Chemical and biological weathering were studied on two historic churches in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The churches exhibited contour scaling, granular disintegration and black crust development. High levels of SO4 were found in façade stones of one church, São José, with significant levels of lead and copper. This suggests that vehicle emissions were important in stonework decay. Both gypsum and halite were detected, typical of buildings influenced by marine atmosphere and fuel-polluted environment. There was little bioweathering on this church, although the filamentous cyanobacterium Scytonema detected could be involved in black crust production. The other church (Nossa Senhora da Gloria) showed strong granular disintegration, with a green coloration on internal surfaces of some flakes removed for study. This church showed lower levels of geochemically important weathering compounds but was more colonized by fungi and cyanobacteria. The latter were shown by scanning electron microscopy to grow within the granitic gneiss stone and were probably involved in dissolution and redeposition of minerals. This church is rather far from the intense traffic of the centre of Rio de Janeiro and from Guanabara Bay, source of marine aerosols; it is located upon a green hill, where plant-associated fungi and cyanobacteria can readily gain access to the façade. The results of this study show the importance of local environment on the relative proportions of chemical and biological weathering of stone.
Keywords: Biofilm; Built stone; Cultural heritage; Cyanobacteria; Environmental weathering; Geochemistry.
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