Deposition and storage of spheroidal carbonaceous fly-ash particles in European mountain lake sediments and catchment soils
Abstrakt
Spheroidal carbonaceous particles(SCPs) are produced only from high temperaturecombustion of fossil-fuels. In mountain lakesystems, they provide an unambiguous indicator ofatmospheric deposition.
In order to comparedepositional fluxes of SCPs between mountainareas experiencing various pollutant regimes,intensive bulk deposition sampling was undertakenat five sites across Europe. Catchment soil coresand lake sediment cores were also taken at eachsite to compare SCP storage over the post-industrial period.
Atmospheric, sediment and soilSCP data showed similar patterns. Highestcontamination was found in Scotland, Slovakia andSpain with the Austrian site intermediate and themid-Norwegian site least contaminated.
A highproportion of accumulated SCPs were found to bestored in catchment soils at each site.Therefore, a significant increase in soilerosion, possibly as a result of future climatechange, could lead to the input of largequantities of catchment stored SCPs and, byimplication, other atmospherically depositedcontaminants to the lake ecosystem