Deep Sea Mining: What are the risks?

During the launch event in Kiel, the project partners plan investigations to ecosystems around the manganese nodules. Photo: J. Steffen, GEOMAR

GEOMAR coordinates European cooperation for the risk assessment
01.29.2015 / Kiel. 50 specialists in deep-sea ecology, marine mining and deep-sea observation of 25 European research institutions meeting this week at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. This will free the start of a three-year research project to investigate the risks of potential ore mining on the seabed. The project called "JPI Oceans Ecological aspects of deep-sea mining" is coordinated at GEOMAR.

The world population is growing. This also means that more and more people need a home, want to work with computers and other electronic devices and consume energy. For the construction of houses for the manufacture of electronic goods, but also for the production of wind turbines will require significant amounts of various metals. Currently, all metal ores are promoted on almost a third of the earth's surface - on the continents. 

In some regions of the ocean manganese nodules are recorded in the Atlantic as here, close together on the ocean floors. Photo: Nils Brenke, CeNak

However, in recent decades engaged again, the other two thirds, the oceans, the focus of governments and resource companies. "Many questions about a potential ore mining in the deep sea, however, are still open," says Dr. Matthias Haeckel from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. He is the scientific coordinator of the "Ecological aspects of deep-sea mining" project to investigate the potential environmental risks in the next three years. A consortium of research ministries in eleven European countries promotes it as part of the Joint Programme Healthy and Productive Seas (JPI Oceans) initiative with a total of 9.5 million euros. 

 In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone are the largest known manganese nodule deposits. Here, the ISA has been awarded 13 research licenses. Image Reproduced from the GEBCO world map 2014

This week, the project starts with a kick-off meeting at GEOMAR. A total of 25 partner institutions from these eleven countries involved in the project. The focus is primarily known as manganese nodules. It is spherical or cauliflower-shaped Erzknollen, which are usually at depths below 4000 meters on the large abyssal plains. They consist not only from the eponymous manganese, but also contain iron and coveted metals such as copper, cobalt or nickel. Already in the 1970s, there were initial plans to reduce manganese nodules from the deep sea, but never came out on trials. The largest reserves are currently known from the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone in the central Pacific. As a result of these activities in international waters on the basis of the International Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the International Seabed Authority (International Seabed Authority, ISA) was founded in 1994. 

It manages the entire seabed beyond the exclusive economic zone (200 nautical miles) of individual states. To date, the ISA has awarded 13 research licenses for exploration of manganese nodule fields in the Pacific, including in Germany and other European countries. 

                     Sample of the seabed in DISCOL area with top resting manganese nodules. 
                                                    Photo: M. Haeckel, GEOMAR

"But there is no mining licenses, which would only be a next step," said Dr. Haeckel. Since the ISA also aims to ensure effective protection of the marine environment from the potential consequences of ocean mining, relevant research for the licensees are required. "Of course industrial activities on the ocean floor will have an impact, because they disturb the soil and the water column about it," says Dr. Haeckel. Therefore, it is important to know the ecosystems on the sea floor and its local, regional and national connections and interactions accurately. Already this year, several expeditions of the new German research vessel SONNE in the Pacific are planned. 

The first trips in March and April perform the participating scientists to the German, Belgian and French license areas and in a defined by the ISA reserve in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Further trips from July to October have the so-called DISCOL area in Peru Basin to the destination. There, in 1989, a very limited area of the seabed was plowed for research purposes. "The goal of this experiment is to recognize the long-term consequences of large-area device used for deep-sea sediments," explains Professor Jens Greinert from GEOMAR, who will lead one of the exits to DISCOL area. Now, a quarter century after the disturbance experiment, the scientists will examine the then machined seabed areas exactly compare with adjacent undisturbed areas to determine, can recover disturbed communities in the deep sea as fast. "We should get to know each other better before we start, a large area to intervene in the deep sea it easy," says project coordinator Dr. Haeckel. 

Source: GEOMAR

Pilot plant for removal of extreme gas charges from deep waters

Pit Lake Guadiana in the former mining area Herrerias in Andalusia, Spain.
Credit: : Bertram Boehrer/UFZ

Being part of the mining area Herrerias in Andalusia, deep waters of Pit Lake Guadiana show extremely high concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2). In the case of a spontaneous ebullition, human beings close-by would be jeopardized. To demonstrate the danger and the possible solution, scientists of the Spanish Institute of Geology and Mining, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, Bilbao) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) constructed a pilot plant for degassing. A fountain pulls deep water through a pipe to the surface, where the gas can escape from the water. The buoyancy produced by the bubbles provides the energy required for driving the flow.

"The deep water in the residual lake Guadiana contains an extremely high volume of carbon dioxide (CO2). Oxidation of ores has created a very acidic milieu, which is also known from other mining areas. In the mining area Herrerias however, this acidity dissolves carbonate from the rocks and produces carbonic acid (dissolved CO2), which can be accumulated under the high pressures of deep waters in the lake. There is not much circulation beyond 25 meter depth to remove the gas load" says Dr. Bertram Boehrer of UFZ, who is physicist and has been investigating stratification in lakes at many places on Earth. Due to the high hydrostatic pressure, each liter of deep water contains about 2.5 liters of CO2 gas. As long as the stratification remains stable, the gas is retained in the deep water. A land slide or other processes producing large water movements could facilitate a sudden release of gas previously confined under high pressure. Inhaled air of 8 percent CO2 are considered deadly for humans.

Now the scientists installed a degasing pipe which is the heart of the new pilot plant: Deep water enters a pipe at 61m depth. On the way up, hydrostatic pressure drops and gas bubbles form. The reduced density of the water-gas-mixture allows that deep water is pushed out of the pipe at the upper end to form a fountain above the water table, where gas is released to the atmosphere. This is an elegant solution, as the system does not require any additional driver, and the controlled release of CO2 does not pose any problem. "With this pilot plant, we could demonstrate that this approach also works in Guadiana pit lake. This can now be proposed to authorities as a possible approach to deal with the gas load." Though the lake in the mining area is fenced and access is not permitted to the public, this prohibition is difficult to survey.

Earlier installations in Lake Nyos in Cameroon served as a good example for this approach. In this lake, degassing pipes had been installed, which released the gas load with three fountains. On August 21st 1986, a large volume of gas escaped from the lake suddenly. The gas entered valleys of the surrounding area. 1700 human beings and thousands of animals were killed. The trigger could have been a land slide though this was never really proven. To avoid a repetition of this disaster, the gas load is slowly removed from the lake. One more crater lake called Monoun in Cameroon suffocated 37 human beings close to its shores in a similar eruption. Also in Monoun degasing fountains have been installed.

