Widespread\nAtmospheric Tellurium Contamination in\nIndustrial and Remote Regions of Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
High\ntech applications, primarily photovoltaics, have greatly increased\ndemand for the rare and versatile but toxic element tellurium (Te).\nHere we examine dated lake sediment Te concentration profiles collected\nnear potential point sources (metal smelters, coal mining/combustion\nfacilities, oil sands operations) and from rural regions and remote\nnatural areas of Canada. Te contamination was most prevalent near\na Cu/Zn smelter where observed deposition infers 21 g Te released\nper metric ton (t) of Cu processed. Globally, 9,500 t is predicted\nto have been atmospherically deposited near Cu smelters post-1900.\nIn a remote area of central Canada (Experimental Lakes Area; ELA),\npreindustrial Te deposition rates were equivalent to the estimated\naverage global mass flux supplied from natural sources; however more\nsurprisingly, modern Te deposition rates were 6-fold higher and comparable\nwith Te measurements in precipitation. We therefore suggest that sediment\ncores reliably record atmospheric Te deposition and that anthropogenic\nactivities have significantly augmented atmospheric Te levels, making\nit an emerging contaminant of potential concern. Lake water residence\ntime was found to influence lake sediment Te inventories among lakes\nwithin a region. The apparent settling rate for Te was comparable\nto macronutrients (C, N, P), likely indicative of significant biological\nprocessing of Te.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".