Industrial supply of trace elements during the “Anthropocene”: a record in estuarine sediments from the Ria of Ferrol (NW Iberian Peninsula)

Abstract

This work addresses the study of a sediment core retrieved in the estuary of the Grande-de-Xubia River (Ria of Ferrol), which is among the first industrialized areas in the Iberian Peninsula and has links to the shipbuilding industry since 1750. The chemical analysis of trace elements (i.e. As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mo, Ni, Pb, V, and Zn) was coupled with 210Pb dating. The results span a period of about 130 years and cover the whole of the 20th century. Trace element anthropogenic fluxes accumulating in the sediments were calculated and show that human inputs are the most important sources for Cu, Cd, Hg and Zn, being, on average, well over the natural loads. The temporal variation in the anthropogenic contaminants allows the identification of four main phases describing the human-natural input interactions, which in chronological order, are: (i) early industrialization, (ii) industrial acceleration or first industrial transition, (iii) industrial collapse, and (iv) an industrial maturity or a second industrial transition.