Air pollution history elucidated from anthropogenic spherules and their magnetic signatures in marine sediments offshore of Southwestern Taiwan

Horng, Chorng‐Shern; Huh, Chih-An; Chen, Kuo-Hang; Huang, Pei‐Hsin; Hsiung, Kan-Hsi; Lin, Hui-Ling

doi:10.1016/j.jmarsys.2007.09.014

Cited by 52 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…These are probably airborne particles from diesel exhaust and emissions from coalburning power plants in Tucson. Such findings are common around industrial areas (10)(11)(12) and reflect the multiple contexts in which microspherules are created and discovered.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 65%

The Murray Springs Clovis site, Pleistocene extinction, and the question of extraterrestrial impact

Haynes

Boerner

Domanik

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Some of the evidence for the recent hypothesis of an extraterrestrial impact that caused late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions [Firestone et al. (2007) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:16016–16021] was based upon samples collected at Murray Springs, a Clovis archaeological site in southeastern Arizona. Here we describe sampling and analyses of magnetic separates from within, above, and below the lower Younger Dryas boundary (LYDB) black mat at Murray Springs, as well as radiation measurements from the LYDB at Murray Springs and two other well-stratified Clovis sites. The main magnetic fraction at Murray Springs is maghemite. Magnetic microspherules have terrestrial origins but also occur as cosmic dust particles. We failed to find iridium or radiation anomalies. The evidence for massive biomass burning at Murray Springs is addressed and found to be lacking. We could not substantiate some of the claims by Firestone and others, but our findings do not preclude a terminal Pleistocene cosmic event.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 65%

The Murray Springs Clovis site, Pleistocene extinction, and the question of extraterrestrial impact

Haynes

Boerner

Domanik

et al. 2010

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Since industrialization, however, iron oxides are originating from anthropogenic fly ashes from factories, and vehicles may also significantly contribute to the magnetic properties of marine sediments. This is especially common in coastal settings and marginal seas adjacent to heavily populated and industrialized areas (Horng et al 2009;Venkatachalapathy et al 2011b;Aguilar et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental magnetic studies on surface sediments: a proxy for metal and hydrocarbon contamination

Venkatachalapathy

Rajeswari

Basavaiah

et al. 2013

Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Visakhapatnam is one of the major port cities, and it is developed into a hub of many large-and mediumscale industries. Due to growing industrialization and urbanization, coast is vulnerable to both organic and inorganic micro-pollutants. Twenty-five surface sediments were collected along the Visakhapatnam coast for the measurement of texture size, petroleum hydrocarbons, trace metals and environmental magnetic parameters. The percentage of coarser particles was more in the northern region, whereas the percentage of fine particles was increased toward south. Elevated levels of petroleum hydrocarbons and trace metals were attributed due to marine and land-based sources, in particular, those were due to shipping activities, treated and partially treated sewage and industrial wastes. The concentrations of trace metals, petroleum hydrocarbons and magnetic minerals were decreased from nearshore to seaward. Our results revealed that the magnetic mineralogy is dominated by magnetite with a small proportion of hematite, and the grain size of magnetic minerals was in the range of pseudo-single domain to multidomain nature with detrital origin. From the principal component analysis, the magnetic concentration and mineralogy-dependent parameters co-vary with the heavy metal and PHC concentrations, suggesting that the inputs of magnetic minerals, petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals in the Visakhapatnam shelf sediments were derived from the same anthropogenic sources. Thus, the large magnetic dataset can be used to reduce the number of chemical analysis; hence, environmental magnetic parameters were used as a proxy for both organic and inorganic micro-pollutants.

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“…Such objects were previously described as being fly ash from coal-fired infrastructure (Puffer 1980, Blaha et al 2008, Horng et al 2009). The sample site from which they were obtained is located relatively close to the urbanized agglomeration of Gdańsk and Gdynia, so it would seem likely that they are man-made spherules from the coal-fired infrastructure in these cities, transported to the sea by the wind.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro-scale magnetic grains from shallow water sediments of the Gulf of Gdańsk

Uścinowicz

2009

Oceanological and Hydrobiological Studies

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Three cores recovered from the Gulf of Gdańsk in 2006 contain magnetic spherules of different origins. According to their chemical compositions and morphological features the magnetic grains were divided into two groups: (1) anthropogenic spherules primarily composed of SiO 2 , Al 2 O 3 and Fe 2 O 3 ; (2) Fe-oxide spherules of extraterrestrial origin. These two groups are present in the surface sediments, indicating they are products of both man-made pollution and an influx of extraterrestrial matter. The presence of anthropogenic dust in the marine sediments is a record of pollution from nearby industrialized areas. On the basis of the presence of these spherules a tool could be developed for studying sedimentation rates in the marine sediments. However more precise studies are required to develop this method.

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Air pollution history elucidated from anthropogenic spherules and their magnetic signatures in marine sediments offshore of Southwestern Taiwan

Cited by 52 publications

References 19 publications

The Murray Springs Clovis site, Pleistocene extinction, and the question of extraterrestrial impact

The Murray Springs Clovis site, Pleistocene extinction, and the question of extraterrestrial impact

Environmental magnetic studies on surface sediments: a proxy for metal and hydrocarbon contamination

Micro-scale magnetic grains from shallow water sediments of the Gulf of Gdańsk

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