Fish Tissue Selenium Concentrations from a Reclaimed Alberta Coal Mine Watershed

840 fish from 29 reference lakes provide baseline selenium concentrations ranging from 0.2 to 2.5 μg/g dry weight. This dataset, published by Colin A. Cooke on figshare in April 2026, compares these to elevated levels (5–26 μg/g) found in fish from Crowsnest Lake, which receives runoff from the closed Tent Mountain Coal Mine. The study demonstrates long-term selenium bioaccumulation in fish decades after mining ends.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term selenium bioaccumulation in fish based on watershed mining history.
• Assessing ecological risk by comparing contaminant levels to established toxicity guidelines.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of mine reclamation practices on downstream water quality.
• Studying the spatial distribution of selenium contamination in freshwater lakes.

Strengths

• Includes a substantial reference dataset of 840 fish from 29 lakes.
• Provides specific, guideline-exceeding selenium concentration measurements (5–26 μg/g) from the impacted site.
• Focuses on a specific, documented long-term case study (Crowsnest Lake, Tent Mountain Coal Mine).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the single case study location.

Provenance

Source

Colin A. Cooke via figshare.

Collection Method

Likely contains field measurements of fish tissue selenium concentrations from sampled lakes.

Time Range

Study period not specified, but references a mine closed in the 1980s.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-14 21:13:57.

Geography

Crowsnest Lake, Alberta, Canada, and 29 reference lakes.