Decreasing of the industrial lead contamination in the Amundsen Sea area

Science Highlights

7 July 2016

Since the phasing-out of leaded automobile gasoline, the imprint of industrial lead is decreasing everywhere. Antarctica snow and ice are no exception to this general rule, as shown by measurements of lead (Pb) concentration and isotopic composition in these environments as well as in the Amundsen Sea Polynya. Up to 95% of the Pb at the time of sampling is natural in source, allowing tracing weathering from Antarctic rocks….

Photo: Silke Severmann, Rutgers University.

Reference:

Ndungu, K., Zurbrick, C. M., Stammerjohn, S., Severmann, S., Sherrell, R. M., & Flegal, A. R. (2016). Lead Sources to the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica. Environmental Science & Technology, 50(12), 6233–6239. doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b05151

Latest highlights

To Ba or not to Ba: Evaluating water column excess particulate barium as a proxy for water column respiration

Rahman and co-workers examine the relationship between excess particulate barium and organic matter respiration in the water column…

Major controls on the fate of dissolved manganese in the northeastern Indian Ocean

Malla and Singh investigated the key factors controlling dissolved manganese in the northeastern Indian Ocean.

An original approach to assess the particulate trace metal concentrations in seawater

Sohrin and co-workers propose defining particulate trace metal as the difference between total dissolvable and dissolved metals after a long storage of filtered and unfiltered acidified seawater.

Constraining aerosol deposition over the global ocean by the cosmogenic beryllium-7

He and co-workers propose a global estimate of aerosol deposition onto the ocean using the cosmogenic radionuclide beryllium-7.

Rechercher