| Summary: | Human activities such as mining and smelting of lead (Pb) ores and combustion of alkyllead additives in gasoline have resulted in extensive global Pb pollution. Since the late 1960's studies of polar ice and snow have been undertaken to evaluate the extent of anthropogenic Pb emissions in recent times as well as to investigate changes in anthropogenic Pb emissions in the more distant past. The polar ice sheets have been used to investigate Pb pollution as they offer a long-term record of human activity located far from pollution sources and sample aerosol emissions on a hemispheric scale. Lead isotopes have been previously used to identify sources of Pb in polar snow and ice, while new evaluations of Pb isotopic compositions in aerosols and Pb ore bodies allow more thorough evaluations of anthropogenic Pb emissions. Lead isotopic compositions and Pb and Barium (Ba) concentrations have been measured in snow and ice core samples from Law Dome, East Antarctica, to produce a detailed pollution history between 1530 AD and 1989 AD. Such a record has been produced to evaluate changes in anthropogenic Pb emission levels and sources over the past 500 years, to determine when industrial (anthropogenic) activities first began to influence Antarctica and also to investigate natural Pb fluxes to Antarctica. Additional samples were also collected from Law Dome snow and ice cores to respectively investigate seasonal variations in Pb and Ba deposition, and the influence of the 1815 AD volcanic eruption of Tambora, Indonesia. All samples were measured by thermal ionisation mass spectrometry, for which techniques were developed to reliably analyse Pb isotopic compositions in Antarctic samples containing sub-picogram per gram concentrations of Pb.Particular attention was given to the quantity of Pb added to the samples during the decontamination and sample storage stages of the sample preparation process. These stages, including the use of a stainless steel chisel for the decontamination, contributed ~5.2 pg to the total sample ...
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