Two gravity cores and two box cores from the ioner and outer basins of the anoxic Barsnesfjord were dated by radiocesium of the 1986 Chernobyl accident and of earlier Pacific nuclear weapon tests in 1963 and 1959. Sedimentation rates in the ioner and outer basin are >0.4 to 2. 0 cm/year over the last 200 years. The concentration and accumulation rates of three heavy metals in the surticial sediments are Zn 72-144, Pb 27-51 and Cu 17-31 ppm; their accumulation rates are Zn 0.28--0. 39, Pb 0. 13-0.25 and Cu 0.06-{). 11 g/m2/year. The accumulation rates for sediments deposited during the last 10 years are similar to those deposited before AD 1900. The values are equal to or even higher than those reported from other Norwegian fjords subject to industrial pollution.

M. Paetzel & H. Schrader, Universitetet i Bergen, Geologisk Institutt, Avd. B, A/legt. 41, N-5007 Bergen, Norway.