Mark Cave | British Geological Survey (original) (raw)

Papers by Mark Cave

ABSTRACT Until recently, assessing possible risk to human health from arsenic in soils in the UK ... more ABSTRACT Until recently, assessing possible risk to human health from arsenic in soils in the UK was based on the Interdepartmental Committee on the Redevelopment of Contaminated land (ICRCL) trigger levels for total soil arsenic concentration. These are 10 mg/kg for gardens and allotments and 40 mg/kg for parks playing fields and open space. These values indicate a threshold above which further investigation is required. For many areas of England, where there are naturally high concentrations of arsenic in soils, these trigger values are regularly exceeded. Whether these soils pose a human health risk depends on the potential of the arsenic to leave the soil and enter the bloodstream. In this study, an in -vitro Physiologically Based Extraction Test (PBET), which mimics the conditions inside the human stomach, has been used to measure the bioaccessibility of arsenic in soils from the area around Gunnsilake in Devon, Cardiff in Wales and Wellingborough in Northamptonshire . These results, in combination with a novel sequential extraction methodology called Chemometric Identification of Substrates and Metal Distributions (CISMeD) used for identifying the chemical form of arsenic in the soil, will be reported and their significance in estimating human health risks from arsenic in soils in the UK will be discussed.

Like many cities throughout the UK, Glasgow has a long history of both urbanisation and industria... more Like many cities throughout the UK, Glasgow has a long history of both urbanisation and industrialisation, resulting in elevated concentrations of potentially harmful elements. Between 1830 and 1968 Glasgow was home to one of the world’s largest producers of chromium-based chemicals. Chromite ore processing residue (COPR) arising from the factory was used as infill material across large areas of SE Glasgow, resulting in widespread land contamination with Cr(VI), a known carcinogen of significant mobility1,2. A recent survey by the British Geological Survey (BGS) of the Glasgow urban environment has highlighted numerous sites with chromium concentrations exceeding guideline values generated by the Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) model

Cadmium (Cd) is a metallic element naturally occurring in trace amounts at the Earth’s surface. I... more Cadmium (Cd) is a metallic element naturally occurring in trace amounts at the Earth’s surface. It is toxic to humans, animals and plants, and known to be a human carcinogen. The metal associates with sulphide ores, mainly the mineral sphalerite (ZnS), and its cycling can be highly influenced by accumulation in plants and organic debris. Its abundance in igneous and sedimentary rocks is generally low, not exceeding 0.3 mg/kg, although Cd can concentrate in metalliferous ore deposits, in argillaceous (fine grained) rocks and in coal. In England there is also an enrichment of Cd in the Chalk soils of the North and South Downs, but not further north. The reason for this is unknown.

The Labex DRIIHM, French programme "Investissements d'Avenir" (ANR-11-LABX-0010), C... more The Labex DRIIHM, French programme "Investissements d'Avenir" (ANR-11-LABX-0010), COMPETE 2020 (Programa Operacional da Competitividade e Internacionalizacao), project ICT (UID/GEO/04683/2019) with reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690, project GeoBioTec (UID/GEO/04035/2019), PACOPAR.

Risk assessments for landfills and geological repositories for radioactive waste are primarily ba... more Risk assessments for landfills and geological repositories for radioactive waste are primarily based on the precepts of contaminant transport; and are concerned with understanding the movement of gas, wastes and solutes through engineered barriers and natural groundwater systems, within the concept of ‘Source’, ‘Pathway’, and ‘Receptor’. The emphasis on solute migration for landfill investigations is reflected in the theoretical development used during numerical simulation. However, microbes living in such environments can have an impact on transport processes (Bateman et al., 2006; Chapelle 2000; Cunningham et al., 1997; Fredrickson et al., 1989; Keith-Loach and Livens 2002; West and Chilton 1997). Microbial activity in any environment is generally located on chemical or physical interfaces, usually within biofilms, and the impacts can be both physical (e.g. altering porosity) and/or chemical (e.g. changing pH, redox conditions) and may result in intracellular or extracellular mine...

