1000 years of environmental changes in Falun, Sweden : Lake Sediment as source material

Abstract: The aim of this study was to get a better knowledge of the metal pollution and the mining history of the Falun area. It adds new information on the geochemistry of the lakes and the beginning of mining in the Falun region, together with the influence of early land use. The main focus is on three lakes Hagtjärnen, Stugutjärnen and Nästjärnen, which were previously dated and analyzed regarding acidification by Anna Ek. Additional supporting information is provided from records from 10 other lakes, which are located at distances between 0-27 km from the Falun Copper mine. Another specific focus is on the lake Tisken, which has been assumed over the past 50 years to represent faithful historical record of mining in the Falun area. In this study this lake record was dated and analyzed, too. The analyses of all the lakes included resulted in four significant phases of environmental change, indicating the start of agriculture and mining, the development of each sector, as well as the sharp increase in pollution in the modern time period. Phase I covers the time period A.D. 700-1000 and represents the time of the early beginning of land use and small scale mining activities. Phase II represents the time between A.D. 1200 to 1450, which is dominated by an ongoing development of mining and a sharp increase in metal concentrations and occurrence of cultivated plants and plants favored by disturbance from A.D. 1450 onwards. The third phase, representing the year A.D. 1540, clearly displays another period of sharp increases among the metal concentrations, which coincides with a peak in Cu production volumes. Phase IV covers the time period A.D. 1750-1900, referred to as Modern time, and features a clear increase in Pb pollution, which is linked to the introduction of tetra ethyl Pb in the 1970s. Other metals increase also, together with cultivated plants like cereals, indicating an ongoing expansion of mining and agriculture. The results also indicate that Cu was not emitted as far as other elements, like for example Pb, which led to great pollution only in the lakes close to the Falun mine. Another important finding is that the lake Tisken does not represent a continual historical record, because the sediment is not a chronological sequence and instead likely represents mostly a catastrophic input of debris of mixed age. The C-14 dating shows, that the sediment is mixed and disturbed in Tisken. As a consequence, the long-standing interpretation of Tisken’s sediment record as an archive for the historical start and late development of mining at the Falun copper mine is incorrect