Toxic heavy metals reach top of the world

[n2doc]

16:31 02 December 2010 by Michael Marshall
Following in Edmund Hillary's footsteps? Don't drink the water on your way up. Dangerous levels of arsenic and cadmium have been found in snow samples from mount Everest.

Both heavy metals were found at levels higher than those the US Environmental Protection Agency considers acceptable, says Samantha Langley-Turnbaugh of the University of Southern Maine in Gorham.

Langley-Turnbaugh's student Bill Yeo climbed most of the way up Everest in 2006, taking soil and snow samples every 300 metres between 5334 and 7772 metres up. All the snow samples had high levels of arsenic and cadmium, and all the soil samples had high levels of arsenic.

Air pollution from Asian industry is probably to blame. Concentrations of both arsenic and cadmium were higher in the soil further up the mountain, as would be expected if high-altitude winds were depositing them.

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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19803-toxic-heavy-metals-reach-top-of-the-world.html