History of Avalanches in the Eastern Spanish Pyrenees.

Avalanches have caused injuries and deaths in mountain areas throughout history. We have examined the historical effects of avalanches on communities in the eastern Spanish Pyrenees. Surviving written records began in the year 1444 when an avalanche destroyed the village of Gessa.

Modelling Pb, Zn and As transfer from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems during the ice-free season in three Pyrenean catchments.

Long-range atmospheric trace element contamination affecting natural systems has occurred since early historical times in the Northern Hemisphere. In relatively remote sites, soils are the largest reservoir of these airborne contaminants. Trace elements stored in soils can later be remobilized and thus soils are a potential delayed, long-lasting source of contamination for the aquatic ecosystems.

Major and trace elements in soils in the Central Pyrenees: high altitude soils as a cumulative record of background atmospheric contamination over SW Europe.

Background, Aim, And Scope: High mountain soils constitute a long-term cumulative record of atmospherically deposited trace elements from both natural and anthropogenic sources. The main aims of this study were to determine the level of major and trace metals (Al, Ti, Mn, Fe, and Zr) of lithologic origin and airborne contaminating trace elements (Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, and Pb) in soils in the Central Pyrenees as an indication of background contamination over SW Europe, to establish whether there is a spatial pattern of accumulation of trace elements in soils as a function of altitude, and to examine whether altitude-related physicochemical properties of soils affect the accumulation of major metals and trace elements.

Methods: Major metals and trace elements were measured in "top" (i.