Delville wood

[daz79darren]

As some of you may know I have been conducting soil investigations into metal toxicity from First World War munitions. I have attached the results of lead concentrations within the wood displayed on an aerial photograph from the western front association. I just wondered if the higher levels of lead are reflecting a prominent trench line?

[jdajd]

Can you post this picture without the lead overlay please?

Jon

[daz79darren]

Here you go Jon

[john kemp]

I take it the red colour? being the higher content ?

Have you carried this out on other areas of the battlefield ?

JMK

[T8HANTS]

What would be normal background readings for this type of chalk downland please.

[Guest jumberly]

daz79darren

So there is a high lead content to the soil?

As someone who is decorating their home and is repeatedly told not to sand old lead gloss paint, I have some questions?

Can this lead enter the food chain - ie through sugar beet etc?

What about other chemicals used, such as the chemical agents/gas?

And finally, I have read that the US military are closing firing ranges and 'cleaning up' at vast expense due to lead contamination. I believe that US military firearms now use none lead rounds. How will this effect agriculture?

[spike10764]

Were some of the top edges of the wood the remaining German defence points from which it was difficult to evict them????

....anybody........- I'm not as well versed on Delville Wood as perhaps I should like

[CROONAERT]

I just wondered if the higher levels of lead are reflecting a prominent trench line?

"Nicked" from another thread (I won't bother crediting the person who posted it originally! )....

[CROONAERT]

...and this is a slightly later map, rotated to a similar angle as the photograph. It does look like the higher counts (roughly) reflect the position of a trench...

[Max Poilu]

I would not be so sure that the lead deposits necessarily denote specific shelling of a specific trench line. The lead would generally be from shrapnel balls of course - a typical shrapnel shell is designed to distribute it's balls evenly over a cone of fire of some 500 sq yds. That is a large spread. Ok, some lead will be from bullets but with each shell containing 400 balls you can see where the majority comes from. In certain fields even now you can stand in one spot and pick up a dozen balls without moving your feet. Compared to a 'normal' field that must be an extrodinary multiplication factor of 'natural' lead levels.

It's interesting stuff and the line of high ppm does seem to be very well defined, I would have thought the majority of the wood would show a more even distribution (rather like the whole of the Western Front!). I imagine a huge study would need to be undertaken, particularly of more open areas and established major front line trench systems to really illustrate the effects.

[daz79darren]

The normal lead concentration you would expect to find to find in soil on chalk bedrock is around 20-30ppm; some of the levels I recorded were above 500ppm. The results shown on the overlay were taken from depths 0-20cm, I did however take samples of up to 80cm down in the clay, and the lead levels there were just as high as the top 20cm. That poses an interesting question, has the lead migrated downwards or did the lead bullets/balls penetrate the soil to that depth. Migration is a possibility due to the acidic nature of the soil, the large numbers of beach trees that leaves are acidic tend to collect in the shell holes and lower the pH level.

The question of whether it is bio-available, the levels of lead are high enough to fail British guidelines on metal levels within certain soils, however I put the soil through a sequential extraction procedure and in a nut shell it showed that the pore water would have to lower to a pH of 2 to release the metal ions for plant up take (its currently 4-6).

I do have one further question, the peaks in lead levels mirror those with copper, to me this shows that the lead could be coming from jacketed bullets rather than shrapnel balls.

Darren

[Max Poilu]

The results shown on the overlay were taken from depths 0-20cm, I did however take samples of up to 80cm down in the clay, and the lead levels there were just as high as the top 20cm.

Remember the battlefield was not a uniform flat area, just look at any Great War photograph. I do not think 80cm is very deep, the balls would penetrate the ground a short distance but half the gorund was shell holes of varying depths anyway. When flattened and filled in after the war the 'top soil' would be distributed into the old depressions and trenches.

I do have one further question, the peaks in lead levels mirror those with copper, to me this shows that the lead could be coming from jacketed bullets rather than shrapnel balls

There will be many metals found from shell cases, cartridges, fuses etc but the greatest mass by far of lead would surely come from lead shrapnel balls - they were distributed in huge amounts.

[daz79darren]

I'm no expert on warfare (that’s why I’m on here) , but imp assuming that most of the cartridges of both bullet and shell would have remained on the soil surface. The correlation between lead and copper continues even at depths of 80cm, that’s why I’m assuming it may be jacketed bullets. Like you said though, there may be a number of different explanations

[AOK4]

Hello,

There are tons of lead, copper, iron, zinc, aluminium etc to be found everywhere on the Western Front: the lead is 90-95% from shrapnell bullets, copper is mostly from copper driving bands and fuzes, but also a bit from cartridges, shell cases and jacketed bullets. This comes from my own experience as someone who searched the fields around Geluveld for years to earn a small amount of extra pocket money.

