Historical Fluxes of Pollutants from Deconvolution of Sedi- mentary Records

该项目是根据美国国家科学基金会第87-01184号拨款启动的一个项目的更新，目的是开发从取心湖泊沉积物获得的沉积沉积物分析中恢复污染物历史输入记录的方法。在这项前期工作中，开发了一种频域反褶积方法，从这些污染物的沉积记录中提取它们过去的输入通量。感兴趣的污染物包括铅、锌、镉、多氯联苯和多环芳烃。这一更新将使以前为分析多环芳烃和发射伽马的放射性示踪剂铯-137而开发的实验方法得到加强。与颗粒有关的污染物沉积可以为环境模型的设计和验证提供有价值的信息。然而，这些记录往往是过去通量的扭曲反映，因为颗粒在沉积期间和之后受到各种物理、化学和生物环境过程的影响。这些过程包括混合、生物降解、放射性衰变和压实。该项目有可能获得比目前从沉积矿床分析中获得的更多信息。这反过来可能被证明有助于验证气候和水文过程的模型，因为它们与美国沿海地区的污染物沉积有关。

This project is a renewal of one initiated under NSF Grant No. 87-01184 to develop methods for recovery of the historical input record of pollutants from analysis of sedimentary deposits obtained by coring lake sediments. In this prior work, a frequency domain deconvolution method was developed to extract past input fluxes of these types of pollutants from their sedimentary record. Pollutants of interest include lead, zinc, cadmium, polychlorinated biphenyls and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This renewal will permit enhancement of the experimental methods developed previously for analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and for the gamma-emitting radioactive tracer Cesium-137. Sedimentary deposits of particle-associated pollutants can provide valuable information for use in devising environmental models and in their validation. However, these records are often distorted reflections of past fluxes because of the variety of physical, chemical and biological environmental processes to which the particles are subjected during and following their deposition. These processes include mixing, biodegradation, radioactive decay and compaction. This project has the potential for obtaining more information than is now possible from an analysis of sedimentary deposits. This in turn may prove useful in validating models of climate and hydrological processes as they relate to pollutant deposition in coast regions of the United States.