The combustion of fossil fuels in industrial settlements leads to the release in the atmosphere of 14C-free carbon dioxide resulting in an appreciable depletion of the local atmospheric radiocarbon concentration, recorded by the biosphere surrounding the emitting source. We present the results of a large-scale investigation carried out in Southern Italy with the aim to reconstruct the spatial and temporal dispersion of the CO2 emitted by the coal fired power plant installed in Cerano, Southern Italy, which is, with its 2640 MW of electrical output, one of the largest in Europe. More than 100 14C AMS measurements have been carried out on different kind of samples collected in the area surrounding the power plant. In particular, leaves of both plants with a C3 and a C4 photosynthetic pathway and with an annual living cycle and tree ring sequences extracted from living pines (Pinus Pinea) were selected for the study. The sampling points were chosen at different distances from the emitting source (from 200 m to 15 Km) and in different directions in order to map the magnitude of the induced dilution effect and to relate it to meteorological data like the rainfall and the direction of the prevalent winds. The results showed a dilution effect, estimated for comparison with local “clean air” references, as large as 2.3 % at a distance of 15 Km with a preferential dispersion of the pollutants in the direction of the prevalent winds. Furthermore, the measurements of the dendro-dated pine ring sequences allowed the reconstruction of the CO2 emissions in the past 20 years with a temporal resolution of one year. We present also the preliminary investigation carried out in the industrial district in Taranto, Southern Italy where highly polluting industries are present such as large steel industries and an oil refinery. We will also introduce a new experimental approach, recently developed, showing how the results obtained with the AMS 14C investigations can be integrated with the compositional, multielemental information obtained by carrying out, on the same biological records used for the radiocarbon studies, PIXE (Particle Induced X-Ray Emission) analyses at atmospheric pressure at the new external beam IBA (Ion Beam, Analysis) set-up installed at CEDAD.
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See more of The 10th International Conference on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (September 5-10, 2005)