Patagonian dust, Agulhas Current, and Antarctic ice-rafted debris contributions to the South Atlantic Ocean over the past 150,000 years.

Disentangling inputs of aeolian dust, ice-rafted debris (IRD), and eroded continental detritus delivered by ocean currents to marine sediments provide important insights into Earth System processes and climate. This study uses Sr-Nd-Pb isotope ratios of the continent-derived (lithogenic) fraction in deep-sea core TN057-6 from the subantarctic Southern Ocean southwest of Africa over the past 150,000 y to identify source regions and quantify their relative contributions and fluxes utilizing a mixing model set in a Bayesian framework. The data are compared with proxies from parallel core Ocean Drilling Program Site 1090 and newly presented data from potential South America aeolian dust source areas (PSAs), allowing for an integrated investigation into atmospheric, oceanic, and cryospheric dynamics.

Microplastic pollution on historic facades: Hidden 'sink' or urban threat?

Despite the increasing concerns surrounding the health and environmental risks of microplastics (MPs), the research focus has primarily been on their prevalence in air and the oceans, consequently neglecting their presence on urban facades, which are integral to our everyday environments. Therefore, there is a crucial knowledge gap in comprehending urban MP pollution. Our pioneering interdisciplinary study not only quantifies but also identifies MPs on historic facades, revealing their pervasive presence in a medium-sized urban area in the UK.

Deciphering local and regional hydroclimate resolves contradicting evidence on the Asian monsoon evolution.

The winter and summer monsoons in Southeast Asia are important but highly variable sources of rainfall. Current understanding of the winter monsoon is limited by conflicting proxy observations, resulting from the decoupling of regional atmospheric circulation patterns and local rainfall dynamics. These signals are difficult to decipher in paleoclimate reconstructions.

The Historic Built Environment As a Long-Term Geochemical Archive: Telling the Time on the Urban "Pollution Clock".

This study introduces a novel methodology for utilizing historic built environments as reliable long-term geochemical archives, addressing a gap in the reconstruction of past anthropogenic pollution levels in urban settings. For the first time, we employ high-resolution laser ablation mass spectrometry for lead isotope (Pb/Pb and Pb/Pb) analysis on 350-year-old black crust stratigraphies found on historic built structures, providing insights into past air pollution signatures. Our findings reveal a gradual shift in the crust stratigraphy toward lower Pb/Pb and higher Pb/Pb isotope ratios from the older to the younger layers, indicating changes in lead sources over time.

Systematic changes in circumpolar dust transport to the Subantarctic Pacific Ocean over the last two glacial cycles.

The input of the soluble micronutrients iron (Fe) and/or manganese (Mn) by mineral dust stimulates net primary productivity in the Fe/Mn-deficient Southern Ocean. This mechanism is thought to increase carbon export, thus reducing atmospheric CO during the Pleistocene glacial cycles. Yet, relatively little is known about changes in the sources and transport pathways of Southern Hemisphere dust over glacial cycles.

Provenance of Anthropogenic Pb and Atmospheric Dust to Northwestern North America.

Industrial activities release aerosols containing toxic metals into the atmosphere, where they are transported far from their sources, impacting ecosystems and human health. Concomitantly, long-range-transported mineral dust aerosols play a role in Earth's radiative balance and supply micronutrients to iron-limited ecosystems. To evaluate the sources of dust and pollutant aerosols to Alaska following the 2001 phase-out of leaded gasoline in China, we measured Pb-Sr-Nd isotopic compositions of particles collected in 2016 from snow pits across an elevational transect (2180-5240 m-a.

Stone-built heritage as a proxy archive for long-term historical air quality: A study of weathering crusts on three generations of stone sculptures on Broad Street, Oxford.

Black crusts on historic buildings are mainly known for their aesthetic and deteriorative impacts, yet they also can advance air pollution research. Past air pollutants accumulate in distinct layers of weathering crusts. Recent studies have used these crusts to reconstruct pollution to improve our understanding of its effects on stone-built heritage.

High variability between regional histories of long-term atmospheric Pb pollution.

The advent of metal processing was one of the key technological evolutions presaging the development of modern society. However, the interplay between metal use and the long-term changes it induced in the development and functioning of past societies remains unclear. We present a compilation of global records of anthropogenic atmospheric lead (Pb) spanning the last 4000 years, an effective indirect proxy for reliably assessing Pb emissions directly linked to human activities.

Runoff events and related rainfall variability in the Southern Carpathians during the last 2000 years.

The occurrence of heavy rainfall events is expected to undergo significant changes under increasing anthropogenic forcing. South-eastern Europe is reacting rapidly to such changes, therefore understanding and forecasting of precipitation variability is vital to better comprehending environmental changes in this area. Here we present a sub-decadal reconstruction of enhanced rainfall events for the past 2000 years from the Southern Carpathians, Romania using peat geochemistry.

Exceptionally high levels of lead pollution in the Balkans from the Early Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution.

The Balkans are considered the birthplace of mineral resource exploitation and metalworking in Europe. However, since knowledge of the timing and extent of metallurgy in southeastern Europe is largely constrained by discontinuous archaeological findings, the long-term environmental impact of past mineral resource exploitation is not fully understood. Here, we present a high-resolution and continuous geochemical record from a peat bog in western Serbia, providing a clear indication of the extent and magnitude of environmental pollution in this region, and a context in which to place archaeological findings.

Quantitative assessment of Pb sources in isotopic mixtures using a Bayesian mixing model.

Lead (Pb) isotopes provide valuable insights into the origin of Pb within a sample, typically allowing for reliable fingerprinting of their source. This is useful for a variety of applications, from tracing sources of pollution-related Pb, to the origins of Pb in archaeological artefacts. However, current approaches investigate source proportions via graphical means, or simple mixing models.