Ove Emteryd

TL;DR: In this article, the authors report analyses of lake sediments from Sweden showing that atmospheric lead deposition increased above back-ground levels more than 2,600 years ago and accelerated during the nineteenth and particularly the twentieth centuries, with a deposition maximum at about ad 1970.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used analyses of lead concentrations and stable lead isotopes (206Pb/207Pb ratios) of annually laminated sediments from four lakes in northern Sweden (∼65° N) to provide a decadal record of atmospheric lead pollution for the last 3000 years.

TL;DR: The pollution lead records of the Swedish lake sediments show a consistent picture of the atmospheric lead pollution history, which includes the Roman peak, the large and permanent Medieval increase, peaks at approximately 1200 and 1530 AD, the rapid increase after World War II, the peak in the 1970s, and the large modern decline.

TL;DR: Analysis of 206Pb/207Pb isotope ratios and lead concentrations in lake sediments, peat deposits and soil profiles from Sweden suggest that atmospheric lead pollution increased markedly after World War II, peaked about 1970, and will soon be back to Medieval levels.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use analyses of Pb concentrations and stable Pb isotopes (206Pb/207Pb ratios) of ombrotrophic peat and forest soils from southern Sweden and a model for Pb cycling in forest soils to derive an estimate for the prepollution concentration of heavy metals in the mor layer of boreal forest soils and to back-calculate pb concentrations for the last 5,500 years.