Nature 301, 23 - 27 (06 January 1983); doi:10.1038/301023a0

The Smoking Hills: natural acidification of an aquatic ecosystem

Magda Havas & Thomas C. Hutchinson

Department of Botany and Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M5S 1A1

Spontaneous burning of bituminous shales at the Smoking Hills in the Canadian Arctic has produced intense acidic fumigations and strongly influenced the local tundra. The burns are of great antiquity. In an area of typically alkaline ponds with pH above 8.0, ponds within the fumigation zone have been acidified below pH 2.0. Elevated concentrations of metals (aluminium, iron, zinc, nickel, manganese and cadmium) occur in these acidic ponds. Soils and sediments have also been chemically altered. The biota in the acidic ponds are characteristic of acidic environments worldwide, in contrast to the typically Arctic biota in adjacent alkaline ponds.

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