This review focuses on mercury speciation in the Adriatic Sea, a marginal sea of the Mediterranean, which represents its distinct biogeochemical subunit due to anthropogenic mercury loadings. The current knowledge about mercury cycling in the Adriatic is presented through an overview of the state of the art of research in this area: temporal and spatial distributions and occurrence of mercury s...

The development of the patio amalgamation process into an industrial scale operation in 1554 stimulated the massive production of silver in the New World but left behind an unprecedented quantity of mercury pollution. The annual loss of mercury in the silver mines of Spanish America averaged 612 tonnes/year (range 292-1085 tonnes/year) between 1580 and 1900. The production and importation of me...

Volatilization of mercury under acidic conditions from soil polluted with mercuric chloride (1.5 mg Hg/kg soil) was studied with resting cells of a mercury-resistant strain, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans SUG 2-2. When resting cells of SUG 2-2 (0.01 mg of protein) were incubated for 10 d at 30 degrees C in 20 ml of 1.6 mM sulfuric acid (pH 2.5) with ferrous sulfate (3%) and mercury-polluted soi...

Use of elemental mercury in certain cultural and religious practices can cause high exposures to mercury vapor. Uses include sprinkling mercury on the floor of a home or car, burning it in a candle, and mixing it with perfume. Some uses can produce indoor air mercury concentrations one or two orders of magnitude above occupational exposure limits. Exposures resulting from other uses, such as in...

Changes in urinary porphyrin excretion patterns (porphyrin profiles) during prolonged mercury exposure are attributable to mercury accumulation in the kidney and to consequent effects of Hg2+ on renal porphyrin metabolism. In the present study, we evaluated the quantitative relationship of urinary porphyrin concentrations to mobilizable renal mercury content, using the metal chelator 2,3-dimerc...

A cold vapor atomic absorption technique for blood or urine mercury analysis that uses persulfate oxidation to prepare samples for total mercury analysis and acid permanganate oxidation to prepare samples for inorganic mercury analysis is described. The linearity of the procedures ranged from 0.5 to 25 micrograms/L. Precision ranged from 20% at 1 microgram/L to 7% at 20 micrograms/L. Documentat...

We analyzed a New York (USA) state database of mercury concentrations in muscle tissue for five species of fish (striped bass, yellow perch, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and carp) over a range of locations in the Hudson River (USA) between 1970 and 2004. We used regression models to discern temporal and geographic change in the fish while controlling for a positive correlation between merc...

Fly ashes and gypsum are one of the main wastes produced in coal-fired power stations which may be sent to landfills for their disposal. In this work, leaching and speciation of mercury in fly ashes and gypsum from a modern co-combustion power plant equipped with a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) unit in the Netherlands were studied. The mercury leachable contents were checked against diffe...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiated a pilot program in 2002 with researchers at the University of Michigan Air Quality Laboratory to investigate motor vehicle mercury emissions. The program included exhaust emissions characterization of vapor and particulate phase mercury from three light-duty gasoline vehicles, one diesel vehicle and mercury analysis of fuel, lubricating oil, en...

tions through acute toxicity or through physiological eff ects that modify behavior and negatively infl uence reproductive success. We compared body-feather mercury concentrations of free-living male and female adult White Ibises (Eudocimus albus) during three breeding seasons in the Florida Everglades and examined the relationships among mercury, hormone concentrations, and body-condition scor...