National and global inventories of anthropogenic trace element emissions to air is a comparatively recent phenomenon (post-1993 in Canada) as is the monitoring of atmospheric metal deposition, the latter being also very spatially limited. Paleo-reconstructive methods offer a contiguous record of environmental contamination providing a needed framework to establish locally relevant “pre-industrial” (~natural) conditions which can be compare with relative and quantitative deviations away from reference conditions. In this study, we reconstruct the history of the long-range, anthropogenic sourced atmospheric trace element deposition to the remote region of Northwestern Ontario Canada (Experimental Lakes Area (ELA)) using dated sediment records from five lakes. Several elements are shown to be highly enriched in lake sediments relative to pre-1860 sediments (Antimony, Lead, Tellurium, Tin, Arsenic, Bismuth, Cadmium and Mercury) and moderately (Zinc, Tungsten, Thallium, Copper, Silver, Selenium, Nickel and Vanadium). Mean decadal anthropogenic atmospheric fluxes (mg m-2 yr-1) are reconstructed for 1860–2010 and compare well with available local (ELA), regional (NW Ontario Canada, N Michigan USA) monitoring data, as well as global assessments of anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric trace metal burdens. Quantitative paleo reconstructions of atmospheric contamination history using the collective signal from multiple lakes provide a rigorous methodology to assess trends, uncertainties, evaluation with monitoring data and, provide an opportunity to explore landscape processes of contaminant transport and storage. Further study of the latter is recommended to understand the latency of legacy anthropogenic contamination of the environment.

监测大气中金属沉积情况的国家和全球大气中人为微量元素排放清单是一个相对较新的现象（加拿大，1993年后），后者的空间分布也非常有限。古重建方法提供了连续的环境污染记录，为建立本地相关的“工业化前”（〜自然）条件提供了必要的框架，可以将这些条件与偏离参考条件的相对和定量偏差进行比较。在这项研究中，我们使用来自五个湖泊的过时沉积物记录，重建了加拿大西北安大略偏远地区（实验性湖区（ELA））的人为来源的长期大气痕量元素沉积的历史。相对于1860年前的沉积物（锑，铅，碲，锡，砷，铋，镉和汞），某些元素在湖泊沉积物中高度富集。中等（锌，钨，T，铜，银，硒，镍和钒）。重建了1860–2010年的十年人为平均大气通量（mg m-2 yr-1），并与可用的本地（ELA），区域（加拿大西北安大略省，美国密歇根州美国）的监测数据以及对人类活动的全球评估进行了比较对大气中痕量金属负担的贡献。利用来自多个湖泊的集体信号对大气污染历史进行定量古重建，提供了一种严格的方法来评估趋势，不确定性，利用监测数据进行评估，以及 提供了探索污染物传输和存储的景观过程的机会。建议对后者进行进一步研究，以了解遗留人为污染环境的潜伏期。