Preface to the second edition. About the author. 1 There is no substitute for water. 2 How long is long?. 3 Sediments: an ecosystem's memory. 4 Retrieving the sedimentary archive and establishing the geochronological clock: collecting and dating sediment cores. 5 Reading the records stored in sediments: the present is a key to the past. 6 The paleolimnologist's Rosetta Stone: calibrating indicators to environmental variables using surface-sediment training sets. 7 Acidification: finding the "smoking gun". 8 Metals, technological development, and the environment. 9 Persistent organic pollutants: industrially synthesized chemicals "hopping" across the planet. 10 Mercury - "the metal that slipped away". 11 Eutrophication: the environmental consequences of over-fertilization. 12 Erosion: tracking the accelerated movement of material from land to water. 13 Species invasions, biomanipulations, and extirpations. 14 Greenhouse gas emissions and a changing atmosphere: tracking the effects of climatic change on water resources. 15 Ozone depletion, acid rain, and climatic warming: the problems of multiple stressors. 16 New problems, new challenges. 17 Paleolimnology: a window on the past, a key to our future. Glossary. References. Index

Pollution of Lakes and Rivers: A Paleoenvironmental Perspective

Continental aquatic systems from rivers to the coastal zone are considered within two perspectives: (i) as a major link between the atmosphere, pedosphere, biosphere and oceans within the Earth system with its Holocene dynamics, and (ii) as water and aquatic biota resources progressively used and transformed by humans. Human pressures have now reached a state where the continental aquatic systems can no longer be considered as being controlled by only Earth system processes, thus defining a new era, the Anthropocene. Riverine changes, now observed at the global scale, are described through a first set of syndromes (flood regulation, fragmentation, sediment imbalance, neo-arheism, salinization, chemical contamination, acidification, eutrophication and microbial contamination) with their related causes and symptoms. These syndromes have direct influences on water uses, either positive or negative. They also modify some Earth system key functions such as sediment, water, nutrient and carbon balances, greenhouse gas emissions and aquatic biodiversity. Evolution of river syndromes over the past 2000 years is complex: it depends upon the stages of regional human development and on natural conditions, as illustrated here for the chemical contamination syndrome. River damming, eutrophication and generalized decrease of river flow due to irrigation are some of the other global features of river changes. Future management of river systems should also consider these long-term impacts on the Earth system.

/pdf/global-analysis-of-river-systems-from-earth-system-controls-1590j980eg.pdf

Global analysis of river systems: from Earth system controls to Anthropocene syndromes

In this, the first comprehensive one-volume survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. The approach taken is both thematic, with chapters on the underlying determinants of economic performance, and chronological, with coverage of the whole of the Greek and Roman worlds extending from the Aegean Bronze Age to Late Antiquity. The contributors move beyond the substantivist-formalist debates that dominated twentieth-century scholarship and display a new interest in economic growth in antiquity. New methods for measuring economic development are explored, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately. Fully accessible to non-specialist, the volume represents a major advance in our understanding of the economic expansion that made the civilisation of the classical Mediterranean world possible.

/pdf/the-cambridge-economic-history-of-the-greco-roman-world-2dvab3lyi9.pdf

The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world

This paper reviews the 210Pb dating programme carried out at the University of Liverpool over a period of three decades since its inception by Frank Oldfield in the mid-1970s. The work at Liverpool...

Three decades of dating recent sediments by fallout radionuclides: a review

There is a continual influx of heavy metal contaminants and pollutants into the biosphere from both natural and anthropogenic sources. A complex variety of abiotic and biotic processes affects their speciation and distribution, including adsorption onto and desorption from mineral surfaces, incorporation in precipitates or coprecipitates, release through the dissolution of minerals, and interactions with plants and microbes. Some of these processes can effectively isolate heavy metals from the biosphere, whereas others cause their release or transformation to different species that may be more (or less) bioavailable and/or toxic to organisms. Here we focus on abiotic adsorption and precipitation or coprecipitation processes involving the common heavy metal contaminant lead and the metalloids arsenic and selenium in mine tailings and contaminated soils. We have used extremely intense x-rays from synchrotron sources and a structure-sensitive method known as x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy to determine the molecular-level speciation of these elements at concentrations of 50 to several thousand ppm in the contaminated environmental samples as well as in synthetic sorption samples. Our XAFS studies of As and Pb in the mine tailings show that up to 50% of these contaminants in the samples studied may be present as adsorbed species on mineral surfaces, which makes them potentially more bioavailable than when present in sparingly soluble solid phases. Our XAFS studies of Se(VI) sorption on Fe2+-containing sulfates show that this element undergoes redox reactions that transform it into less bioavailable and less toxic species. This type of information on molecular-level speciation of heavy metal and metalloid contaminants in various environmental settings is needed to prioritize remediation efforts and to assess their potential hazard to humans and other organisms.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/96/7/3388.full.pdf

Mineral surfaces and bioavailability of heavy metals : a molecular-scale perspective

A continuous record of atmospheric lead since 12,370 carbon-14 years before the present (14C yr BP) is preserved in a Swiss peat bog. Enhanced fluxes caused by climate changes reached their maxima 10,590 14C yr BP (Younger Dryas) and 823014C yr BP. Soil erosion caused by forest clearing and agricultural tillage increased lead deposition after 532014C yr BP. Increasing lead/scandium and decreasing lead-206/lead-207 beginning 3000 14C yr BP indicate the beginning of lead pollution from mining and smelting, and anthropogenic sources have dominated lead emissions ever since. The greatest lead flux (15.7 milligrams per square meter per year in A.D. 1979) was 1570 times the natural, background value (0.01 milligram per square meter per year from 8030 to 5320 14C yr BP).

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/281/5383/1635.full.pdf

History of Atmospheric Lead Deposition Since 12,370 14C yr BP from a Peat Bog, Jura Mountains, Switzerland

C yr BP indicate the beginningof lead pollution from mining and smelting, and anthropogenic sources havedominated lead emissions ever since. The greatest lead sux (15.7 milligrams persquare meter per year in A.D. 1979) was 1570 times the natural, backgroundvalue (0.01 milligram per square meter per year from 8030 to 5320

M. Gloor

Papers

History of Atmospheric Lead Deposition Since 12,370 14C yr BP from a Peat Bog, Jura Mountains, Switzerland

History of Atmospheric Lead Deposition Since 12,370 14 Cy r BP from a Peat Bog, Jura Mountains, Switzerland