In Guadiana pit lake we do not see the same danger as in Lake Nyos, due to smaller size and depth. In addition, a density gradient between surface waters and deep waters is keeping the system stable. However, gas concentrations are so high that precaution must be taken. More detailed investigations must be implemented and remediation must be considered, says Dr. Boehrer. For the formation of such extreme gas loads, lakes must be sufficiently deep with incomplete winter recirculation (meromixis) and a strong carbon dioxide source. At the moment, we do not have such a lake in Germany.

Source: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ

Mining can damage fish habitats far downstream, study shows

In this image, acid is seeping from a Kentucky coal mine. 
Credit: Wesley Daniel, Michigan State University

Anglers across the nation wondering why luck at their favorite fishing spot seems to have dried up may have a surprising culprit: a mine miles away, even in a different state.

Scientists at Michigan State University (MSU) have taken a first broad look at the impacts of mines across the country- and found that mining can damage fish habitats miles downstream, and even in streams not directly connected to the mines.

The work is published in this week's issue of the journal Ecological Indicators.
"We've been surprised that even a single mine in headwaters might influence larger rivers miles downstream," said Wesley Daniel, a research associate at Michigan State University. "Mines have a much stronger influence on fishes than has been assumed. It's important, when considering the location of a new mine, to not just look local -- but look way downstream."

Mining occurs in every state for a variety of natural resources -- such as coal, precious metals, pebbles, sand and salt. Mining disrupts the environment around it, Daniel said. It can add sediments and chemicals to rivers, alter the flow of streams, lead to fewer forests in headwaters, and compact soil -- all of which can change fish habitats.

And what happens to the river or stream near the mine flows downstream and can wreak havoc on populations of trout or bass and the smaller fishes that they prefer, far from the mine's location. The study looked at areas throughout the eastern United States typically known for mining, such as Appalachia, but also included areas where little mining research has been done, such as Iowa and Illinois

Daniel works in the lab of Dana Infante, associate professor of fisheries and wildlife who studies the way landscape and land use affect water. Colleagues in her lab recently developed an algorithm capable of crunching the mountains of data that tell the connected stories of the nation's streams and rivers.

That algorithm has allowed Daniel to take a long look at how extensive the effects of mines on rivers can be. His conclusion calls mines a "regional stress" and cites the example of pollutants from a mine in a headwater stream in Kentucky disrupting the breeding grounds of bass in Tennessee rivers.
While large rivers can dilute the damage a mine may do, the small streams that feed into a watershed may be much more fragile.

"The quality of headwater streams will determine quality of rivers," Daniel said. "The condition of small streams that flow into larger rivers will affect downstream fish communities. Everything is cumulative -- again and again we can see that the effects of one mine can be associated with altered fish communities."

Along with Daniel and Infante, "Characterizing coal and mineral mines as a regional source of stress to stream fish assemblages" was written by Robert Hughes at Amnis Opes Institute; Yin-Phan Tsang, Daniel Wieferich, Kyle Herreman, Arthur Cooper and William Taylor at MSU; Peter Esselman at the U.S. Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Lizhu Wang of the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Regional Office in Detroit.

Infante, Tsang, Esselman and Taylor are affiliated with the MSU Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, an interdisciplinary research center that works in the innovative new field of coupled human and natural systems to find sustainable solutions that both benefit the environment and enable people to thrive.

The research was funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Source: Michigan State University

Laser from a plane discovers Roman goldmines in Spain

These are ancient goldmines in the Eria river valley, with channels and reservoirs for exploitation. The model generated with LiDAR data (left) allows these structures to be located on aerial photos (right). Credit: J. Fernández Lozano et al.

Hidden under the vegetation and crops of the Eria Valley, in León (Spain), there is a gold mining network created by the Romans two thousand years ago, as well as complex hydraulic works, such as river diversions, to divert water to the mines of the precious metal. Researchers from the University of Salamanca made the discovery from the air with an airborne laser teledetection system.

Las Médulas in León is considered to be the largest opencast goldmine of the Roman Empire, but the search for this metal extended many kilometres further south-east to the Erica river valley. Thanks to a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) laser system attached to an aircraft, the ancient mining works of the area and the complex hydraulics system used by the Romans in the 1st century BC to extract gold (including channels, reservoirs and a double river diversion) have been discovered.

"The volume of earth exploited is much greater than previously thought and the works performed are impressive, having achieved actual river captures, which makes this valley extremely important in the context of Roman mining in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula," as Javier Fernández Lozano, geologist at the University of Salamanca and co-author of this study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, said.

The specialists consider that the systems for the transport and storage of water were copied from those already existing in North Africa, where the Egyptians had been employing them for centuries. Some details of the methodology used appear in texts such as those of the Pliny the Elder, the Roman procurator in charge of overseeing mining in Hispania.

"We have established that the labour that went into extracting the resource until its exhaustion was so intensive that after removing the gold from surface sediments, operations continued until reaching the rocks with the auriferous quartz veins underneath," explains Fernández Lozano.

The researcher stresses that the real discoverer was the LiDAR technology: "Unlike traditional aerial photography, this airborne laser detection system allows the visualisation of archaeological remains under vegetation cover or intensely ploughed areas."

From aircraft or drones
LiDAR comprises a laser sensor which scans the ground from an aircraft or drone with geographical references provided by GPS ground stations. The data obtained is represented by point clouds, which are processed with a piece of software to construct a cartographic model where the forms are identified, such as old reservoirs or channels.

This technology was developed by NASA in the sixties to analyse the retreating sea ice in the Arctic and composition of the oceans. Since then their use has been extended to topography, cadastral mapping, geology and archaeology. According to the authors, the study of Roman mining in the Eria valley is the first piece of 'geo-archaeology' performed with LiDAR in Spain.

"Our intention is to continue working with this technique to learn more about mineral mining in the Roman Empire and clear up any mysteries such as why Rome abandoned such a precious resource as gold from one day to the next," concludes the researcher.

Source: Plataforma SINC

Out of India: Finding the origins of horses, rhinos

An artist’s depiction of Cambaytherium thewissi. Credit: Elaine Kasmer

Working at the edge of a coal mine in India, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers and colleagues have filled in a major gap in science's understanding of the evolution of a group of animals that includes horses and rhinos. That group likely originated on the subcontinent when it was still an island headed swiftly for collision with Asia, the researchers report Nov. 20 in the online journal Nature Communications.