Copper (Cu) is an essential micronutrient for the growth of plants and animals, with a reported E... more Copper (Cu) is an essential micronutrient for the growth of plants and animals, with a reported Earth’s crust abundance of 55 mg/kg and impacts on health are related to deficiency as well as excess. The effects of high Cu concentrations in soil in decreasing the uptake of other essential micronutrients by plants are well known.

The Bioaccessibility Research Group of Europe is a European network bringing together internation... more The Bioaccessibility Research Group of Europe is a European network bringing together international institutes to study human bioaccessibility of priority contaminants in soils such as arsenic (As), lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) via the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. A primary objective is to provide robust and defensible bioaccessibility data that can be used in human health risk assessments and policy making. The correct estimation of bioaccessibility has the potential to make a significant impact on current risk assessment practices. To this end BARGE has been involved in comparing and evaluating physico-chemical processes within the many models that have been developed to measure bioaccessibility and contaminant exposure (Wragg et al., 2011). Because variable results from method comparison studies (Oomen et al., 2002) have hindered the adoption of bioaccessibility methods by some in the regulatory community, BARGE initiated the development of a harmonised in vitro bioaccessibility te...

Science of The Total Environment

Soil lead (Pb) provides an important exposure pathway to the human body through soil ingestion an... more Soil lead (Pb) provides an important exposure pathway to the human body through soil ingestion and dust inhalation and is closely associated with human health as well as social behaviour. The challenge of transforming different spatial supports arises when linking point data (Pb concentration) to areal data (health status or social behaviour). A detailed review of methodologies for integrating point and areal data has been carried out. Among a number of methodologies, eight methods: (1) average, (2) median, (3) centroids inverse distance weighted (IDW), (4) average block IDW, (5) median block IDW, (6) centroids ordinary kriging (OK), (7) average block OK and (8) median block OK, have been compared using Pb data set in the Greater London Authority (GLA) area. The results indicated that the method of median block IDW was recommended for further investigation of the relationship between Pb concentration and socio-economic factors in the ward-level of the GLA area. The reasons were (i) spatial interpolations were useful for predicting unobserved values when simple average and median could not work in the locations where there were no samples collected in some areal units; (ii) the median value was more suitable than the average value for a skewed data set; (iii) the block method reduced estimation error and provided more representative values of areal units than the centroid method; (iv) IDW reserved more spatial variation than OK, containing more local maxima (hotspot) and local minima. Despite that it is still hard to decide the optimal method, this study has highlighted the point-to-area transformation issue and provided valuable examples to compare the different methods.

Minerals

The aim of this research is to use the whole soil geochemistry and selected bioaccessibility meas... more The aim of this research is to use the whole soil geochemistry and selected bioaccessibility measurements, using the BioAcessibility Research Group of Europe (BARGE) method, on the same soils to identify the geochemical controls on arsenic (As) bioaccessibility and to gain an understanding of its spatial distribution in south-west England. The total element concentrations of 1154 soils were measured with As concentrations ranging from 4.7–1948 mg·kg−1, with the bioaccessible As of 50 selected soils ranging from 0.6–237 mg·kg−1. A Self Modelling Mixture Resolution approach was applied to the total soil element chemistry to identify the intrinsic soil constituents (ISCs). The ISCs were used as predictor variables and As bioaccessibility as the dependant variables in a regression model for the prediction of As bioaccessibility at all soil locations to examine its regional spatial distribution. This study has shown that bioaccessibility measurements can be directly linked to the geochem...

