Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb
Lead (Pb) is a metal of special importance because of its long history of commercial and industrial use, global atmospheric contamination accelerated by the use of gasoline additives, and health effects, with children being especially vulnerable. Global atmospheric Pb pollution reached its zenith in...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5338012 2023-05-15T15:26:01+02:00 Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb Javed, Muhammad Babar Cuss, Chad W. Grant-Weaver, Iain Shotyk, William 2017-03-06 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338012/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28262714 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep43622 en eng Nature Publishing Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338012/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28262714 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep43622 Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2017 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/srep43622 2017-03-12T01:14:19Z Lead (Pb) is a metal of special importance because of its long history of commercial and industrial use, global atmospheric contamination accelerated by the use of gasoline additives, and health effects, with children being especially vulnerable. Global atmospheric Pb pollution reached its zenith in the 1970’s, but subsequent impacts on freshwater aquatic systems are poorly understood. Employing metal-free sampling and handling protocols, we show that snowmelt from the Athabasca bituminous sands region is an insignificant source of dissolved Pb to the Athabasca River (AR). Total Pb in the AR is low, and almost entirely in particulate form. Lead in the suspended solids in the AR exactly follows thorium (Th), a conservative lithophile element, and a linear regression of Pb against Th (Pb = 1.6 × Th + 0.0; R2 = 0.99) yields a slope identical to the Pb/Th ratio in the Upper Continental Crust. In the “dissolved” fraction, the Pb/Th ratio is equivalent to that of deep, open ocean seawater; and dominated by colloidal forms. Taken together, these results show that the efforts of recent decades to reduce anthropogenic Pb to the environment have been successful: Pb loading to the river can now be explained predominantly by natural processes, namely erosion plus chemical weathering. Text Athabasca River PubMed Central (PMC) Athabasca River Scientific Reports 7 1 |
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Article Javed, Muhammad Babar Cuss, Chad W. Grant-Weaver, Iain Shotyk, William Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb |
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Lead (Pb) is a metal of special importance because of its long history of commercial and industrial use, global atmospheric contamination accelerated by the use of gasoline additives, and health effects, with children being especially vulnerable. Global atmospheric Pb pollution reached its zenith in the 1970’s, but subsequent impacts on freshwater aquatic systems are poorly understood. Employing metal-free sampling and handling protocols, we show that snowmelt from the Athabasca bituminous sands region is an insignificant source of dissolved Pb to the Athabasca River (AR). Total Pb in the AR is low, and almost entirely in particulate form. Lead in the suspended solids in the AR exactly follows thorium (Th), a conservative lithophile element, and a linear regression of Pb against Th (Pb = 1.6 × Th + 0.0; R2 = 0.99) yields a slope identical to the Pb/Th ratio in the Upper Continental Crust. In the “dissolved” fraction, the Pb/Th ratio is equivalent to that of deep, open ocean seawater; and dominated by colloidal forms. Taken together, these results show that the efforts of recent decades to reduce anthropogenic Pb to the environment have been successful: Pb loading to the river can now be explained predominantly by natural processes, namely erosion plus chemical weathering. |
format |
Text |
author |
Javed, Muhammad Babar Cuss, Chad W. Grant-Weaver, Iain Shotyk, William |
author_facet |
Javed, Muhammad Babar Cuss, Chad W. Grant-Weaver, Iain Shotyk, William |
author_sort |
Javed, Muhammad Babar |
title |
Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb |
title_short |
Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb |
title_full |
Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb |
title_fullStr |
Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb |
title_full_unstemmed |
Size-resolved Pb distribution in the Athabasca River shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved Pb |
title_sort |
size-resolved pb distribution in the athabasca river shows snowmelt in the bituminous sands region an insignificant source of dissolved pb |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338012/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28262714 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep43622 |
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Athabasca River |
geographic_facet |
Athabasca River |
genre |
Athabasca River |
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Athabasca River |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5338012/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28262714 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep43622 |
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Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1038/srep43622 |
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Scientific Reports |
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