Atmospheric mercury sources

R. Ferrara, B. Mazzolai, H. Edner et al.. Atmospheric Mercury Sources in the Mt. Amiata Area, Italy, Sci. Total Environ. 213(1-3), 13-23, June 10 (1998). 

Schuster PF, Krabbenhoft DP, Naftz DL, Cecil FD, Olson ML, Dewild IF, Susong DD, Green JR, Abbott ML. 2002. Atmospheric mercury deposition during the last 270 years a glacial ice core record of natural and anthropogenic sources. Env Sci Technol 36 2303-2310. 

Pirrone N, Costa P, Pacyna JM, Ferrara R. 2001. Atmospheric mercury emissions from anthropogenic sources in the Mediterranean region. Atmos Environ 35 2997-3006. 

Pacyna EG, Pacyna JM, Pirrone N (2001) European emissions of atmospheric mercury from anthropogenic sources in 1995. Atmospheric Environment 35 2987-2996... 

Dordrecht, Y. Transfer of Technology for Deep Sea-Bed Mining The 1982 Law of the Sea Convention and Beyond, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, Ml, 1995. Fitzgerald, W.F., Gill, G.A., and JP. Kim An Equatorial Pacific Ocean Source of Atmospheric Mercury," Science, 224, 597-599 (1984). 

Gustin M. S., Lindberg S. E., Austin K., Coolbaugh M., Vette A., and Zhang H. (2000) Assessing the contribution of natural sources to regional atmospheric mercury budgets. Sci. Tot. Environ. 259, 61-71. 

Lamborg C. H., Fitzgerald W. F., Vandal G. M., and Rolfhus K. R. (1995) Atmospheric mercury in northern Wisconsin sources and species. Water Air Soil Pollut. 80, 198-206. 

Bullock (1997) used the Regional Lagrangian Model of Air Pollution (RELMAP) to simulate the emission, transport, chemical transformation, and wet and dry deposition of elemental mercury gas, divalent mercury gas, and particulate mercury from various point and area source types to develop an atmospheric mercury emissions inventory by anthropogenic source type. The results of the RELMAP model are shown in Table 5-3. On a percentage basis, various combustion processes (medical waste incinerators, municipal waste incinerators, electric utility power production [fossil fuel burning] and nonutility power and heat generation) account for 83% of all anthropogenic emissions in the United States. Overall, of the emissions produced, 41% were associated with elemental mercury vapor (Hg°), 41% with the mercuric form (Hg2+), and 18% was mercury associated with particulates. 

The top 15 cm of sediments in Wisconsin lakes contained higher levels of mercury (0.09-0.24 g/g [ppm]) than sediments at lower sediment levels (0.04-0.07 g/g [ppm]). Because the lakes are not known to receive any direct deposition of mercury, it was postulated that the primary mercury source was atmospheric deposition (Rada et al. 1989). Mercury levels in surface sediments of the St. Louis River ranged from 18 to 500 ng/L (ppt) (Glass et al. 1990). Mercury was detected in sediment samples from Crab Orchard Lake in Illinois at concentrations greater than 60 g/L (ppb) (Kohler et al. 1990). 

Ebinghaus R and Kruger O (1996) Emission and Local Deposition Estimates of Atmospheric Mercury in North-Western and Central Europe. In Baeyens W, Ebinghaus R and Vasiliev O, eds. Global and Regional Mercury Cycles Sources, Fluxes and Mass Balances, pp. 135-159. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Netherlands and Norwell, MA, USA. 

Lamborg CH, Fitzgerald WF, Vandal GM and Rolfhus K (1995) Atmospheric Mercury in Northern Wisconsin Sources and Species. Water Air Soil Pollut 80 189-198. 

Atmospheric mercury in urban areas results from various sources. Stack emissions in California s San Francisco Bay area may have caused the short term peaks of 30 to 50 ng/w observed when the background ranged from 3 to 8 ng/w on days with low and variable winds (7, 26, 27). Most atmospheric mercury in urban areas (Table III, urban) is contributed by processes involving heat which vaporize mercury contained in fuel and other materials (28). Noteworthy are the contributions... 

Jaffe D, Strode S (2008) Sources, fate and transport of atmospheric mercury from Asia. Environ Chem 5 121-126... 

Atmospheric-home mercury, including anthropogenic mercury is deposited everywhere including remote areas of the globe, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest mercury source, as evidenced by its presence in ancient lake sediments and glacial ice. In Amituk Lake in the Canadian Arctic, recent annual deposition of mercury was estimated at 15.1kg, about 56% from snowpack, and the rest from precipitation. This represents a dramatic increase from historic annual burdens of 6.0 kg of mercury aimually in this remote area the effects of this increase on Arctic watersheds are unknown. 

---