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This work was supported by Grants CGL2009-13171 and CTM2012-33918 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and PII1I09-0142-4389 from the Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) Regional Government. PH and RO warmly thank all the researchers that kindly decided to contribute with their data on GEM to this paper. Our gratitude goes to all of them.

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A compilation of field surveys on gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) from contrasting environmental settings in Europe, South America, South Africa and China: separating fads from facts

Publicated to:Environmental Geochemistry And Health. 36 (4): 713-734 - 2014-08-01 36(4), DOI: 10.1007/s10653-013-9591-2

Authors: Higueras, Pablo; Oyarzun, Roberto; Kotnik, Joze; Maria Esbri, Jose; Martinez-Coronado, Alba; Horvat, Milena; Angel Lopez-Berdonces, Miguel; Llanos, Willians; Vaselli, Orlando; Nisi, Barbara; Mashyanov, Nikolay; Ryzov, Vladimir; Spiric, Zdravko; Panichev, Nikolay; McCrindle, Rob; Feng, Xinbin; Fu, Xuewu; Lillo, Javier; Loredo, Jorge; Eugenia Garcia, Maria; Alfonso, Pura; Villegas, Karla; Palacios, Silvia; Oyarzun, Jorge; Maturana, Hugo; Contreras, Felicia; Adams, Meliton; Ribeiro-Guevara, Sergio; Niecenski, Luise Felipe; Giammanco, Salvatore; Huremovic, Jasna

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Abstract

Mercury is transported globally in the atmosphere mostly in gaseous elemental form (GEM, ), but still few worldwide studies taking into account different and contrasted environmental settings are available in a single publication. This work presents and discusses data from Argentina, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Chile, China, Croatia, Finland, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Slovenia and Venezuela. We classified the information in four groups: (1) mining districts where this contaminant poses or has posed a risk for human populations and/or ecosystems; (2) cities, where the concentration of atmospheric mercury could be higher than normal due to the burning of fossil fuels and industrial activities; (3) areas with natural emissions from volcanoes; and (4) pristine areas where no anthropogenic influence was apparent. All the surveys were performed using portable LUMEX RA-915 series atomic absorption spectrometers. The results for cities fall within a low GEM concentration range that rarely exceeds 30 ng m(-3), that is, 6.6 times lower than the restrictive ATSDR threshold (200 ng m(-3)) for chronic exposure to this pollutant. We also observed this behavior in the former mercury mining districts, where few data were above 200 ng m(-3). We noted that high concentrations of GEM are localized phenomena that fade away in short distances. However, this does not imply that they do not pose a risk for those working in close proximity to the source. This is the case of the artisanal gold miners that heat the Au-Hg amalgam to vaporize mercury. In this respect, while GEM can be truly regarded as a hazard, because of possible physical-chemical transformations into other species, it is only under these localized conditions, implying exposure to high GEM concentrations, which it becomes a direct risk for humans.

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