Jan

[daz79darren]

Thanks for your comment Jan,

I agree that shrapnel bullets are found everywhere, that’s probably because they are easier to see. With a lead bullet it would be almost impossible to see in a dark soil especially as they fragment upon entering the soil exposing more surface area for corrosion. My results show a positive correlation between lead and copper, something that would not happen if the shrapnel bullets were the significant contributor of lead to the soil

[PhilB]

But, as has been pointed out, each shrapnel shell comes with a large nose cap and drive band high in copper? Phil B

PS A spread of 500 sq yds is only 22 yards square! How were the sampling positions arranged?

[T8HANTS]

I presume the locals are ploughing to a deapth of at least 50cms, and I would also guess that shellfire churning and postwar land reclaimation would have sent surface artifacts down to twice that deapth, not taking into account ground penetration by missiles of all types.

[Simon R]

But presumably he's sampling the Wood because it hasn't been deep ploughed? Dunno.

[daz79darren]

yes Delville was an interesting one to study due to the limited man managment on it.

[PhilB]

Daz, knowing that were trench systems throughout the wood, how were the sampling positions planned? Phil B

[T8HANTS]

Sorry I started daydreaming of rolling chalk downland, and summer sun, Aaah!

What is the thoughts of the locals on these findings. I have just watched a multi million pound community housing project come to grief because the land earmarked is too poluted being an ex scrap yard, they found sump oil down to twenty five feet, despite carting thousands of tons of it away for cleaning or what ever. The Dutch guys doing the testing said they can fail a site on archeological activity, is this true? and are these standards European or British.

[Guest TanyBryn]

Still want to know.... Should I keep buying sugar for my husband?

Or would rat poison be quicker?

[Max Poilu]

I agree that shrapnel bullets are found everywhere, that’s probably because they are easier to see. With a lead bullet it would be almost impossible to see in a dark soil especially as they fragment upon entering the soil exposing more surface area for corrosion. My results show a positive correlation between lead and copper, something that would not happen if the shrapnel bullets were the significant contributor of lead to the soil

It's not just because they are easier to see - there are a lot more of them...

The British alone fired 65,000 18 pounder shells a day during the Great War (averaged out over the entire duration). Not all were shrapnel but those that were had 400 balls in each. Do the math as they say. As anyone who walks the fields will tell you the balls are by far the most prevelant relic to be found. In the early days when it rained the roads were said to flow with them.

I am not sure bullets usually fragment on hitting the soil, they are as easy to spot as balls and the ones I find are very whole, but then I do not spot the fragments maybe?

As has been pointed out each shell also comes packaged with a copper driving band, a big lump of copper, bronze or zinc etc up front. Lots of metal floating about out there that's for sure.

Go to certain parts of Verdun and it would be a case of how many ppm of soil in the metal...

[Chris Best]

This thread needs a "RESTRICTED - PALS MANAGEMENT - UK EYES ONLY" caveat on it lest junior Pals refuse to fight on health and safety grounds.

What security vetting arrangements are in place at Forum recruitment? Are further checks made prior to commissioning?

Might there already be covert HSE (Health and Safety Executive) spies masquerading as Pals?

If this thread leaks or leaches the defence of the realm might be imperilled.

Who will we sue? Or might we be sued?

Daz, can your tests identify in which foundries the metals were shaped?

This is scary!!

[daz79darren]

I appreciate all the threads on this one, it’s an interesting topic and I’m finding the comments useful. I agree that the biggest “potential” source of lead would be the shrapnel bullets, but that doesn’t mean it’s them that has raised the lead levels. A study in the USA was found that the vast majority of rifle/machine gun rounds do split or fragment upon impact into soil.

In delville you have exactly the right conditions for galvanic corrosion (a small electric charge that moves across metals increasing the solubility) a low pH, a saturated soil and thousands of jacketed bullets. Now my guess is that the bullets within Delville have been more or less completely corroded by this galvanic action between lead and copper. The shrapnel balls would also have been corroded but not to the same degree, I think it may be a case that the oxidised lead would form a crust around the shrapnel ball preventing lead release into the soil.

Phil, I was aware of the trench systems but I decided to sample the whole wood to get some idea of spatial variation of heavy metals. In each grid square six samples were taken, in total I had around 300 samples. This was of course an introductory study into Delville, but I will have to take it further as there are many more questions that need answering