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Po-210 in the Environment: Biogeochemical Cycling and Bioavailability

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Handbook of Environmental Isotope Geochemistry

Part of the book series: Advances in Isotope Geochemistry ((ADISOTOPE))

Abstract

As the heaviest element of Group 6A, 210Po has a unique biogeochemistry in the environment that challenges our understanding. This chapter provides an overview of the research on 210Po in the atmosphere as well as in marine and other aqueous environments. Excess atmospheric 210Po has been attributed to external sources, such as volcanic emissions, resuspension of soil humus, incursion of stratospheric air, sea spray from the oceanic surface micro-layer, plant exudates including evapotranspiration, anthropogenic emissions (e.g., emission from coal combustion), and bio-volatilization through the formation of dimethyl polonide. Most of these sources have been qualitatively identified, yet they remain difficult to quantify. In the aqueous environment, 210Po is efficiently accumulated in plankton and bacteria and is biomagnified through the food webs, relative to its grandparent 210Pb, causing 210Po to be largely deficient in the euphotic zone. Globally, 210Po deficiency increases as ocean productivity decreases in the upper 1,000 m through biological transfer to the upper trophic levels. Smaller 210Po deficiencies in the productive areas of the ocean appear to be related to relatively active bacterial remineralization. Unusually high activities of 210Po are often found in the suboxic and anoxic waters in association with S, Mn, and Fe redox cycles. As many details of these processes remain elusive and under debate, we propose additional studies that should be conducted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Guebuem Kim & Tae-Hoon Kim

  2. College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Thomas M. Church

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  1. Guebuem Kim
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  2. Tae-Hoon Kim
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  1. Dept. Geology, Wayne State University, Detroit, 48202, Michigan, USA

    Mark Baskaran

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Kim, G., Kim, TH., Church, T.M. (2012). Po-210 in the Environment: Biogeochemical Cycling and Bioavailability. In: Baskaran, M. (eds) Handbook of Environmental Isotope Geochemistry. Advances in Isotope Geochemistry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10637-8_14

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