Journal ArticleDOI
Peat bogs document decades of declining atmospheric contamination by trace metals in the Athabasca Bituminous Sands region
William Shotyk,Peter G. Appleby,Beatriz Bicalho,Lauren J. Davies,Duane G. Froese,Iain Grant-Weaver,Gabriel Magnan,Gabriel Magnan,Gillian Mullan-Boudreau,Tommy Noernberg,Rick Pelletier,Bob Shannon,Simon van Bellen,Simon van Bellen,Claudio Zaccone +14 more
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TLDR
The age-depth relationships show that atmospheric contamination by trace metals (Ag, Cd, Sb, Tl, but also V, Ni, and Mo which are enriched in bitumen) has been declining in northern Alberta for decades.Abstract:
Peat cores were collected from five bogs in the vicinity of open pit mines and upgraders of the Athabasca Bituminous Sands, the largest reservoir of bitumen in the world. Frozen cores were sectioned into 1 cm slices, and trace metals determined in the ultraclean SWAMP lab using ICP-QMS. The uppermost sections of the cores were age-dated with 210Pb using ultralow background gamma spectrometry, and selected plant macrofossils dated using 14C. At each site, trace metal concentrations as well as enrichment factors (calculated relative to the corresponding element/Th ratio of the Upper Continental Crust) reveal maximum values 10 to 40 cm below the surface which shows that the zenith of atmospheric contamination occurred in the past. The age-depth relationships show that atmospheric contamination by trace metals (Ag, Cd, Sb, Tl, but also V, Ni, and Mo which are enriched in bitumen) has been declining in northern Alberta for decades. In fact, the greatest contemporary enrichments of Ag, Cd, Sb, and Tl (in the to...read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Pore-scale controls on hydrological and geochemical processes in peat: Implications on interacting processes
Colin P. R. McCarter,Fereidoun Rezanezhad,William L. Quinton,Behrad Gharedaghloo,Bernd Lennartz,Jonathan S. Price,Ryan F. Connon,P. Van Cappellen +7 more
TL;DR: This paper explored the literature on peat pore structure and the implications for hydrological, biogeochemical, and microbial processes in peat, highlighting the gaps in current knowledge and a path to move forward.
Journal ArticleDOI
Impact of the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century climate change on peatland vegetation dynamics in central and northern Alberta using a multi-proxy approach and high-resolution peat chronologies
Gabriel Magnan,Simon van Bellen,Lauren J. Davies,Duane G. Froese,Michelle Garneau,Gillian Mullan-Boudreau,Claudio Zaccone,William Shotyk +7 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the past changes in vegetation communities were reconstructed using detailed plant macrofossil analyses combined with high-resolution peat chronologies (14C, atmospheric bomb-pulse 14C, 210Pb and cryptotephras).
Journal ArticleDOI
Polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) in the Canadian environment: A review of sampling techniques, strategies and instrumentation
Jason M. E. Ahad,Robie W. Macdonald,Joanne L. Parrott,Zeyu Yang,Yifeng Zhang,Tariq Siddique,Alsu Kuznetsova,Cassandra Rauert,Elisabeth Galarneau,William B. Studabaker,Marlene S. Evans,Mark E. McMaster,Dayue Shang +12 more
TL;DR: The need to move beyond the standard list of sixteen EPA priority PAHs and for adoption of an AOSR bitumen PAC reference standard are highlighted.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessment of vanadium and nickel enrichment in Lower Athabasca River floodplain lake sediment within the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (Canada).
TL;DR: Concentrations of V and Ni carried by Athabasca River sediment have not become measurably enriched since onset of oil sands development, as demonstrated by the before-after study design with >99.99% power to detect a 10% increase above pre-development baselines.
Journal ArticleDOI
Using Pb isotope ratios of particulate matter and epiphytic lichens from the Athabasca Oil Sands Region in Alberta, Canada to quantify local, regional, and global Pb source contributions.
TL;DR: The Pb isotope methodology successfully quantified trans-Pacific transport of Pb to the AOSR superimposed over the aerosol footprint of the world's largest concentration of bitumen mining and upgrading facilities.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
The composition of the continental crust
TL;DR: In this paper, a new calculation of the crustal composition is based on the proportions of upper crust (UC) to felsic lower crust (FLC) to mafic lower-crust (MLC) of about 1.6:0.4.
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A History of Global Metal Pollution
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Chemical concentrations of pollutant lead aerosols, terrestrial dusts and sea salts in Greenland and Antarctic snow strata☆
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reported analyses of lead in annual ice layers from the interior of northern Greenland and in annual layers of ice from interior of the Antarctic continent, showing that lead concentrations increase from 0.200 γPb/kg ice today in north pole ice sheets, the sharpest rise occurring after 1940.
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History of Atmospheric Lead Deposition Since 12,370 14C yr BP from a Peat Bog, Jura Mountains, Switzerland
William Shotyk,Dominik J. Weiss,Peter G. Appleby,A. Cheburkin,Robert Frei,M. Gloor,Jan Kramers,S. Reese,W.O. van der Knaap +8 more
TL;DR: 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, indicating the beginning of lead pollution from mining and smelting, and anthropogenic sources have dominated lead emissions ever since.
History of Atmospheric Lead Deposition Since 12,370 14 Cy r BP from a Peat Bog, Jura Mountains, Switzerland
William Shotyk,Dominik J. Weiss,Peter G. Appleby,A. Cheburkin,Robert Frei,M. Gloor,Jan Kramers,S. Reese,W.O. van der Knaap +8 more
TL;DR: 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 meters per year from 8030 to 5320.