Publications by authors named "M Roy-Barman"

On 2019, the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral ("NDdP") spread an unknown amount of lead (Pb) dust from the roof of the cathedral over Paris. No data describing the geochemical fingerprint of the roof lead, as well as no particle collected during the fire, were available: a post-hoc sampling was performed. To discriminate the potential environmental impact of the fire from multiple Pb sources in Paris, it was mandatory to define unequivocally the fire dust geochemical signature.

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Speleothem-like deposits that develop underground in urban areas are an archive of the environmental impact of anthropic activities that has been little studied so far. In this paper, the sulfate content in shallow groundwater from northern Paris (France) is compared with the sulfur content in two 300-year-old urban carbonate deposits that grew in a historical underground aqueduct. The present-day waters of the aqueduct have very high sulfur and calcium contents, suggesting pollution from gypsum dissolution.

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The first record of urban speleothems used to reconstruct the history of heavy metal pollution of shallow groundwaters is presented. Two speleothems grew during the last 300 years in an underground aqueduct in the north-eastern part of Paris. They display high Pb, Mn V, Cu, Cd and Al concentrations since 1900 due to the urbanization of the site which triggered anthropogenic contamination of the water feeding the speleothems.

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Total lead (Pb) concentration and Pb isotopic ratio ((206)Pb/(20)7Pb) were determined in 140 samples from the Seine River basin (France), covering a period of time from 1945 to 2011 and including bed sediments (bulk and size fractionated samples), suspended particulate matter (SPM), sediment cores, and combined sewer overflow (CSO) particulate matter to constrain the spatial and temporal variability of the lead sources at the scale of the contaminated Seine River basin. A focus on the Orge River subcatchment, which exhibits a contrasted land-use pattern, allows documenting the relation between hydrodynamics, urbanization, and contamination sources. The study reveals that the Pb contamination due to leaded gasoline that peaked in the 1980s has a very limited impact in the river nowadays.

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Four sediment cores collected in the Seine River basin and dated between 1916 and 2003 were analyzed for lead concentrations and isotopic composition. In all four cores, the measured Pb concentration (up to 460 mg kg(-1)) lies significantly above the natural background (27-40 mg kg(-1)), although a significant decrease (down to 75 mg kg(-1)) was observed during the second half of the 20th century which can be explained by the reduction of lead emissions. The (206)Pb/(207)Pb ratio measured in these samples indicates that the main source of Pb used in the Paris conurbation is characterized by a "Rio Tinto" signature (defined as (206)Pb/(207)Pb=1.

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