Environmental News Network - The First Assessment of Toxic Heavy Metal Pollution in the Southern Hemisphere Over the Last 2,000 Years

Details: By Desert Research Institute; 18.Jan

An international team of scientists led by DRI found evidence of Southern Hemisphere heavy metal pollution preserved in Antarctic ice cores from early Andean cultures and Spanish Colonial mining that predates the Industrial Revolution by centuries.

Julie Swatson

An international team of scientists led by DRI found evidence of Southern Hemisphere heavy metal pollution preserved in Antarctic ice cores from early Andean cultures and Spanish Colonial mining that predates the Industrial Revolution by centuries.

Human activity, from burning fossil fuels and fireplaces to the contaminated dust produced by mining, alters Earth’s atmosphere in countless ways. Records of these impacts over time are preserved in everlasting polar ice that serves as a sort of time capsule, allowing scientists and historians to link Earth’s history with that of human societies. In a new study, ice cores from Antartica show that lead and other toxic heavy metals linked to mining activities polluted the Southern Hemisphere as early as the 13th century.

“Seeing evidence that early Andean cultures 800 years ago, and later Spanish Colonial mining and metallurgy, appear to have caused detectable lead pollution 9,000 km away in Antarctica is quite surprising,” said Joe McConnell, Ph.D., research professor of hydrology at DRI and lead author of the study.

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The First Assessment of Toxic Heavy Metal Pollution in the Southern Hemisphere Over the Last 2,000 Years