Anthropogenic impacts in North Poland over the last 1300years — A record of Pb, Zn, Cu, Ni and S in an ombrotrophic peat bog

Abstract

Lead pollution history over Northern Poland was reconstructed for the last ca. 1300 years using the elemental and Pb isotope geochemistry of a dated Polish peat bog. The data show that Polish Pb-Zn ores and coal were the main sources of Pb, other heavy metals and S over Northern Poland up until the industrial revolution. After review of the potential mobility of each element, most of the historical interpretation was based on Pb and Pb isotopes, the other chemical elements (Zn, Cu, Ni, S) being considered secondary indicators of pollution. During the last century, leaded gasoline also contributed to anthropogenic Pb pollution over Poland. Coal and Pb-Zn ores, however, remained important sources of pollution in Eastern European countries during the last 50 years, as demonstrated by a high 206 Pb/ 207 Pb ratio (1.153) relative to that of Western Europe (ca. 1.10). The Pb data for the last century were also in good agreement with modelled Pb inventories over Poland and the Baltic region.

Comparative dating of recent peat deposits using natural and anthropogenic fallout radionuclides and Spheroidal Carbonaceous Particles (SCPs) at a local and landscape scale

“…Belyea andWarner, 1994 andBao et al, 2010). Moreover, independent date markers can be subject to as much error as 210 Pb dating, especially where they involve the onset of industrial Pb pollution (MacKenzie et al, 1997;de Vleeschouwer et al, 2009) or the highly mobile 137 Cs (Urban et al, 1990;Bao et al, 2010, andAli et al 2008). A number of different conclusions have been reached from comparisons with independent age markers.…”

Mineral components in a peat deposit: looking for signs of early mining and smelting activities in Silesia–Cracow region (Southern Poland)

“…The importance of Pb emission from mining and reprocessing of Pb ores in South of Poland was highlighted by the investigations of peat bogs located in northern Poland (Vleeschouwer et al 2009). In the vicinity of the shallow occurrences of Zn-Pb-Ag ores in Tarnowskie Góry region, small mires are located (Smieja-Król et al 2010), significantly enriched in Pb and Zn, where the accumulated peat deposits constitute a potentially valuable archive of historical release of metal-bearing contaminants.…”

Regional Contamination of Moravia (South-Eastern Czech Republic): Temporal Shift of Pb and Zn Loading in Fluvial Sediments

“…Zinc accompanies Pb in fly ashes from coal combustion and in its pure form it has been massively used in corrosion protection of steel. A delayed Zn contamination peak with respect to Pb in the last century has been observed in a NW Spain peat bog (Martínez-Cortizas et al 1997) and a NW Poland peat bog core (De Vleeschouwer et al 2009). However, the latter authors assumed that the different depth profiles of Pb and Zn could have been caused by a mobility of Zn in the profile.…”

“…, but enhanced input of heavy metals can be identified also in topsoils of mainly agricultural regions (Martin 2000;Desenfant et al 2004;De Vleeschouwer et al 2009;Kadlec et al 2009;Grygar et al 2010) and even at sites very remote from local sources (Renberg et al 2001;Novák et al 2003Novák et al , 2008. Actually, in these "cleaner" regions, the major input of heavy metals, in particular Pb, has been a result of long atmospheric transport and hence it reflects larger-scale sources (Renberg et al 2001), more geographically smoothed and attributed to broader societal processes, such as massive introduction of coal burning in Central and West Europe (Weiss et al 1999;Renberg et al 2001;Novák et al 2008) as the main energy source in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.…”

“…Floodplains are stratigraphically less straightforward sedimentary archives of chemical contamination than lakes (Farmer et al 1997;Kober et al 1999;Bábek et al 2008) and peat bogs (Martínez-Cortizas et al 1997;Weiss et al 1999;Farmer et al 1997;Novák et al 2003Novák et al , 2008De Vleeschouwer et al 2009). Two main reasons are a complex stratigraphy of the floodplain and mobility of heavy metals due to water level fluctuations.…”