Science of The Total Environment

Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

ABSTRACTGeochemical and related studies have been made of near-surface sediments from the River C... more ABSTRACTGeochemical and related studies have been made of near-surface sediments from the River Clyde estuary and adjoining areas, extending from Glasgow to the N, and W as far as the Holy Loch on the W coast of Scotland, UK. Multibeam echosounder, sidescan sonar and shallow seismic data, taken with core information, indicate that a shallow layer of modern sediment, often less than a metre thick, rests on earlier glacial and post-glacial sediments. The offshore Quaternary history can be aligned with onshore sequences, with the recognition of buried drumlins, settlement of muds from quieter water, probably behind an ice dam, and later tidal delta deposits. The geochemistry of contaminants within the cores also indicates shallow contaminated sediments, often resting on pristine pre-industrial deposits at depths less than 1m. The distribution of different contaminants with depth in the sediment, such as Pb (and Pb isotopes), organics and radionuclides, allow chronologies of contaminati...

Journal of hazardous materials, Jan 15, 2018

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisting of two or mor... more Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisting of two or more fused aromatic rings and are probably one of the most studied groups of organic chemicals in environmental research. PAHs originate mainly from anthropogenic processes, particularly from incomplete combustion of organic fuels. PAHs are distributed widely in particulate matter. Due to widespread sources and persistent characteristics, PAHs disperse through atmospheric transport and exist almost everywhere. Human beings are exposed to PAH mixtures in gaseous or particulate phases in ambient air. Long-term exposure to high concentrations of PAHs is associated with adverse health problems. This review identifies the main research and development themes in the measurement and occurrences of PAHs in dusts and particulates using a new approach to carrying out a literature review where many peer-review publications have been produced. The review extracts the most important research themes from...

Population health metrics, Jul 16, 2018

Long-term, low-level exposure to toxic elements in soil may be harmful to human health but large ... more Long-term, low-level exposure to toxic elements in soil may be harmful to human health but large longitudinal cohort studies with sufficient follow-up time to study these effects are cost-prohibitive and impractical. Linkage of routinely collected medical outcome data to systematic surveys of soil quality may offer a viable alternative. We used the Geochemical Baseline Survey of the Environment (G-BASE), a systematic X-ray fluorescence survey of soil inorganic chemistry throughout England and Wales to obtain estimates of the concentrations of 15 elements in the soil contained within each English and Welsh postcode area. We linked these data to the residential postcodes of individuals enrolled in The Health Improvement Network (THIN), a large database of UK primary care medical records, to provide estimates of exposure. Observed exposure levels among the THIN population were compared with expectations based on UK population estimates to assess representativeness. Three hundred sevent...

A B S T R A C T Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisti... more A B S T R A C T Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisting of two or more fused aromatic rings and are probably one of the most studied groups of organic chemicals in environmental research. PAHs originate mainly from anthropogenic processes, particularly from incomplete combustion of organic fuels. PAHs are distributed widely in particulate matter. Due to widespread sources and persistent characteristics, PAHs disperse through atmospheric transport and exist almost everywhere. Human beings are exposed to PAH mixtures in gaseous or particulate phases in ambient air. Long-term exposure to high concentrations of PAHs is associated with adverse health problems. This review identifies the main research and development themes in the measurement and occurrences of PAHs in dusts and particulates using a new approach to carrying out a literature review where many peer-review publications have been produced. The review extracts the most important rese...

The Science of the total environment, Jan 15, 2018

Predicting mammalian bioavailability of PAH mixtures from in vitro bioaccessibility results has p... more Predicting mammalian bioavailability of PAH mixtures from in vitro bioaccessibility results has proven to be an elusive goal. In an attempt to improve in vitro predictions of PAH soil bioavailability we investigated how energetic input influences PAH bioaccessibility by using a high and low energetic shaking method. Co-inertia analysis (COIA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were also used to examine PAH-PAH interactions during ingestion. PAH bioaccessibility was determined from 14 historically contaminated soils using the fed organic estimation of the human simulation test (FOREhST) with inclusion of a silicone rod as a sorption sink and compared to bioavailability estimates from the juvenile swine model. Shaking method significantly affected PAH bioaccessibility in the FOREhST model, with PAH desorption from the high energy FOREhST almost an order of magnitude greater compared to the low energy FOREhST. PAH-PAH interactions significantly influenced PAH bioavailability and w...

