Adirondack Mountains

Acid deposition is of greatest concern wherever there are large amounts ol lossil fuel combustion upwind of an area. Eastern North America, large areas of Europe, and eastern Asia all receive acidic deposition. Acidic deposition is especially a concern when poorly buffered soils, with little acid-neutralizing capacity, are impacted. In North America, large areas of eastern Canada, the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, and sections of New England all are considered acid sensitive areas, where resistant bedrocks and thin soils prevent significant neutralization of acidity. 

Similar results were reported in the literature for most European (Scandinavia, UK, Germany, Poland and Czech Republic) and North American (Ontario, Vermont, Quebec, Adirondack Mountains, Appalachian Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains) freshwater sites, where monitoring of the effects of long-range transboundary air pollution on acidification occurs [23]. 

Similar results were observed in most European countries (UK, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic) and North American sites (Adirondack mountains, Blue ridge mountains, Maine, Atlantic Canada, Ontario). Significant trends were only found in Scandinavian countries and in the Appalachians Mountains, Vermont and Quebec. However, independently of the presence or not of a significant trend, at most smdied sites concentrations of base cations tend to decrease, phenomena that cannot be observed in the Alps [23]. 

Fuchs (1971) identified acicular wollastonite from the Allende meteorite. Miyamoto et al. (1979) called these extraterrestrial crystals whiskers. Massive deposits of fibrous wollastonite in minable quantities occur in the Adirondack Mountain region of New York State. 

Kitchen NE, Valley JW (1995) Carbon isotope thermometry in marbles of the Adirondack Mountains, New York. J metamorphic Geol 13 577-594 Kiyosu Y, Krouse HR (1990) The role of organic acid in the abiogenic reduction of sulfate and the sulfur isotope effect. Geochem J 24 21-27... 

Acid rain. Lakes in some areas of the world are now registering very low pH s because of excess acidity in rain. This was first noticed in Scandinavia and is now prevalent in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. Normal rainfall is 5.6 (because of CO2 in the air forming H2CO3). However, excessive use of fossil fuels (especially coal) with high sulfur and nitrogen content cause sulfuric and nitric acids in the atmosphere from the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide products of combustion. Some rain in the Adirondack Mountains of upper New York State has been measured with a pH of 3.0. This problem is not specific to the chemical industry but should be of concern to all of us. 

Similar trends were detected in a more limited study conducted by the Adirondack Lakes Survey Commission during the 1990s. The commission found a reduction of 92 percent in sulfate deposition in a selected sample of lakes in the Adirondack Mountains between 1992 and 1999, but an increase of 48 percent in nitrogen deposition in the same lakes. 

Gschwend and Hites (1981) observed that the two closely related polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phenanthrene and anthracene, occur in a ratio of about 3-to-l in urban air. In contrast, sedimentary deposits obtained from remote locations (e.g., Adirondack mountain ponds) exhibited phenanthrene-to-anthracene ratios of 15-to-l. You hypothesize that these chemicals are co-carried in aerosol droplets from Midwestern U.S. urban environments via easterly winds to remote locations (like the Adirondacks) where the aerosol particles fall out of the atmosphere and rapidly accumulate in the ponds sediment beds without any further compositional change (i.e., the phenanthrene-to-anthracene ratio stops changing after the aerosols leave the air). If summertime direct photolysis was responsible for the change in phenanthrene-to-anthracene ratio, estimate how long the aerosols would have to have been in the air. Comment on the assumptions that you make. What are your conclusions ... 

Figure 3. Reconstructions of (A) diatom-based and (B) chrysophyte-based monomeric Al for Big Moose Lake, and diatom-based monomeric Al for (C) Deep Lake, (D) Upper Wallface Pond, and (E) Windfall Pond in the Adirondack Mountains, New York. Reconstructions are bounded by bootstrapping estimates of the root mean-squared error of prediction for each sample. Bars to the right of each reconstruction indicate historical (H) and Chaoborus-based (C) reconstructions of fishery resources. The historical fish records are not continuous, unlike the paleolimnological records. Intervals older than 1884 are dated by extrapolation. (Reproduced with permission from reference 10.

Figure 10. Temporal patterns in lake-water N03, acid-neutralizing capacity (ANC), base cations (Ca + + Mg2+ + Na+ + K+), S042, and inorganic monomeric aluminum (Al ) at Constable Pond, a long-term monitoring site in the Adirondack Mountains. Trend lines are shown for variables with significant trends (p < 0.10 in seasonal Kendall tau test). Seasonal pattern is typical of Adirondack lakes, with seasonal minima in ANC coincident with seasonal maxima in NOf and Ah. Many Adirondack lakes exhibited upward trends in N03 in the 1980s the primary increase was in episodic N03 concentrations.

In areas with large snowpacks (e.g., much of the Northeast and all of the mountainous West), ions have been shown to drain from the pack in the early stages of snowmelt. This process leads to concentrations that are much higher than the average concentration of the snowpack itself (82). D ifferential elution of acid anions (like N03") during the initial stages of snowmelt has been shown to be responsible for the elevated N03" concentrations observed in parts of Scandinavia (81), Canada (82), the Adirondack Mountains (181), the Midwest (182), and the Sierra Nevada Mountains (180). Ammonium deposited to the snowpack (either wet or dry deposition) can subsequently... 

Emissions from U.S. sources also contribute to acidic deposition in eastern Canada, where the soil is very similar to the soil of the Adirondack Mountains, and the lakes are consequently extremely vulnerable to chronic acidification problems. The Canadian government has estimated that 14,000 lakes in eastern Canada are acidic. 

The acidification problem in both the United States and Canada grows in magnitude if episodic acidification (brief periods of low pH levels from snowmelt or heavy downpours) is taken into account. Lakes and streams throughout the United States, including high-elevation western lakes, are sensitive to episodic acidification. In the Mid-Appalachians, the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain, and the Adirondack Mountains, many additional lakes and streams become temporarily acidic during storms and snowmelt. Episodic acidification can cause large-scale fish kills. ... 

David, M. B., and C. T. Driscoll. 1984. Aluminum speciation and equilibria in soil solutions of a haplorthod in the Adirondack Mountains (New York USA). Geoderma 33 297-318. 

Hiorns, W. D., B. A. Methe, S. A. Nierzwicki-Bauer, and J. P. Zehr. 1997. Bacterial diversity in Adirondack Mountain lakes as revealed by 16S rRNA gene sequences. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 63 2957-2960. 

Engel, A. E. J. Engel, C. G. (1960) Progressive metamorphism and granitization of the major paragenesis, Northwest Adirondack Mountains, New York. Part 2. Mineralogy. Geol. Soc. Amer., Bull. 71,1-58. 

Johnson C. D., and Carlson W. D. (1990) The origin of olivine— plagioclase coronas in metagabbros from the Adirondack Mountains, NY. J. Metamorph. Geol. 8, 697-717. 

Fry B. (1986) Stable sulphur isotopic distributions and sulphate reduction in lake-sediments of the Adirondack Mountains, New York. Biogeochemistry 2(4), 329-343. 

Although high-resolution Fp/Fs ratios from refraction data are restricted to the Adirondack Mountains transect, estimates from teleseismic data indicate Fp/Fs=1.84 for the entire Grenville Province (Jordan Frazer 1975 Owens 1987 Zandt Ammon 1995). These data also confirm that the lower crust is 20 km thick and has a P-wave velocity of about 7kms (Mar-tignole Calvert 1996). 

---