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Title
  • en Lead concentration and isotopic composition in the Pacific sclerosponge (Acanthochaetetes wellsi) reflects environmental lead pollution
Creator
Accessrights open access
Subject
  • NDC 450
Description
  • Abstract en We measured Pb/Ca and Pb isotopes with high resolution in the high-Mg calcite skeleton of a Pacific sclerosponge (Acanthochaetetes wellsi) collected from the reef edge off the western coast of Kume Island (East China Sea), to investigate its potential to he used as a proxy for lead contamination in the environment, and atmospheric transportation and fallout over the last few decades. Skeletal Pb/Ca ranged from 58 to 1642 nmol/mol, 10x higher than that of the aragonite skeleton of Pacific corals, and 2.5x higher than that of the aragonite skeletons of Caribbean sclerosponges. The Pb/Ca timeseries recorded from 1967 through 2007 CE correspond to historical changes in atmospheric lead flux in anthropogenic aerosols. Pb isotopes (Pb-206/Pb-207 and Pb-208/Pb-207) in the sclerosponge skeleton document that the main source of lead emissions shifted from Japan (1970-1980 CE) to China (1995-2005 CE), as expected from the timing of legislation against the use of leaded gasoline in Japan and China. Our results indicate that the skeleton of the Pacific sclerosponge is a powerful proxy to monitor environmental lead pollution. Applying this methodology to long-living and/or fossil specimens could be useful in determining the interannual variability of atmospheric transport and dynamics over geologic time scales.
Publisher en Geological Society of America
Date
    Issued2014-04
Language
  • eng
Resource Type journal article
Version Type AM
Identifier HDL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/58018
Relation
  • isVersionOf DOI https://doi.org/10.1130/G34316.1
Journal
    • PISSN 0091-7613
    • EISSN 1943-2682
      • en Geology
      • Volume Number42 Issue Number4 Page Start287 Page End290
File
Oaidate 2023-07-26