ABSTRACT Until recently, assessing possible risk to human health from arsenic in soils in the UK ... more ABSTRACT Until recently, assessing possible risk to human health from arsenic in soils in the UK was based on the Interdepartmental Committee on the Redevelopment of Contaminated land (ICRCL) trigger levels for total soil arsenic concentration. These are 10 mg/kg for gardens and allotments and 40 mg/kg for parks playing fields and open space. These values indicate a threshold above which further investigation is required. For many areas of England, where there are naturally high concentrations of arsenic in soils, these trigger values are regularly exceeded. Whether these soils pose a human health risk depends on the potential of the arsenic to leave the soil and enter the bloodstream. In this study, an in -vitro Physiologically Based Extraction Test (PBET), which mimics the conditions inside the human stomach, has been used to measure the bioaccessibility of arsenic in soils from the area around Gunnsilake in Devon, Cardiff in Wales and Wellingborough in Northamptonshire . These results, in combination with a novel sequential extraction methodology called Chemometric Identification of Substrates and Metal Distributions (CISMeD) used for identifying the chemical form of arsenic in the soil, will be reported and their significance in estimating human health risks from arsenic in soils in the UK will be discussed.

Like many cities throughout the UK, Glasgow has a long history of both urbanisation and industria... more Like many cities throughout the UK, Glasgow has a long history of both urbanisation and industrialisation, resulting in elevated concentrations of potentially harmful elements. Between 1830 and 1968 Glasgow was home to one of the world’s largest producers of chromium-based chemicals. Chromite ore processing residue (COPR) arising from the factory was used as infill material across large areas of SE Glasgow, resulting in widespread land contamination with Cr(VI), a known carcinogen of significant mobility1,2. A recent survey by the British Geological Survey (BGS) of the Glasgow urban environment has highlighted numerous sites with chromium concentrations exceeding guideline values generated by the Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) model

Cadmium (Cd) is a metallic element naturally occurring in trace amounts at the Earth’s surface. I... more Cadmium (Cd) is a metallic element naturally occurring in trace amounts at the Earth’s surface. It is toxic to humans, animals and plants, and known to be a human carcinogen. The metal associates with sulphide ores, mainly the mineral sphalerite (ZnS), and its cycling can be highly influenced by accumulation in plants and organic debris. Its abundance in igneous and sedimentary rocks is generally low, not exceeding 0.3 mg/kg, although Cd can concentrate in metalliferous ore deposits, in argillaceous (fine grained) rocks and in coal. In England there is also an enrichment of Cd in the Chalk soils of the North and South Downs, but not further north. The reason for this is unknown.

The Labex DRIIHM, French programme "Investissements d'Avenir" (ANR-11-LABX-0010), C... more The Labex DRIIHM, French programme "Investissements d'Avenir" (ANR-11-LABX-0010), COMPETE 2020 (Programa Operacional da Competitividade e Internacionalizacao), project ICT (UID/GEO/04683/2019) with reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007690, project GeoBioTec (UID/GEO/04035/2019), PACOPAR.

Risk assessments for landfills and geological repositories for radioactive waste are primarily ba... more Risk assessments for landfills and geological repositories for radioactive waste are primarily based on the precepts of contaminant transport; and are concerned with understanding the movement of gas, wastes and solutes through engineered barriers and natural groundwater systems, within the concept of ‘Source’, ‘Pathway’, and ‘Receptor’. The emphasis on solute migration for landfill investigations is reflected in the theoretical development used during numerical simulation. However, microbes living in such environments can have an impact on transport processes (Bateman et al., 2006; Chapelle 2000; Cunningham et al., 1997; Fredrickson et al., 1989; Keith-Loach and Livens 2002; West and Chilton 1997). Microbial activity in any environment is generally located on chemical or physical interfaces, usually within biofilms, and the impacts can be both physical (e.g. altering porosity) and/or chemical (e.g. changing pH, redox conditions) and may result in intracellular or extracellular mine...