Modern horses, rhinos and tapirs belong to a biological group, or order, called Perissodactyla. Also known as "odd-toed ungulates," animals in the order have, as their name implies, an uneven number of toes on their hind feet and a distinctive digestive system. Though paleontologists had found remains of Perissodactyla from as far back as the beginnings of the Eocene epoch, about 56 million years ago, their earlier evolution remained a mystery, says Ken Rose, Ph.D., a professor of functional anatomy and evolution at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Rose and his research team have for years been excavating mammal fossils in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming, but in 2001 he and Indian colleagues began exploring Eocene sediments in Western India because it had been proposed that perissodactyls and some other mammal groups might have originated there. In an open-pit coal mine northeast of Mumbai, they uncovered a rich vein of ancient bones. Rose says he and his collaborators obtained funding from the National Geographic Society to send a research team to the mine site at Gujarat in the far Western part of India for two weeks at a time once every year or two over the last decade.

The mine yielded what Rose says was a treasure trove of teeth and bones for the researchers to comb through back in their home laboratories. Of these, more than 200 fossils turned out to belong to an animal dubbed Cambaytherium thewissi, about which little had been known. The researchers dated the fossils to about 54.5 million years old, making them slightly younger than the oldest known Perissodactyla remains, but, Rose says, it provides a window into what a common ancestor of all Perissodactyla would have looked like. "Many of Cambaytherium's features, like the teeth, the number of sacral vertebrae, and the bones of the hands and feet, are intermediate between Perissodactyla and more primitive animals," Rose says. "This is the closest thing we've found to a common ancestor of the Perissodactyla order."

Cambaytherium and other finds from the Gujarat coal mine also provide tantalizing clues about India's separation from Madagascar, lonely migration, and eventual collision with the continent of Asia as Earth's plates shifted, Rose says. In 1990, two researchers, David Krause and Mary Maas of Stony Brook University, published a paper suggesting that several groups of mammals that appear at the beginning of the Eocene, including primates and odd- and even-toed ungulates, might have evolved in India while it was isolated. Cambaytherium is the first concrete evidence to support that idea, Rose says. But, he adds, "It's not a simple story."

"Around Cambaytherium's time, we think India was an island, but it also had primates and a rodent similar to those living in Europe at the time," he says. "One possible explanation is that India passed close by the Arabian Peninsula or the Horn of Africa, and there was a land bridge that allowed the animals to migrate. But Cambaytherium is unique and suggests that India was indeed isolated for a while."

Rose said his team was "very fortunate that we discovered the site and that the mining company allowed us to work there," although he added, "it was frustrating to knowing that countless fossils were being chewed up by heavy mining equipment." When coal extraction was finished, the miners covered the site, he says. His team has now found other mines in the area to continue digging.

Source:  Johns Hopkins Medicine

Artisanal gold mining and its health risks

searchers from the UPM have characterized the health risks derived from the usage of mercury in artisanal gold mining in Colombia through probabilistic models.

Researchers from the UPM have characterized the health risks derived from the usage of mercury in artisanal gold mining in Colombia through probabilistic models.

The tools developed by researchers from the Environmental Geochemistry Research and Engineering Laboratory (LI2GA) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) have given evidences of their quantitative efficiency to problems about occupational and environmental exposures to pollutants. These tools will allow researchers to categorize risk situations and to give priority to the intervention performances, especially in regions with limited financial resources where is more complex to conduct rigorous clinical studies.

Artisanal gold mining is common in Latin-American regions, Africa and Southeast Asia where there are large socio-economic inequalities and active or abandoned goldfields. This activity is performed outside of the workplace health and safety regulations. Therefore, miners can be at risk due to possible accidents during the exploitation of deposits and due to chronic exposure to mercury. This risk of mercury poisoning is not just limited to workers but also the entire population of the mining communities.

Mercury is a toxic element that can cause neurological disorders in humans or other organism. Common exposures include inhalation of elemental mercury or consumption of fish contaminated with mercury. Mercury from artisanal gold mining is used to concentrate gold in an amalgam of both elements. Later, it is burned in order to rid of the mercury and to recover the gold. During this amalgamation process, accidental and intentional discharges of mercury can occur.

Mercury eventually ends up in nearby rivers and, consequently, in the fish tissues. The problem is that fish constitutes an essential part of the diet for the mining communities included in this research. Likewise, amalgam burning is made in small workshops, sometimes in houses. All this can cause mercury pollution in the air of workplaces, houses and outer areas of these communities.

Researchers from LI2GA of UPM collected data about biometrics, lifestyle and consumption of 12 gold mining departments in Colombia. They also collected mercury concentration air data of in the amalgamation workshops, air data of the roads of these mining communities and also data of the diverse fish species of the area.

All this data along with the quantitative data of potential toxicity of mercury were conducted by probabilistic risk assessment. The results unveiled the mercury exposure dose in these mining communities exceeded the admissible values, even reaching 200 times higher of the reference values in certain maximum exposure situations.

The general population is also exposed to unacceptable risk to health (up to 50 times higher than the recommended values) due to consumption of contaminated fish and breathing mercury vapor in the air.

The probabilistic risk assessment cannot replace the clinical research to control public health and intervention. However, it can be a useful tool to characterize and to highlight these problems in order to give priority to corrective performances.

Source:  Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

New laws threaten Brazil's unique ecosystems

Brazil's globally significant ecosystems could be exposed to mining and dams if proposals currently being debated by the Brazilian Congress go ahead, according to researchers publishing in the journal Science this week. Credit: Alexander C. Lees

Brazil´s globally significant ecosystems could be exposed to mining and dams if proposals currently being debated by the Brazilian Congress go ahead, according to researchers publishing in the journal Science this week.

The new report by a group of Brazilian and British researchers comes in the wake of Brazil´s recent presidential elections. It warns that new legislation could pose a serious threat to protected areas, weakening Brazil's international status as an environmental leader.

One of the proposals of particular concern is the call to open up 10% of the most strictly protected areas to mining. In a new analysis, the research shows that at least 20% of all Brazil´s most strictly protected areas and reserves for indigenous people overlap with areas that have been registered as under consideration for mining. In addition, many of the river systems associated with protected areas will be influenced by the construction of large hydroelectric dams.

The threat that this mining and hydropower poses to Brazil's ecosystems is not trivial. Areas of registered interest for mining include 34,117 km2 that are currently classified as strictly protected areas -- including National Parks, Biological Reserves and Wildlife Refuges. This is equivalent to an area the size of Switzerland. The situation is worse for indigenous lands, 28% of which, or 281,443 km2, overlap with areas of registered mining interest -- an area larger than the whole of the UK or the state of São Paulo.

