Mercury cycle
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The mercury cycle is the movement and chemical transformation of mercury among rocks, oceans, soils, the atmosphere, sediments, and organisms. Mercury is unusual among metals because elemental mercury is volatile and can travel long distances through the atmosphere.
Natural sources include volcanoes, geothermal systems, weathering, wildfires, and ocean emissions. Human sources include coal combustion, metal mining, cement production, waste burning, and artisanal gold extraction.
In waterlogged soils and sediments, microorganisms can convert inorganic mercury into methylmercury. This compound accumulates in organisms and becomes more concentrated at higher levels of aquatic food webs.
Mercury is exchanged repeatedly among air, land, and water before burial in sediments. Climate, fire, land disturbance, and changing ocean or wetland conditions can remobilise previously deposited mercury.
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- Source / publisher: Wikipedia
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Wikipedia
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_cycle