1 1 The impacts of intensive mining on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems: a case of 2 sediment pollution and calcium decline in cool temperate Tasmania, Australia 3 4 Beck, K.K.1,2*, Mariani, M.2,3,4, Fletcher, M-S.2, Schneider, L.4, Aquino-López, M. A.5, Gadd, P.S.6, Heijnis, 5 H.6, Saunders, K.M. 6 & Zawadzki, A.6 6 1Lincoln Centre for Water and Planetary Health, School of Geography, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK 7 2School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 8 3School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK 9 4ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia 10 5Maynooth University, Arts and Humanities Institute, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland. 11 6Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Lucas Heights, Australia 12 *corresponding author
[email protected] 13 14 Keywords: 15 diatoms; mining; heavy metals; sediment pollution; Ca decline; Tasmania 16 17 Graphical Abstract 2 18 19 20 Abstract: 21 Mining causes extensive damage to aquatic ecosystems via acidification, heavy metal pollution, sediment 22 loading, and Ca decline. Yet little is known about the effects of mining on freshwater systems in the 23 Southern Hemisphere. A case in point is the region of western Tasmania, Australia, an area extensively 24 mined in the 19th century, resulting in severe environmental contamination. In order to assess the impacts of 25 mining on aquatic ecosystems in this region, we present a multiproxy investigation of the lacustrine 26 sediments from Owen Tarn, Tasmania. This study includes a combination of radiometric dating (14C and 27 210Pb), sediment geochemistry (XRF and ICP-MS), pollen, charcoal and diatoms.