This chapter summarizes the results of the atmospheric fate and transport modeling of mercury using the long-range and local models. The general mass balance of elemental mercury gas, divalent mercury gas, and particle-bound mercury from the RELMAP simulation results using the assumed emission speciation profiles are shown in Table 5-1. The mass-balance accounting for the simulation using the m...

Seabirds are used frequently as indicators of mercury contamination in marine ecosystems, but few studies have examined the forms of mercury found in seabird tissues. Here we compare concentrations of total and organic mercury in feathers (n=5) of six sympatric nesting seabirds and in egg components of Leach's storm-petrels from Machias Seal Island, New Brunswick, Canada, during the 2006 breedi...

Accurate pollutant mass budgets are needed for identifying contaminant sources and establishing cleanup goals. We monitored mercury discharges from an abandoned mine site in northern California with the objectives of: (1) estimating the mass loading of mercury from the site; (2) evaluating the factors that control the mercury discharges; (3) assessing the significance of peak flows in transport...

This study was conducted to determine the concentration of total mercury in the edible portion of 46 species of marine fish (n = 297) collected from selected major fish landing ports and wholesale markets throughout Peninsular Malaysia. Samples were collected in June to December 2009. Prior to analysis, the fish samples were processed which consisted of drying at 65 °C until a constant weight w...

Mercury contamination threatens many ecosystems worldwide. Methylmercury bioaccumulates at each trophic level, and biomagnifies within individuals over time. Long-lived turtles often occupy high trophic positions and are likely to accumulate mercury in contaminated habitats. Millions of turtles worldwide are sold in Asia for human consumption, and consumers may be at risk if turtles contain hig...

forty bacteria species commonly found in soil, sediments, and sewage effluent were exposed for acclimation to inorganic and organic mercury compounds using sterilized sediments as the culture medium. screening tests for the ability of microorganisms to methylate inorganic mercury were made on all 40 species after acclimation to 13.5 mg/i mercuric chloride. additional screening tests for demethy...

The speciation and partitioning of mercury from two Spanish pulverized coal (co) combustion (PCC) power plants equipped with wet limestone-based flue gas desulphurization facilities (FGD) have been evaluated in this work. The results were obtained by simultaneously sampling the solid, liquid and gaseous streams in the power plants and by determining the mercury content in the representative sam...

Thimerosal, a derivative of mercury, is used as a preservative in hepatitis B vaccines. We measured total mercury levels before and after the administration of this vaccine in 15 preterm and 5 term infants. Comparison of pre- and post-vaccination mercury levels showed a significant increase in both preterm and term infants after vaccination. Additionally, post-vaccination mercury levels were si...