Carbonaceous particle record in lake sediments from the Arctic and other remote areas of the Northern Hemisphere

Abstract

Lake sediments, including spheroidal carbonaceous particles produced by high temperature combustion of fossil fuels, contain a record of lake, catchment and atmospheric deposition history. The spatial and temporal distributions of these particles can indicate the extent to which a single lake or a region has been contaminated by airborne pollutants (e.g. sulfur, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)) derived from fossil fuels. The carbonaceous particle records of two Arctic lakes, Shuonija¨vr and Stepanovichja¨rvi, close to local pollution sources on the Kola Peninsula, Russia, are compared with the record of a remote lake on Svalbard and with mid-latitude remote mountain lakes in Europe and Asia. Although, Shuonija¨vr and Stepanovichja¨rvi show relatively high levels of contamination, as expected, the presence of carbonaceous particles at all of the remote sites studied suggests there is a hemispherical background of these particles. Other less remote mountain lakes in Europe have been found to contain significant concentrations of particles and these may represent regional deposition patterns. Carbonaceous particle analysis may provide an effective assessment of whether a lake site is receiving local, regional or background levels of deposition.