Historic Mercury and Heavy Metal Deposition in Canada from Lake Sediment Cores

Lake sediment cores from several locations in Canada were collected under the CARA/CCAP and Oil Sands Monitoring programs to reconstruct deposition trends. The data are subjects of multiple peer-reviewed publications in journals like Science of the Total Environment and Environmental Science & Technology. The dataset is published by Environment and Climate Change Canada and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Reconstructing historical atmospheric deposition trends based on sediment core chronology.
• Examining ecosystem response to changing emission scenarios based on multi-core analysis.
• Quantifying contributions from local, regional, and global pollution sources based on metal(loid) profiles.

Strengths

• Data is linked to multiple peer-reviewed publications with full method details and QA/QC.
• Analysis covers complex depositional histories from multiple sources over time.
• Dataset is part of established government monitoring programs (CARA/CCAP, OSM).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and specific sample locations are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Environment and Climate Change Canada

Collection Method

Analysis of dated lake sediment cores collected from several Canadian locations.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-16 15:11:14.319015; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Canada, with specific studies in Nova Scotia, Northwest Ontario, Manitoba, and Ontario.