In recent years Brazil has enjoyed increasing recognition as a world leader in combatting environmental destruction. Brazil´s protected area network is the largest in the world, while improved environmental governance in private lands has contributed to an 80% reduction in the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon over the last decade. Yet these new proposals could threaten these recent successes and undermine Brazil's reputation.

Dr Joice Ferreira, a scientist at Brazil´s agricultural research institute, Embrapa, and lead author of the study, said: "The purpose of this analysis is not to say that Brazil´s development should not benefit from its abundant natural resources, but that we should not squander our hard-won record of success and leadership in favor of fast-tracked and poorly planned development projects that leave a long legacy of environmental damage. It is possible to manage our development in a more sustainable way."

Co-author Dr Jos Barlow, a researcher at Lancaster University and a visiting professor in Brazil, said: "Rather than exploiting protected areas for short-term gains, Brazil should treasure them for the long-term benefits they can provide to society. The recent water shortages in the south east of Brazil emphasize the importance of protecting native vegetation across the country."

The authors of the study also warn that the proposals for minimizing and mitigating the environmental damage of large-scale development projects are so inadequate that even if only a fraction of these mining concessions were approved then the impacts could be enormous, especially in Brazil´s most threatened ecosystems.

Dr. Luiz Aragão a co-author of the study from Brazil´s federal space agency, INPE and the University of Exeter said: "Our concern is that even if the proposed mitigation actions were put in place they are oversimplified because they fail to take account of the indirect effects of mega-projects.
"These projects can involve thousands of workers and lead to rapid local population growth. This, combined with new roads and access routes, is a recipe for the emergence of new deforestation frontiers." explains Luiz.

The study highlights the fact that these worrying changes reflect an important shift in the support shown by Brazil´s federal government to environmental protection. These concerns come on the back of other recent changes, including the partial dismantling of Brazil´s protected area system to make way for development -- with some 44,100 km2 lost since 2008 due to downsizing or abolishment -- and the weakening of the Forest Code that gave an amnesty to landowners who deforested illegally in the past.

"Beyond the conservation and stewardship of its own biodiversity and environmental resources, so vital to the wellbeing of its citizens, Brazil plays a vital role in motivating and supporting the adoption of more sustainable development trajectories around the world," said Toby Gardner, of Stockholm Environment Institute, one of the authors of the study who has worked in the country for more than a decade. "Yet this standing is now in jeopardy."

Dr Joice Ferreira said: "The newly elected government has the chance to set the record straight and point Brazil firmly on a path of sustainable development. The authors of this report call on President Dilma and her government to ensure that individual development initiatives are subject to a comprehensive, socially inclusive, evidence-based and long-term cost-benefit analysis that compares potential environmental and social impacts against alternative development options. And also to ensure that Brazil´s renowned protected area network is given the resources it needs to manage our ecosystems sustainably.

"Above all we ask the Government to guarantee that important decisions regarding the management of Brazil´s natural resources involve the full and democratic participation of Brazilian society."

Source: Lancaster University

A fraction of the global military spending could save the planet's biodiversity, say experts: Only one in four protected areas is well managed

This image shows Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda. A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). Credit: Julie Larsen Maher, copyright WCS

A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).

The paper, The performance and potential of protected areas, comes ahead of the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 -- a once-in-a-decade global forum on protected areas opening next week in Sydney, Australia.

According to the authors, allocating US$45 -- $76 billion to protected areas annually -- just 2.5% of the global annual military expenditure -- could help adequately manage those areas, ensuring their potential contribution to the well-being of the planet is fully met.

Many threatened species, such as the Asian elephant, the tiger, and all rhinoceros species, as well as numerous plants, reptiles and amphibians, survive thanks to protected areas. Well-managed marine protected areas contain more than five times the total large fish biomass and 14 times the shark biomass compared with fished areas.

"Protected areas offer us solutions to some of today's most pressing challenges" says Dr James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society and The University of Queensland and lead author of the study. "But by continuing with 'business as usual', we are setting them up for failure. A step-change in the way we value, fund, govern and manage those areas is neither impossible nor unrealistic and would only represent a fraction of what the world spends annually on defense."

According to the latest data, protected areas cover around 15% of land and 3% of oceans. Experts warn, however, that despite the significant increase in their coverage over the past century, this is still short of the global 2020 targets to protect at least 17% of land and 10% of oceans. Many ecosystems remain poorly conserved because protected areas do not always encompass the most important areas for biodiversity.

In addition, the vast majority of existing protected areas that are well placed do not have sufficient resources to be effective, with some studies finding as few as one quarter of them are being effectively managed. Growing threats from climate change and the escalating poaching crisis place additional pressures on protected areas globally.

"Some of the most iconic protected areas, such as Ecuador's Galapagos National Park, are undergoing significant degradation, partly due to an inability to manage them effectively," says Professor Marc Hockings of The University of Queensland,co-author of the study and member of the IUCN WCPA. "But governments cannot be solely responsible for ensuring that protected areas fulfill their potential. We need to find new, innovative ways to fund and manage them, actively involving government, business and community groups."

The paper also highlights an alarming increase in governments -- in both developing and developed countries -- backtracking on their commitments through funding cuts and changes in policy. A recent global analysis has documented 543 instances where protected areas saw their status downgraded or removed altogether.

For example, recent cuts to the Parks Canada budget have reduced conservation spending by 15%¬. In Uganda, active oil exploration and development is occurring inside many protected areas, including Murchison Falls National Park. In Indonesia, in 2010, mining permits were issued inside 481,000 hectares of protected areas and in the Virgin Komi Forests in Russia, significant boundary changes have been made to reserves such as the Yugyd Va National Park to allow mining. The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman was removed from the World Heritage List after the government reduced the size of the reserve by 90% to allow for oil and gas extraction.

"There is a fundamental need for an increase in support of global protected areas, including better recognition, funding, planning and enforcement" says Nigel Dudley, co-author of the paper, from Equilibrium Research and The University of Queensland, member of the IUCN WCPA. "It is government's responsibility to step up but there is also the need for the wider community to take collective responsibility for protected areas."

Protected areas conserve biodiversity and sustain a large proportion of the world's poorest people by providing them with food, water, shelter and medicine. They play a key part in climate change mitigation and adaptation and bolster national economies through tourism revenues. In Rwanda, for example, tourism revenue from visits to see mountain gorillas inside Volcanoes National Park is now the country's largest source of foreign exchange, raising US$200 million annually. In Australia, the 2012-2013 budget for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was approximately AUS$50 million, but tourism to the reef was worth more than A$5.2 billion annually to the Australian economy.