Copper (Cu) is an essential micronutrient for the growth of plants and animals, with a reported E... more Copper (Cu) is an essential micronutrient for the growth of plants and animals, with a reported Earth’s crust abundance of 55 mg/kg and impacts on health are related to deficiency as well as excess. The effects of high Cu concentrations in soil in decreasing the uptake of other essential micronutrients by plants are well known.

The Bioaccessibility Research Group of Europe is a European network bringing together internation... more The Bioaccessibility Research Group of Europe is a European network bringing together international institutes to study human bioaccessibility of priority contaminants in soils such as arsenic (As), lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) via the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. A primary objective is to provide robust and defensible bioaccessibility data that can be used in human health risk assessments and policy making. The correct estimation of bioaccessibility has the potential to make a significant impact on current risk assessment practices. To this end BARGE has been involved in comparing and evaluating physico-chemical processes within the many models that have been developed to measure bioaccessibility and contaminant exposure (Wragg et al., 2011). Because variable results from method comparison studies (Oomen et al., 2002) have hindered the adoption of bioaccessibility methods by some in the regulatory community, BARGE initiated the development of a harmonised in vitro bioaccessibility te...

Science of The Total Environment

Soil lead (Pb) provides an important exposure pathway to the human body through soil ingestion an... more Soil lead (Pb) provides an important exposure pathway to the human body through soil ingestion and dust inhalation and is closely associated with human health as well as social behaviour. The challenge of transforming different spatial supports arises when linking point data (Pb concentration) to areal data (health status or social behaviour). A detailed review of methodologies for integrating point and areal data has been carried out. Among a number of methodologies, eight methods: (1) average, (2) median, (3) centroids inverse distance weighted (IDW), (4) average block IDW, (5) median block IDW, (6) centroids ordinary kriging (OK), (7) average block OK and (8) median block OK, have been compared using Pb data set in the Greater London Authority (GLA) area. The results indicated that the method of median block IDW was recommended for further investigation of the relationship between Pb concentration and socio-economic factors in the ward-level of the GLA area. The reasons were (i) spatial interpolations were useful for predicting unobserved values when simple average and median could not work in the locations where there were no samples collected in some areal units; (ii) the median value was more suitable than the average value for a skewed data set; (iii) the block method reduced estimation error and provided more representative values of areal units than the centroid method; (iv) IDW reserved more spatial variation than OK, containing more local maxima (hotspot) and local minima. Despite that it is still hard to decide the optimal method, this study has highlighted the point-to-area transformation issue and provided valuable examples to compare the different methods.

Minerals

The aim of this research is to use the whole soil geochemistry and selected bioaccessibility meas... more The aim of this research is to use the whole soil geochemistry and selected bioaccessibility measurements, using the BioAcessibility Research Group of Europe (BARGE) method, on the same soils to identify the geochemical controls on arsenic (As) bioaccessibility and to gain an understanding of its spatial distribution in south-west England. The total element concentrations of 1154 soils were measured with As concentrations ranging from 4.7–1948 mg·kg−1, with the bioaccessible As of 50 selected soils ranging from 0.6–237 mg·kg−1. A Self Modelling Mixture Resolution approach was applied to the total soil element chemistry to identify the intrinsic soil constituents (ISCs). The ISCs were used as predictor variables and As bioaccessibility as the dependant variables in a regression model for the prediction of As bioaccessibility at all soil locations to examine its regional spatial distribution. This study has shown that bioaccessibility measurements can be directly linked to the geochem...

