SOME LAWS GOVERNING THE SETTLING AND ACCUMULATION OF AN INDUSTRIAL AEROSOL OVER A REGION

The content of such typical ecologically hazardous chemical elements a s Pb, Ni, Cu, Sr, and Zn in soil and plant ash from the vicinity of an industrial center is measured. Since the main sources of these elemen ts are smoke aerosols of industrial origin, the dependence of the conc entrations of these elements on the distance from highly profuse, cont inually operating sources of emission is measured to a distance of sim ilar to 10 km. It is shown that the laws governing the variation of th e concentration of different chemical elements in soil with the distan ce from the source of emission into the atmosphere are determined by t he conditions of their gravity settling with consideration of the elec trical interaction of the aerosol with the ground electric field and t hat the laws in plant ash are determined by the accumulation of highly dispersed, charged aerosol on the surface of plant leaves polarized i n the ground electric field. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [ S1063-7842(98)00303-1].