Contributions of artifactual materials to the toxicity of anthropogenic soils and street dusts in a highly urbanized terrain.

A study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that the presence of fly ash and other artifactual materials (AMs) significantly increases the toxicity of urban soil and street dust. AMs were distinguished as artifacts (artificial particles > 2 mm in size), and particulate artifacts (≤2 mm in size); street dust was the <63 μm fraction of street sediments. Reference artifacts, street dusts, and topsoils representing different land use types in Detroit, Michigan were analyzed for miscellaneous radionuclides, trace elements, magnetic susceptibility (MS), and acetic acid-extractable (leachable) Pb.