Author(s): Tucker Howey, Cade Smith, Luke North
Mentor(s): Ruth Kerry, Joshua LeMonte
Institution BYU
Particulate matter pollution in Salt Lake County Utah comes from various sources including industry, traffic and natural sources like the western desert and dried shoreline sediments of the Great Salt Lake (GSL). Research has shown that particulate matter pollution particularly that which contains heavy metals can have severe effects on human health. In the 1980's the GSL had high water levels but the lake has been drying and reached record low water levels by 2022. Previous research has shown that particulate air pollution levels, PM2.5 and PM10, are worse within 10 km of the Great Salt Lake (Sanders et al. 2003). Other research investigating the distribution of heavy metals (arsenic, copper, lead and zinc) in topsoil samples throughout the Salt Lake Valley found that some of the highest levels of Copper and Arsenic were found along the Great Salt Lake shoreline (Henrie et al., 2023). Acidic sub-soil has also been observed in some sediments of the Great Salt Lake bed and potential links with leakage of a tailings pond are investigated. Sediment sampling and analysis are expensive so methods to sense and estimate differences in particle size and heavy metal levels in sediments inexpensively and at remote locations are needed. Numerous samples from different areas of the dried shoreline of the Great Salt Lake were collected and analysed for particle size distribution, pH and heavy metal contents using Xray Fluorescence (XRF). Remotely sensed Atmospheric Optical depth data were also collected for the Great Salt Lake Basin to investigate spatial variations in air quality compared to air quality maps produced from Purple Air Network Data.