Sulfur-containing particles emitted by concealed sulfide ore deposits: an unknown source of sulfur-containing particles in the atmosphere

Cao, J. J.; Li, Y. K.; Jiang, T.; Hu, G.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-6959-2015

Articles | Volume 15, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-6959-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-6959-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 12

Research article

|

26 Jun 2015

Research article |

| 26 Jun 2015

Sulfur-containing particles emitted by concealed sulfide ore deposits: an unknown source of sulfur-containing particles in the atmosphere

J. J. Cao, Y. K. Li, T. Jiang, and G. Hu

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Final revised paper (published on 26 Jun 2015)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 17 Nov 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C9798: 'referee comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Dec 2014
- AC C10397: 'Responses to the comments of anonymous referee #1', Jianjin Cao, 21 Dec 2014
RC C11792: 'Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Feb 2015
- AC C12483: 'Responses to the comments of anonymous referee #2', Jianjin Cao, 02 Mar 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Jianjin Cao on behalf of the Authors (01 Mar 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Mar 2015) by Ari Laaksonen

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (26 Mar 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

1. Reviewer's 1 worries are unfounded - the experimental data and the authors' procedures have been observed and employed by many, including us, and are certainly true. Their speculative ideas about "ascending gas carrying along nanoparticles 5-500 nm", I consider wrong. In addition, these "nanoparticles" penetrate through high efficiency filters, as reported in "Progress in the collection of Geogas in China", by Wang MQ, Gao YY and Liu YH, Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis, vol. pp 183-190, 2008. This paper has to be cited instead of Yuan LL, Wang MQ and Hu JL, line 246 in the MS. This paper is in Chinese and not accessible on the Web of Science.

2. Response to your second point, whether the authors' revisions are OK, the answer is - they are irrelevant. Here is how big the flows are: the "passive" ones are about 10^-6 cm/s (lines 270-305). The "active" ones are, roughly, 10^7 x higher (Wang MQ et al. mentioned above). It uses a pump and reports the flow, the concentration/m3, in the flow drawn through the high efficiency filter, into their adsorber.

The total flow of the "ascending flow" nanoparticles could be estimated if multiplied by the earth surface area (or the surface area of faults, if anyone knows what it is), and one ends up with enormous total flow. However, any quantification attempt is premature; the main purpose of this paper should be to establish existence of an anomaly.

Another point, the authors cite a paper (line 408), Holub et al., J. Aerosol Sci., 30, 1999, which is appropriate - except they should also quote the essential sequel, Holub RF et al, "Further investigations...", J. Aerosol Sci., 2001 to .

To conclude: This paper provides an opportunity to start what's called a "paradigm shift". The first step is to acknowledge there exists an anomaly. So far numerous papers reporting this have been ignored for about 15 years.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (21 Apr 2015) by Ari Laaksonen

AR by Jianjin Cao on behalf of the Authors (01 Jun 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (10 Jun 2015) by Ari Laaksonen

AR by Jianjin Cao on behalf of the Authors (11 Jun 2015) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

We collected particles carried by ascending flows and analysed them using transmission electron microscopy. Numerous sulfur-containing particles or particle aggregations were found in the ascending flows. In addition to S, the particles contained O, Ca, K, Mg, Fe, Na, Pb, Hg, Cu, Zn, As, Ti, Sr, Ba, etc. The sulfur-containing particles originated from deep-seated weathering or faulting products of concealed sulfide ore deposits. This is a previously unknown source of the atmospheric particles.