Pb and Zn and the onset of Anthropocene in floodplain sediments: How and why to quantify weak contamination?

Abstract

In our laboratory we work on the quantification of heavy metal pollution in fluvial sediments of which sedimentological description, facial assignment, post-depositional stability and dating are incomplete or missing. Without such fundamental knowledge the only robust information is apparently the absolute concentration of heavy metals. Due to local geochemical differences and heavy metal sorting by fluvial transport and pedogenesis, the actual level of anthropogenic contamination is usually considered inconclusive when the enrichment factor EF