Recently, new areas of research have arisen because of environmental concerns since the Industrial Revolution that focus on vanadium cycling between the atmosphere, water and sediments. Vanadium has been widely recognized as a trace contaminant in fossil fuels, especially crude oil, due to significant vanadium enrichment, and can be released to seawater through oil spills or atmospheric deposition associated with its combustion.
Click here for original story, Coral vanadium can record tropical cyclones and anthropogenic activities in the South China Sea
Source: Phys.org