Evidence from glacier ice: Until it was banned, leaded gasoline dominated the humanmade lead emissions in South America

Leaded gasoline was a larger emission source of the toxic heavy metal lead than mining in South America - even though the extraction of metals from the region's mines historically released huge quantities of lead into the environment. Researchers have discovered evidence of the dominance of leaded gasoline based on measurements in an ice core from a Bolivian glacier. The scientists found that lead from road traffic in the neighboring countries polluted the air twice as heavily as regional mining from the 1960s onwards.

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