SCIENTISTS FIND HUGE AMOUNTS OF MERCURY IN GREENLAND GLACIERS

Scientists are alarmed over the big amount of dissolved mercury they found in the rivers and fjords of Greenland. The heavy metal raises concerns for the health of indigenous communities. And with global warming, the problem may get worse, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.

When British environmental geochemist Jon Hawkings arrived in Greenland for the first time in 2012, he was impressed. "It's mind-blowing: You look onto the horizon and it's just ice and it goes on for 150, 200 kilometers at least."

He went to the Arctic with a group of international scientists. Their goal was to investigate the relationship between nutrients entering coastal ecosystems from glacial meltwater. But the group's research took an unexpected turn.

The scientists analyzed samples from meltwater rivers and fjords and found concentrations of dissolved mercury among the highest ever recorded. Despite it being a pristine and remote environment, with no industrial activity or apparent source of pollution, runoff water coming from three different glaciers in southwest Greenland contains as much mercury as water in far more industrialized areas.

"Mercury concentrations this high would usually only be seen in quite contaminated systems. We compare it to contaminated rivers in China, because that's where similar kinds of concentrations have been found before," Hawkings, who is the lead author of the study published in Nature Geoscience, told DW.

Normal amounts of dissolved mercury in rivers are around 1 to 10 nanograms per liter (ng L-1 ). According to Hawkings, that is comparable to “a grain of sand in an Olympic size swimming pool.”

But in the water samples from southwest Greenland, the researchers found values of 150 ng L-1, far higher than average. Unlike what is seen in China, the evidence indicates that the mercury in Greenland originates from natural geological sources in the ice-sheet bed.

Mercury (Hg) is a toxic heavy metal that occurs naturally in air, water, and soil ― through volcanic eruptions, for example. Its presence, however, is amplified through pollution caused by human activity. Coal power plants and gold mining, for instance, are responsible for much of the mercury released into the environment.

The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies mercury as one of the top ten chemicals of major public health concern. Exposure to it, even in small quantities, can lead to numerous health problems, including toxic effects on the nervous, digestive, and immune systems, as well as in organs such as lungs, kidneys, skin, and eyes.

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