title: Lead Sources to the Amundsen Sea, West Antarctica.
abstract: The global prevalence of industrial lead (Pb) contamination was exemplified decades ago by the predominance of anthropogenic Pb in samples of Antarctic surface ice and in Southern Ocean surface waters. Decreases in environmental Pb contamination corresponding with the near-global phase-out of leaded automobile gasoline beginning in the 1970s have since been observed. Measurements of Pb concentration in snow and ice core samples from Antarctica show that recent fluxes of industrial Pb to Antarctica have similarly declined. Here, we present measurements of Pb concentrations and isotopic compositions in seawater and surface sediments from the Amundsen Sea continental shelf including the Amundsen Sea Polynya. Both sets of measurements show that most (∼60-95%) of the Pb at our sites, at the time of sampling, is natural in source: that is, derived from the weathering of Antarctic continental rocks. These fluxes of natural Pb then become entrained into polynya waters either from sediment resuspension or from the transport of sediment-laden glacial melt waters to the polynya.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) , Oslo N-0349, Norway.
authors.forename: Kuria
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ndungu
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, Massachusetts 01239, United States.
authors.forename: Cheryl M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Zurbrick
authors.affiliation: Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80303, United States.
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stammerjohn
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University , New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, United States.
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Severmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University , New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, United States.|Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University , Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, United States.
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Sherrell
authors.affiliation: WIGS Laboratory, Environmental Toxicology, University of California Santa Cruz , Santa Cruz, California 95064, United States.
authors.forename: A Russell
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Flegal
mesh_terms: D000864:Antarctic Regions; D019015:Geologic Sediments; D007854:Lead; D012623:Seawater
chemical_list: D007854:Lead