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Atmospheric acid deposition disrupted terrestrial-aquatic carbon cycling by drastically lowering dissolved organic carbon (DOC) loads in many lakes across NE North America and northern Europe during the 20th century. However, little is known about how acid deposition has altered the role of lakes as long-term carbon sinks. We present contemporary (n = 80) organic carbon accumulation rates (OCAR) and OCAR trends over the past ~ 150 years (n = 8), and other supporting infrared spectroscopic, isotopic, and elemental geochemical proxies, for lakes in and near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada – an area heavily affected by acid deposition from smelting activities in the late-19th and 20th centuries. Contemporary OCAR varied between 4.9 and 35.3 g m^–2 yr^–1 among study lakes (mean: 13.5±6.4 g m^–2 yr^–1). Sediment-inferred trends in lake-water DOC showed a strong response in DOC loadings to the effects of …