A 2000year record of copper pollution in South Ch

Authors: Hong Yan Liguang Sun Yuhong Wang Xiaodong Liu Shican Qiu Wenhan Cheng

Publish Date: 2010/02/23

Volume: 44, Issue: 2, Pages: 431-442

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Abstract

In the Chinese feudal era copper was widely used in coinage and weapons and its production was coupled with political stability and economic prosperity In the smelting process copper was released into the environment and accumulated in the food web and it became enriched in animal tissues and in seabird droppings Here we report a 2000year record of copper in redfooted booby excrement from Dongdao Island South China Sea There exists a striking correlation between the copper content in the seabird excrements and the ancient copper production of China for past two millennia The increased Cu content corresponds to the flourishing times of dynasties such as the Tang and Sung Dynasties and declines in Cu content correspond with dynastic declines Even some brief decadal wars and calamities such as the Anshi Rebellion in AD 755–763 and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in AD 1851–1864 were recorded in the copper content profile We established an approximate function to model the quantitative relationship between the copper content in the seabird excrement and the ancient copper production We estimate that a total of ~14 million tons of copper was produced during the past two millennia in China Among the 14 million tons of copper about 065 million tons was released into the atmosphereThis work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China NSFC 40730107 We wish to thank Nan Jia Sanping Zhao Xuebin Yin Honghao Luo and Jie Fei for their help in sampling and analyzing We especially appreciate Editor in Chief Dr Thomas J Whitmore Associate Editor Dr Neil Rose and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive reviews comments and suggestions to improve this manuscript

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