Exhibits · Science in Detail 6 · The Historical Record, Society by Society
Exhibit 67: Lead in Greenland Ice
Atmospheric lead from the Greenland ice core, 500 BCE to the present, the Greek and Roman peak, the medieval low, and the leaded-gasoline spike that dwarfs both.
Atmospheric lead in the Greenland ice, drawn as a ratio to the natural background rather than in units of mass, on a ratio axis marked one, four and two hundred times. The line sits at natural background at 500 BCE, rises to about four times at the Roman apogee near 100 CE, falls back to near natural through the medieval centuries, then climbs through the industrial era to about two hundred times at the leaded-petrol peak of 1970 and drops steeply after it. The record stops at the year 2000.