"The growth of the modern global protected area movement over the last 100 years is arguably the greatest conservation achievement," says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. "It is also increasingly important for livelihoods and global security. The key now is for countries to recognize the return on investment that protected areas offer and realize that those places are fundamental to the future of life on earth. This is exactly what we hope to achieve at the upcoming IUCN World Parks Congress."

Effective management of protected areas, the threats they face and the solutions they offer to today's global challenges will be discussed at the IUCN World Parks Congress taking place in Sydney from 12 to 19 November 2014.

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society

Carbon dioxide converted into a valuable resource

Arshe Said, postgraduate researcher at Aalto University, operating a pilot plant that converts CO2 and slag into Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC). Credit: Image courtesy of Aalto University

Researchers at Aalto University have opened a pilot plant that converts CO2 and slag, the by-product of steel manufacturing, into a valuable mineral product. The product, Precipitated Calcium Carbonate (PCC), is used in e.g. plastics, papers, rubbers and paints. The innovative plant represents the next stage prior commercialization of a new process that consumes CO2 in order to convert a low-value by-product into a highly valuable resource for industry.

The potential economic and environmental benefits of this new technology are significant. "We are turning the industrial solid by-product from steel-manufacturing into a product which is 50 times more valuable," says Arshe Said, a postgraduate researcher at Aalto University. "Also, this process actually consumes CO2 and acts as a CO2 sink which benefits the environment greatly."

Current methods of PCC production require burning large amounts of limestone. "The conventional method involves large mining activities and has high CO2 emissions," points out Sanni Eloneva, D.Sc. (Tech).

Carbon intensive manufacturing industries are coming under increasing pressure from bodies such as the EU to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "We believe this pilot plant will help to efforts by these industries to conform with government imposed emissions and waste targets," explains Professor Mika Järvinen.

In 2010, 13% of the total steel slag produced in Europe (16 Mt) went to the landfill. "In theory, if all the calcium in this steel slag could be recovered, approximately 13 Mt PCC/year could be produced, simultaneously sequestering nearly 6 Mt CO2/year," Järvinen continues.

The highly promising new technology also has other potential advantages. "We are currently investigating the possibility of extracting other valuable materials from the slag after the extraction of calcium," says Said.

The pilot PCC plant is now running in Otaniemi campus of Aalto University. The method used in the pilot is based on the patent owned by Aalto University Foundation together with Åbo Akademi and Rautaruukki Oyj (now part of SSAB).

Source:  Aalto University

The Philippine tarsier: Genetic proof of a new variety

It’s not a monkey. It’s not a lemur. It’s not an African Bush Baby or even a Madagascan Mouse. Meet the Philippine tarsier: a tiny, adorable and downright “cool” primate from Southeast Asia. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Kansas

It's not a monkey. It's not a lemur. It's not an African Bush Baby or even a Madagascan Mouse. Meet the Philippine tarsier: a tiny, adorable and downright "cool" primate from Southeast Asia.

"It's really not like any animals that Americans are familiar with," said Rafe Brown, curator-in-charge at the University of Kansas' Biodiversity Institute. "A tarsier has giant eyes and ears; an extremely cute, furry body; a long tail with a furry tuft at the end; and interesting expanded fingers and toe tips that look a bit like the disks on the digits of tree frogs."

Brown said the tarsier (tar-SEER) has become the "flagship" iconic species for promoting environmental stewardship and ecotourism in the Philippines, a nation suffering from large-scale destruction of natural habitat.

"They're threatened with habitat loss due to development, mining and deforestation from the timber industry," Brown said. "On Bohol, where they are a big part of the tourist economy, literally thousands of animals are taken out of the wild, essentially harassed by tourists, and die in captivity due to the stress and inability of their captors to feed them an appropriate diet of live small animals. Tarsiers must eat an enormous amount every night to fuel their high metabolism."

Because of threats to the tarsier, conservation efforts are mounting for the charismatic animal. But these have been thwarted by a lack of research: Too little has been known about the tarsier's taxonomic diversity; there have been too few field studies; and a scarcity of genetic samples and voucher specimens in biodiversity repositories has left advocates of the tarsier in the dark. In short, to save the tarsier, experts have needed to know much more about the species.

"Basically, we can not legally protect something if we do not know that it exists," Brown said.
Today, research by Brown and colleagues published by the journal PLOS ONE will shed new light on the animal's genetic diversity and distribution. Additionally, the KU researchers have verified the presence of a new variety of tarsier, one heretofore only suspected to exist -- the Dinagat-Caraga tarsier.

"Previously tarsiers were one species, divided into three named subspecies," Brown said. "Our data disagree with that subspecies arrangement and instead demonstrate that the Philippine tarsiers are divided into three genetic units -- but these units are from different localities than the named taxa. So our data provide an objective way to restructure conservation efforts and point the resources where they need to go, in order to really have an effective impact on preserving genetic diversity in the group."

Brown's student Anthony Barley performed genetic sequencing of the tarsiers' mitochondrial DNA at KU, while fellow student Karen Olsen characterized the nuclear microsatellite loci variation of the animals.

According to Brown, the results "tell us that we need a protected area -- such as a national park -- in the ranges of each of the genetic units if our goal is to maximally preserve the genetic underpinnings of that biodiversity. Currently, the newly discovered entity, the Dinagat-Caraga tarsier, has no protection. It is known from a small island that is being extremely heavily mined. Thus, it emerges as a new lineage -- and a new major conservation urgency."

They question of just how many Philippine tarsiers exist has been "left sort of hanging" for 25 years until now, according to the researcher. The newly discovered Dinagat Island and Caraga Region tarsier was first recognized as possibly distinct by the Filipino biologist Dioscoro Rabor in the 1970s, and now is confirmed by the KU genetic analysis.

"The confirmation of Rabor's early suspicions about the Dinagat Island tarsier population was extremely exciting, and it was very satisfying to affirm his very perceptive early observations," Brown said. "He commented that it looked larger to him and had different shaped fingers and toes. I'm just glad we were able to bring new, modern tools to this problem and identify the Dinagat-Caraga tarsier as a real conservation priority."

Brown and Filipino colleagues have called for the establishment of separate tarsier sanctuaries and protection programs within the range of "at least" the three genetic entities established by the research at the Biodiversity Institute. Each, he said, merits unique strategies and programs, along with identification and remediation of conservation threats -- for instance "mining in Dinagat versus unregulated tourist industry on Bohol," he said.

To do less, Brown said, would harm the tarsier's long-term prospects, potentially depriving the Philippines and the rest of the world of one of nature's most charming and curious mammals.

