Abstract

The impacts of human activities on Zoige peatlands are poorly documented. We determined the concentrations and accumulation rates of As and Hg in a 210Pb-dated peat profile collected from this area and analyzed the correlations between accumulation rates of both As and Hg and other physicochemical properties. To reconstruct recent conditions of As and Hg, we analyzed peat sediments of Re’er Dam peatland in Zoige using 210Pb and 137Cs dating technologies. The concentrations of total As (86.38 to 174.21 μg kg−1) and Hg (7.30 to 32.13 μg kg−1) in the peat profile clearly increased after the first industrial revolution. From AD 1824 to AD 2010, the average accumulation rates were 129.77 μg m−2 yr−1 for As and 18.24 μg m−2 yr−1 for Hg. Based on our results, anthropogenic emissions significantly affected the atmospheric fluxes of As and Hg throughout the past 200 years, and As was also likely to be affected by other factors than atmospheric deposition, which needs further identification by future studies. The historical variations in As and Hg concentrations in Re’er Dam peatland in Zoige mirror the industrial development of China.

Highlights

  • Arsenic (As) and mercury (Hg) are two widely occurring contaminants with high toxicity, persistence, and mobility [1,2]

  • Several pathways can lead to As and Hg accumulation in soil, such as local waste disposal from domestic and industrial activities, plant uptake, long-range transport of Hg via atmospheric circulation, and deposition by precipitation and/or aerosols, some of which are affected by human activities [9,10,11,12]

  • Total carbon content (TC), total organic carbon content (TOC), and total nitrogen content (TN) were determined using the Elementar Vario MICRO cube elemental analyzer, and the C/N ratio was calculated as the ratio of TC to TN

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Summary

Introduction

Arsenic (As) and mercury (Hg) are two widely occurring contaminants with high toxicity, persistence, and mobility [1,2]. The 210Pb and 137Cs dating methods can provide high-resolution chronologies for over a century of sediment formation [22], facilitating the evaluation of recent deposition fluxes of atmospheric As and Hg in peat profiles. Using this method, investigations of the deposition history of As and Hg in peatlands have been widely used in the past few decades [21,23,24,25,26].

Study Site
Physical and Chemical Analyses
Total As and Hg Analysis
Calculations of As and Hg Chronology and Accumulation Rates
Physicochemical Properties
Concentrations of As and Hg
Accumulation Rates of As and Hg
As and Hg Accumulation Rates in Relation to Peat Physicochemical Properties
Conclusions

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