Air quality, metal(loid) sources identification and environmental assessment using (bio)monitoring in the former mining district of Salsigne (Orbiel valley, France).

The former mining district of Salsigne is situated in the Orbiel valley. Until the 20th century, it was the first gold mine in Europe and the first arsenic mine in the world. Rehabilitation has been performed during the 20 years that followed closure of the mines and factories, which led to the accumulation of storage of several million tons of waste in this valley.

Widespread Pesticide Distribution in the European Atmosphere Questions their Degradability in Air.

Risk assessment of pesticide impacts on remote ecosystems makes use of model-estimated degradation in air. Recent studies suggest these degradation rates to be overestimated, questioning current pesticide regulation. Here, we investigated the concentrations of 76 pesticides in Europe at 29 rural, coastal, mountain, and polar sites during the agricultural application season.

Lightning initiation: Strong pulses of VHF radiation accompany preliminary breakdown.

We analyze lightning initiation process using magnetic field waveforms of preliminary breakdown (PB) pulses observed at time scales of a few tens of microseconds by a broad-band receiver. We compare these pulses with sources of narrow-band very high frequency (VHF) radiation at 60-66 MHz recorded by two separate Lightning Mapping Arrays (LMAs). We find that almost none of the observed PB pulses correspond to geo-located VHF radiation sources, in agreement with previous results and with the hypothesis that processes generating VHF radiation and PB pulses are only weakly related.

Evidence of the radioactive fallout in France due to the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Radioactive fallout due to the Fukushima reactor explosion in Japan was detected in environmental samples collected in France. The presence of (131)I in aerosols (200±6 μBq m(-3)) collected at the Pic du Midi observatory, located at 2877 m altitude in the French Pyrénées, indicated that the Japanese radioactive cloud reached France between 22 and 29 March, i.e.