"They move very rapidly and jump from tree trunk to tree trunk with 'ricochet locomotion,'" Brown said. "They bounce from small sapling trunk to trunk, then leap down to pounce on their prey. They're completely carnivorous. This is relatively unique among primates. The tarsier is famous for not eating any vegetable material of any kind. They eat insects, small snakes, lizards, small mammals and birds. They communicate with ultrasonic calls outside the range of human hearing. The tarsier is so cool!"

Source: University of Kansas

Uranium exposure, skin cancer: Study may help explain link

Diane Stearns and NAU nursing student, Janice Wilson. Credit: Diane Stearns

After years of delving deep into DNA and researching ways in which metal damage may lead to cancer, a team of researchers is taking a step back to look at the surface where one answer may have been all along.

The varying health risks from exposure to natural uranium are well established, but Diane Stearns, professor of biochemistry at Northern Arizona University, and her team have been trying to determine if there is a link between uranium exposure and skin cancer, stating that skin may have been overlooked in the past.

In a recent article published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, the NAU team shared results from a study that explored photoactivation of uranium as a means to increase its toxicity and ability to damage DNA.

"Our hypothesis is that if uranium is photoactivated by UV radiation it could be more harmful to skin than either exposure alone," Stearns said.

Through the study, the team found that once uranium was present in the skin, exposure to UV radiation or sunlight could be chemically toxic and lead to cancerous lesions. The team members recommend that future risk assessments regarding cancer caused by uranium exposure include the possibility of photoactivation in skin.

They also propose that photoactivated uranium exposure could be even more harmful in cells that can't repair the damage on their own. Stearns explained such cases are found in individuals with Xeroderma Pigmentosum or XP, a disease that causes extreme sensitivity to sunlight.

Through research into the XP cell lines, the team discovered regional relevance for the study. The disease is prevalent on the Navajo Nation, a site of historically high levels of uranium mining and processing in the Southwest.

The 2012 documentary Sun Kissed further piqued the researchers' curiosity. The film cites the incidence of XP in the general population as one in 1 million, yet cases increase significantly to one in 30,000 in the Navajo population.

Stearns believes there may be implications that should be taken into consideration for a population like the Navajo community with carriers of XP mutations and relatively high exposure to uranium and the sun.

"We just want to make people aware that uranium exposure could contribute to skin cancer and could also be exacerbating XP," Stearns said.

Stearns said as she looks to the future, she hopes to fine-tune her understanding of the photoactivation mechanism and how it is damaging DNA. "We have predicted the link but now we would like to study it step by step to establish an even stronger connection."

Together with her Navajo students at NAU, she also hopes to determine whether the old uranium mines might explain the increase in cancer and what is being called a sudden emergence of XP on the Navajo Nation.

"I've had several Navajo students come to me because they found out I was doing uranium research and they had a relative who died of cancer and always wondered if it was uranium," Stearns said. "It's been a really personal way for them to see the value in scientific research because it can directly relate to their community."

Source: Northern Arizona University

Heavy metals and hydroelectricity

August 2014 GSA Today cover image: The northeastern shoreline of Lake Junín, Peru. The pristine water surface belies a high level of heavy metal contamination of surface sediments. Credit: Donald T. Rodbell

Hydraulic engineering is increasingly relied on for hydroelectricity generation. However, redirecting stream flow can yield unintended consequences. In the August 2014 issue of GSA Today, Donald Rodbell of Union College-Schenectady and coauthors from the U.S. and Peru document the wholesale contamination of the Lake Junín National Reserve by acid mine drainage from the Cerro de Pasco mining district.

According to the World Bank, about 60% of Peru's electricity is generated by hydropower, which during the dry season relies heavily on glacial meltwater to augment stream flow. The ongoing reduction in ice cover in Peru that began early in the twentieth century has reduced the aerial extent of glacial ice in some areas by nearly 30%. According to this GSA Today article, climate models project that warming will be pronounced in the highest elevation regions of the tropical Andes, and thus acceleration in ice loss is likely.

To maintain dry-season river discharge and energy generation for a growing Peruvian population, the hydropower industry in Peru has turned to hydraulic engineering, including dam construction. This study highlights an unintended consequence of early dam construction in the Cerro de Pasco region of the central Peruvian Andes, a region that has been a focal point of Peruvian mining operations for centuries.

The Cerro de Pasco mining district is among the most extensively worked mining districts in Peru. Pre-colonial mining there showed some of the earliest evidence of anthropogenic lead enrichment by aerosolic fallout in nearby lakes about 600 years ago. The first copper smelter was established there in 1906, and in 1931 the new and improved Cerro smelter held monopoly over the refining of all nonferrous metals in Peru.

In order to generate hydroelectricity for Cerro de Pasco's operations, the Upamayo Dam was constructed in 1932. The Upamayo Dam is located in the uppermost reach of the Río Mantaro, immediately downstream of the confluence between the Río San Juan, which drains southward from Cerro de Pasco, and the outflow of Lake Junín, the largest lake entirely within Peru.

The location of the Upamayo Dam and the small reservoir upstream from it has resulted in the discharge of Río San Juan waters, once destined for the Río Mantaro, directly into Lake Junín. Rodbell et al.'s GSA Today paper documents the impact of acid mine drainage from Cerro de Pasco into Lake Junín, which in 1974 was designated a Peruvian National Wildlife Reserve.

As a result of the drainage, the upper several decimeters of sediment in the lake now contain levels of lead and zinc that greatly exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits for the lake basin. Today, more than 60,000 metric tons of copper, almost 900,000 metric tons of zinc, and almost 41,000 metric tons of lead are contained in the upper 50 cm of lake sediment -- the zinc tonnage representing more than five years' worth of mining production at current rates.

Rodbell and colleagues write that among the biggest challenges that will face any attempt to mitigate the environmental disaster that has befallen Lake Junín are finding ways to stop the recycling of zinc from the lake bottom and the remobilization of all metals from the seasonally exposed and submerged deposits that are trapped behind the Upamayo Dam. Finally, they note that as future hydraulic engineering projects are developed in Peru and elsewhere, it would behoove all not to repeat the mistakes that are recorded in the mud of Lake Junín.

Source: Geological Society of America

Lead in teeth can tell a body's tale, study finds

Revealing information UF geology professor George Kamenov has published research that shows trace amounts of lead in modern and historical human teeth can give clues about where they came from. Credit: Ray Carson/UF Photography

Your teeth can tell stories about you, and not just that you always forget to floss.

A study led by University of Florida geology researcher George D. Kamenov showed that trace amounts of lead in modern and historical human teeth can give clues about where they came from. The paper will be published in the August issue of Science of The Total Environment.

