Metagenomes from the Upper Sediment of Kanawha River, South Charleston, West Virginia

The purpose of this project is to study functional diversity of the sediment microbiome in an industrialized river. The Kanawha River has a drainage basin of more than 12,000 square miles in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and Virginia. The river runs through the Charleston metropolitan area and drains into the Ohio River. The river has been heavily used by industry since the early 20th Century. In particular, several chemical industries heavily polluted the river during the 1940s-70s. One core sample was collected on the downstream end of Blaine Island which is a large, completely industrialized island in the middle of the river located in South Charleston (WV). The river water was about 0.75 meter deep at the collection site. A large portion of the sediment consisted of sand and silt.