Science of The Total Environment

Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

ABSTRACTGeochemical and related studies have been made of near-surface sediments from the River C... more ABSTRACTGeochemical and related studies have been made of near-surface sediments from the River Clyde estuary and adjoining areas, extending from Glasgow to the N, and W as far as the Holy Loch on the W coast of Scotland, UK. Multibeam echosounder, sidescan sonar and shallow seismic data, taken with core information, indicate that a shallow layer of modern sediment, often less than a metre thick, rests on earlier glacial and post-glacial sediments. The offshore Quaternary history can be aligned with onshore sequences, with the recognition of buried drumlins, settlement of muds from quieter water, probably behind an ice dam, and later tidal delta deposits. The geochemistry of contaminants within the cores also indicates shallow contaminated sediments, often resting on pristine pre-industrial deposits at depths less than 1m. The distribution of different contaminants with depth in the sediment, such as Pb (and Pb isotopes), organics and radionuclides, allow chronologies of contaminati...

Journal of hazardous materials, Jan 15, 2018

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisting of two or mor... more Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisting of two or more fused aromatic rings and are probably one of the most studied groups of organic chemicals in environmental research. PAHs originate mainly from anthropogenic processes, particularly from incomplete combustion of organic fuels. PAHs are distributed widely in particulate matter. Due to widespread sources and persistent characteristics, PAHs disperse through atmospheric transport and exist almost everywhere. Human beings are exposed to PAH mixtures in gaseous or particulate phases in ambient air. Long-term exposure to high concentrations of PAHs is associated with adverse health problems. This review identifies the main research and development themes in the measurement and occurrences of PAHs in dusts and particulates using a new approach to carrying out a literature review where many peer-review publications have been produced. The review extracts the most important research themes from...

Population health metrics, Jul 16, 2018

Long-term, low-level exposure to toxic elements in soil may be harmful to human health but large ... more Long-term, low-level exposure to toxic elements in soil may be harmful to human health but large longitudinal cohort studies with sufficient follow-up time to study these effects are cost-prohibitive and impractical. Linkage of routinely collected medical outcome data to systematic surveys of soil quality may offer a viable alternative. We used the Geochemical Baseline Survey of the Environment (G-BASE), a systematic X-ray fluorescence survey of soil inorganic chemistry throughout England and Wales to obtain estimates of the concentrations of 15 elements in the soil contained within each English and Welsh postcode area. We linked these data to the residential postcodes of individuals enrolled in The Health Improvement Network (THIN), a large database of UK primary care medical records, to provide estimates of exposure. Observed exposure levels among the THIN population were compared with expectations based on UK population estimates to assess representativeness. Three hundred sevent...

A B S T R A C T Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisti... more A B S T R A C T Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic compounds consisting of two or more fused aromatic rings and are probably one of the most studied groups of organic chemicals in environmental research. PAHs originate mainly from anthropogenic processes, particularly from incomplete combustion of organic fuels. PAHs are distributed widely in particulate matter. Due to widespread sources and persistent characteristics, PAHs disperse through atmospheric transport and exist almost everywhere. Human beings are exposed to PAH mixtures in gaseous or particulate phases in ambient air. Long-term exposure to high concentrations of PAHs is associated with adverse health problems. This review identifies the main research and development themes in the measurement and occurrences of PAHs in dusts and particulates using a new approach to carrying out a literature review where many peer-review publications have been produced. The review extracts the most important rese...

The Science of the total environment, Jan 15, 2018

Predicting mammalian bioavailability of PAH mixtures from in vitro bioaccessibility results has p... more Predicting mammalian bioavailability of PAH mixtures from in vitro bioaccessibility results has proven to be an elusive goal. In an attempt to improve in vitro predictions of PAH soil bioavailability we investigated how energetic input influences PAH bioaccessibility by using a high and low energetic shaking method. Co-inertia analysis (COIA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were also used to examine PAH-PAH interactions during ingestion. PAH bioaccessibility was determined from 14 historically contaminated soils using the fed organic estimation of the human simulation test (FOREhST) with inclusion of a silicone rod as a sorption sink and compared to bioavailability estimates from the juvenile swine model. Shaking method significantly affected PAH bioaccessibility in the FOREhST model, with PAH desorption from the high energy FOREhST almost an order of magnitude greater compared to the low energy FOREhST. PAH-PAH interactions significantly influenced PAH bioavailability and w...