The discovery could help police solve cold cases, Kamenov said. For instance, if an unidentified decomposed body is found, testing the lead in the teeth could immediately help focus the investigation on a certain geographic area. That way, law enforcement can avoid wasting resources checking for missing persons in the wrong places.

"We can use this pollution signal to figure out where these people came from," he said.
Lead is composed of four variants, called isotopes. The amount of those isotopes fluctuates in different rocks, soils and ores -- and, therefore, regions of the world.

Mining and other pollution-causing activities release that lead into the environment, and it accumulates in children's bodies as they grow because kids inhale dust and ingest soil when they put their hands in their mouths.

Tooth enamel, which develops during childhood, locks in the lead signals and preserves them.
"When you grow up, you record the signal of the local environment," Kamenov said. "If you move somewhere else, your isotope will be distinct from the local population."
Even different teeth can reveal certain facts.

First molar enamel is finished forming by age 3, so it provides information about birth and toddler years. Incisor and canine enamel starts later and finishes around age 5, so it gives insight into early childhood. The third molar enamel does not start forming until age 8, so it indicates late childhood residences.

Lead analysis can also tell what time period a body is from.

Modern and historical teeth have different signals, according to the study. The natural composition of lead changed over the past century because of mining and the use of leaded gasoline, so there's a clear distinction between modern and historical human exposure.

Using that information, archaeologists can identify early European bodies in New World areas.
"You can go back in time, look at archaeological sites and try to reconstruct human migration," Kamenov said.

But modern American teeth are like no others in the world, according to the study. Whereas available data for areas such as South America overlap with Europe, American teeth can be identified anywhere due to usage of ores with distinct isotope signals in the United States.
"What's in the environment goes into your body," Kamenov said

Source: University of Florida.

Scientists caution against exploitation of deep ocean

A new OSU study looks at how exploiting the ocean's vast resources have put it in peril. 
Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University

The world's oceans are vast and deep, yet rapidly advancing technology and the quest for extracting resources from previously unreachable depths is beginning to put the deep seas on the cusp of peril, an international team of scientists warned this week.

In an analysis in Biogeosciences, which is published by the European Geosciences Union, the researchers outline "services" or benefits provided by the deep ocean to society. Yet using these services, now and in the future, is likely to make a significant impact on that habitat and what it ultimately does for society, they point out in their analysis.

"The deep sea is the largest habitat on Earth, it is incredibly important to humans and it is facing a variety of stressors from increased human exploitation to impacts from climate change," said Andrew Thurber, an Oregon State University marine scientist and lead author on the study. "As we embark upon greater exploitation of this vast environment and start thinking about conserving its resources, it is imperative to know what this habitat already does for us."

"Our analysis is an effort to begin to summarize what the deep sea provides to humans because we take it for granted or simply do not know that the deep sea does anything to shape our daily lives," he added. "The truth is that the deep sea affects us, whether we live on the coast or far from the ocean -- and its impact on the globe is pervasive."

The deep sea is important to many critical processes that affect Earth's climate, including acting as a "sink" for greenhouse gases -- helping offset the growing amounts of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. It also regenerates nutrients through upwelling that fuel the marine food web in productive coastal systems such as the Pacific Northwest of the United States, Chile and others. Increasingly, fishing and mining industries are going deeper and deeper into the oceans to extract natural resources.

"One concern is that many of these areas are in international waters and outside of any national jurisdiction," noted Thurber, an assistant professor (senior research) in Oregon State's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. "Yet the impacts are global, so we need a global effort to begin protecting and managing these key, albeit vast, habitats."

Fishing is an obvious concern, the scientists say. Advances in technology have enabled commercial fisheries to harvest fish at increasing depths -- an average of 62.5 meters deeper every decade, according to fisheries scientists. This raises a variety of potential issues.

"The ability to fish deeper is shifting some fisheries to deeper stocks, and opening up harvests of new species," Thurber said. "In some local cases, individual fisheries are managed aggressively, but due to how slow the majority of the fish grow in the deep, some fish populations are still in decline -- even with the best management practices."

The orange roughy off New Zealand, for instance, is both a model of effective and conservation-based management, yet its populations continue to decline, though at a slower rate than they would have experienced without careful management, Thurber noted.

"We also have to be concerned about pollution that makes its way from our continental shelves into the deep sea," he added. "Before it was 'out of sight, out of mind.' However, some of the pollution can either make it into the fish that we harvest, or harm the fishers that collect the fish for us. It is one of the reasons need to identify how uses of the deep sea in the short term can have long-term consequences. Few things happen fast down there."

Mining is a major threat to the deep sea, the researchers point out in their analysis. In particular, the quest for rare earth and metal resources, which began decades ago, has skyrocketed in recent years because of their increased use in electronics, and because of dwindling or limited distribution of supplies on land. Mining the deep ocean for manganese nodules, for example -- which are rich in nickel -- requires machines that may directly impact large swaths of the seafloor and send up a sediment plume that could potentially affect an even larger area, the scientists note.

These mining resources are not limited to muddy habitats, Thurber pointed out. Massive sulfides present at hydrothermal vents are another resource targeted by mining interests.

"The deep sea has been an active area for oil and gas harvesting for many years," he said, "yet large reservoirs of methane and other potential energy sources remain unexploited. In addition to new energy sources, the potential for novel pharmaceuticals is also vast.

"There are additional threats to these unique habitats, including ocean acidification, warming temperatures and possible changes to ocean circulation through climate change."

The next step, the researchers say, is to attach an economic value to both the services provided by the deep sea -- and the activities that may threaten those services.

"What became clear as we put together this synopsis is that there is vast potential for future resources but we already benefit greatly through this environment," Thurber said. ""What this means is that while the choices to harvest or mine will be decided over the coming decades, it is important to note that the stakeholders of this environment represent the entire world's population."

"The Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and early Greek texts all reference the deep sea," he added. "Maybe it's time for all of us to take a closer look at what it has to offer and decide if and how we protect it."

Source: Oregon State University

Lead pollution beat explorers to South Pole, persists today

Composite ice core records of lead in Antarctica from 1600 to 2010. The areas shaded in blue and red indicate when lead values were below or above the 410-year average, respectively, highlighting the dramatic change before and after industrialization in the Southern Hemisphere. Credit: Desert Research Institute

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole in December 1911. More than 100 years later, an international team of scientists that includes a NASA researcher has proven that air pollution from industrial activities arrived to the planet's southern pole long before any human.

