples. The concentration of dissolved Ba in these samples shows a North–South decreasing trend, from ~ 112.8 to ~ 34.9 nmol/kg, in contrast to salinity that increases from ~ 24.5 to ~ 33.4 (Fig. 4). Surface waters of station 0811 show higher salinity and lower Ba concentration than those of the nearby stations. Among the samples, surface waters of the northern shallow station 0816 impacted by river discharge from the Hooghly River has the lowest salinity ~ 24.5 and the highest dissolved Ba ~ 112.8 nmol/kg. This Ba concentration is roughly 2–3 times its open ocean surface water values but similar to those reported earlier in waters of similar salinity from other
XAV939 of the G–B estuarine system (Carroll et al., 1993 and Moore, 1997). The studies of Ba distribution from different estuaries worldwide show that
trisomy behaves non-conservatively with a positive anomaly at mid salinities attributed to its release from particles and/or supply via SGD (Carroll et al., 1993, Coffey et al., 1997, Hanor and Chan, 1977, Li and Chan, 1979, Moore, 1997, Nozaki et al., 2001 and Wang et al., 2009). The high dissolved Ba in low salinity surface waters of station 0816 may also be a result of its supply from such sources. Besides station 0816, surface water samples from north of 18°N with salinity
