Atlas and classification scheme of arctic combustion particles suitablefor paleoenvironmental work

The Arctic is of growing importance in understanding global environmental change, however long-term data sets for the region are lacking. Paleolimnological techniques offer well-established approaches to the development of proxies for environmental records, using sediments as archives of past conditions and events. Recognizing the significance of combustion processes in human activities, the connection between processes of combustion and particulate emissions, and the potential applications of emissions tracking, we provide a detailed description of combustion products from diverse sources, a systematic approach to combustion particle classification, and a simplified key. This ‘assemblage approach’ to describing and classifying particles linked with combustion processes found in the Arctic provides a basis for reconstructing histories of the deposition of such particles using lake sediments. The results are presented in the form of a classification scheme, a catalogue of particle types described from reference material, and a preliminary atlas of combustion particles from Nunavut and adjacent arctic regions of Canada. Incentives for this work include obtaining a better understanding of contaminant flows in the arctic environment, as well as a better appreciation of long-term trends in anthropogenic impacts on the environment.