Using data from 16 ice cores collected from widely spaced locations around the Antarctic continent, including the South Pole, a group led by Joe McConnell of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada, created the most accurate and precise reconstruction to date of lead pollution over Earth's southernmost continent. The new record, described in an article published today in the online edition of the Nature Publishing Group's journal Scientific Reports, spans a 410-year period from 1600 to 2010.

"Our new record shows the dramatic impact of industrial activities such as smelting, mining and fossil fuel burning on even the most remote parts of the world," McConnell said.

"It is very clear that industrial lead contamination was pervasive throughout Antarctica by the late 19th century, more than two decades before the first explorers made it to the South Pole," he added. "The idea that Amundsen and Scott were traveling over snow that clearly was contaminated by lead from smelting and mining in Australia, and that lead pollution at that time was nearly as high as any time ever since, is surprising to say the least."

This study included ice cores collected as part of projects funded by the National Science Foundation. Additional ice cores were contributed to the study by international collaborators including the British Antarctic Survey, the Australian Antarctic Division and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
"The ice cores obtained through international collaborations were critical to the success of this study in that they allowed us to develop records from parts of Antarctica not often visited by U.S.-based scientists," said co-author Tom Neumann of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who participated in a Norway-U.S. traverse that collected several of the cores used in this study. "This included the Law Dome region of East Antarctica and a big section of East Antarctica visited by the Norwegian-United States Scientific Traverse of East Antarctica."

Composite ice core records of lead in Antarctica from 1600 to 2010. The areas shaded in blue and red indicate when lead values were below or above the 410-year average, respectively, highlighting the dramatic change before and after industrialization in the Southern Hemisphere.

All measurements of lead and other chemicals used in this study were made using DRI's continuous ice core analytical system. Low background atmospheric concentrations, together with well-known and often distinct isotopic characteristics (variants of lead with different atomic weights) of industrial sources make lead an ideal tracer of industrial pollution.

"Lead is a toxic heavy metal with strong potential to harm ecosystems," said co-author Paul Vallelonga of the University of Copenhagen. "While concentrations measured in Antarctic ice cores are very low, the records show that atmospheric concentrations and deposition rates increased approximately six-fold in the late 1880s, coincident with the start of mining at Broken Hill in southern Australia and smelting at nearby Port Pirie."

The similar timing and magnitude of changes in lead deposition across Antarctica, as well as the characteristic isotopic signature of Broken Hill lead found throughout the continent, suggest that this single emission source in southern Australia was responsible for the introduction of lead pollution into Antarctica at the end of the 19th century and remains a significant source today, the authors report.

Data from the new ice core array illustrates that Antarctic lead concentrations reached a peak in 1900 and remained high until the late 1920s, with brief declines during the Great Depression and the end of World War II. Concentrations then increased rapidly until 1975 and remained elevated until the 1990s.

Concentrations across the Antarctic continent have since declined, but still are about four-fold higher than before industrialization, despite the phase out of leaded gasoline and other mitigation efforts in many countries in the Southern Hemisphere, the report states.

"Our measurements indicate that approximately 660 tonnes [1.5 million pounds] of industrial lead have been deposited on the snow-covered surface of Antarctic during the past 130 years," McConnell said. "While recent contamination levels are lower, clearly detectable industrial contamination of the Antarctic continent persists today, so we still have a ways to go."

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Leaf-mining insects destroyed with the dinosaurs, others quickly appeared

This is a mine produced by a micromoth larva on Platanus raynoldski, a sycamore. Credit: Michael Donovan, Penn State

After the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period that triggered the dinosaurs' extinction and ushered in the Paleocene, leaf-mining insects in the western United States completely disappeared. Only a million years later, at Mexican Hat, in southeastern Montana, fossil leaves show diverse leaf-mining traces from new insects that were not present during the Cretaceous, according to paleontologists.

"Our results indicate both that leaf-mining diversity at Mexican Hat is even higher than previously recognized, and equally importantly, that none of the Mexican Hat mines can be linked back to the local Cretaceous mining fauna," said Michael Donovan, graduate student in geosciences, Penn State.
Insects that eat leaves produce very specific types of damage. One type is from leaf miners -- insect larvae that live in the leaves and tunnel for food, leaving distinctive feeding paths and patterns of droppings.

Donovan, Peter Wilf, professor of geosciences, Penn State, and colleagues looked at 1,073 leaf fossils from Mexican Hat for mines. They compared these with more than 9,000 leaves from the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, from the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota, and with more than 9,000 Paleocene leaves from the Fort Union Formation in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The researchers present their results in today's (July 24) issue of PLOS ONE.

"We decided to focus on leaf miners because they are typically host specific, feeding on only a few plant species each," said Donovan. "Each miner also leaves an identifiable mining pattern."
The researchers found nine different mine-damage types at Mexican Hat attributable to the larvae of moths, wasps and flies, and six of these damage types were unique to the site.

The researchers were unsure whether the high diversity of leaf miners at Mexican Hat compared to other early Paleocene sites, where there is little or no leaf mining, was caused by insects that survived the extinction event in refugia -- areas where organisms persist during adverse conditions -- or were due to range expansions of insects from somewhere else during the early Paleocene.

However, with further study, the researchers found no evidence of the survival of any leaf miners over the Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary, suggesting an even more total collapse of terrestrial food webs than has been recognized previously.

"These results show that the high insect damage diversity at Mexican Hat represents an influx of novel insect herbivores during the early Paleocene and not a refugium for Cretaceous leaf miners," said Wilf. "The new herbivores included a startling diversity for any time period, and especially for the classic post-extinction disaster interval."

Insect extinction across the Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary may have been directly caused by catastrophic conditions after the asteroid impact and by the disappearance of host plant species. While insect herbivores constantly need leaves to survive, plants can remain dormant as seeds in the ground until more auspicious circumstances occur.

The low-diversity flora at Mexican Hat is typical for the area in the early Paleocene, so what caused the high insect damage diversity?

Insect outbreaks are associated with a rapid population increase of a single insect species, so the high diversity of mining damage seen in the Mexican Hat fossils makes the possibility of an outbreak improbable.

The researchers hypothesized that the leaf miners that are seen in the Mexican Hat fossils appeared in that area because of a transient warming event, a number of which occurred during the early Paleocene.

"Previous studies have shown a correlation between temperature and insect damage diversity in the fossil record, possibly caused by evolutionary radiations or range shifts in response to a warmer climate," said Donovan. "Current evidence suggests that insect herbivore extinction decreased with increasing distance from the asteroid impact site in Mexico, so pools of surviving insects would have existed elsewhere that could have provided a source for the insect influx that we observed at Mexican Hat."

Source: Penn State