Distribution of Trace Metals in the Surface Sediments of Two Pristine Subalpine Lakes in Taiwan

Sediment cores were collected from two remote subalpine lakes: the rather shallow (1.5 m) Little Ghost Lake at 2040 m elevation and the deeper, Great Ghost Lake (40 m) at 2150 m elevation. Different early diagenesis of metals were observed. the seasonally anoxic hypolimnion drives the annual iron redox cycle and causes the remobilization of metals in the mobile fractions of sediments in the Great Ghost Lake. These result in the redistribution of metals in the mobile fractions of sediment and poor correlation between metal concentrations. in the Little Ghost Lake, the shallow water column is always oxic with less change of metals in the mobile fractions of sediments. As a result, most metals have strong positive correlations with each other.

The distributions of metal/Al ratios, total metal contents and acid-leached metal concentrations in the near-surface sediments of these two lakes suggest that the anthropogenic inputs from the atmospheric fallouts in recent decades are one of the major factors affecting the distributions of metals such as cadmium, lead and, to a lessor extent, zinc. the Pb-206/Pb-207 ratios confirm the anthropogenic lead input in these surface sediments.