Acidification and metal contamination in Whitepine Lake (Sudbury,Canada): a paleolimnological perspective

Diatom and chrysophyte assemblages from a sediment core from Whitepine Lake were examined to infer changes in lakewater pH, nickel and aluminum concentrations since pre-industrial times, and to help determine the cause of the virtual extirpation of the lake trout population from the lake during the 1960s and 1970s. Our study indicates that acidification started in the 1920s, and that the maximum inferred pH decline (from 6.2 to 5.8) occurred between 1960 and 1970, coincident with the peak in metal mining and smelting activity in the Sudbury basin. Lakewater [Al] and [Ni], as inferred from our diatom transfer functions, increased. It appears that in addition to the pH decline, elevated [Al] may have played an important role in the decline of lake trout from Whitepine Lake in the 1960s and 1970s. Diatom-inferred lakewater pH and [Ni] have recovered slightly in the recent sediments, which coincides with reductions in emissions that have occurred since the mid-1970s.