Pollution by heavy metals holds few secrets for Gaël Le Roux. With degrees in physics-chemistry (Université de Rennes) and geosciences (University of Aix-Marseille 1 and University of ENS-Lyon 1), he began his career as a researcher studying heavy metal pollution in the ancient ports of the Mediterranean perimeter. For his doctoral thesis he put marine sediments behind him to concentrate on ‘what becomes of atmospheric particles of human and natural origin in the peat bogs,’ at the University of Heidelberg, in Germany. During his thesis he began a collaboration with the ULg, one of the two universities in the world that specialises in peat bog isotopic geo-chemistry (the other is Umeå, in Sweden). At the end of his doctorate (May 2005), he worked for the French Institute of Radio-Protection and Nuclear Safety, based at Cadarache in Provence. There he studied both natural radioactivity transfers through the food chain and atmospheric transfers into the soil of natural and artificial radioactive elements. In studying contemporary atmospheric radioactivity he was led to become interested in the influence of Saharan dust on it. At the end of 2007 he joined of the University of Liège’s Clays, Environmental and Sedimentary Geo-chemistry team (AGEs), formed within the Department of Geology, where, under the supervision of Nathalie Fagel, he developed various projects around atmospheric pollutants and Saharan dust clouds. Since January 2009 he has been working at the CNRS, in France, on the isotopic racing of metals in earth based ecosystems. He nonetheless continues to work with the ULg, through projects in the Pyrenees and the Hautes-Fagnes, still on peat bogs, their conservation and their effect of the environment.

Selection of publications

DE VLEESCHOUWER F., GERARD L., GOORMATHTIGH C., MATTIELLI N., LE ROUX G. and FAGEL N., Atmospheric lead and heavy metal pollution records from a Belgian peat bog spanning the last two millenia : Human impact on a regional to global scale, in The Science ot the Total Environment, 2007, 377 2-3, pp.297-310.

LE ROUX G., LAVERRET E. and SHOTYK W., Fate of minerals in ombrotrophic peat bog, in Journal of the Geological Society of London, 2006, 163, 641-646.

UKONMAANAHO L., NIEMINEN T.M., RAUSCH N., CHEBURKIN A., LE ROUX G. and SHOTYK W., Shotyk Recent organic matter accumulation in relation to some climatic factors in ombrotrophic peat bogs near heavy metal emission sources, in Finland Global and Planetary Change, Volume 53, Issue 4, October 2006, Pages 259-268.

LE ROUX G., AUBERT D. STILLE P., KRACHLER M., KOBER B., CHEBURKIN A., BONANI G., SHOTYK W., Recent atmospheric Pb deposition at a rural site in southern Germany assessed using a peat core and snowpack, and comparison with other archives, in Atmospheric Environment, 2005, 39 (36), 6790-6801.

LE ROUX G., WEISS D., GRATTAN J., GIVELET N., KRACHLER M., CHEBURKIN A., RAUSCH N., KOBER B., SHOTYK W., Identifying the sources ant timing of ancien and medieval atmospheric lead pollution in England using a peat profile from Lindow bog, in Manchester, Journal of Environmental Monitoring, 2004, 6 (5), 502-510.