Letter abstract
Nature Geoscience 2, 505 - 508 (2009)
Published online: 14 June 2009 | doi:10.1038/ngeo549
Subject Categories: Atmospheric science | Biogeochemistry | Palaeoclimate and palaeoceanography
Atmospheric depletion of mercury over Antarctica during glacial periods
Petru Jitaru1,2,3, Paolo Gabrielli1,4,5, Alexandrine Marteel4,6, John M. C. Plane7, Fréderic A. M. Planchon1,8, Pierre-Alexis Gauchard4, Christophe P. Ferrari4,9, Claude F. Boutron4,10, Freddy C. Adams2, Sungmin Hong11, Paolo Cescon1,12 & Carlo Barbante1,12
Mercury is a globally dispersed toxic metal that affects even remote polar areas. During seasonal atmospheric mercury depletion events in polar areas, mercury is removed from the atmosphere1, 2 and subsequently deposited in the surface snows3. However, it is unknown whether these events, which have been documented for the past two decades, have occurred in the past. Here we show that over the past 670,000 years, atmospheric mercury deposition in surface snows was greater during the coldest climatic stages, coincident with the highest atmospheric dust loads. A probable explanation for this increased scavenging is that the oxidation of gaseous mercury by sea-salt-derived halogens occurred in the cold atmosphere. The oxidized mercury compounds were then transferred to the abundant mineral dust particles and deposited on the snowpack, leading to the depletion of gaseous mercury in the Antarctic atmosphere. We conclude that polar regions acted as a mercury sink during the coldest climatic stages, and that substantial polar deposition of atmospheric mercury is therefore not an exclusively recent phenomenon.
- Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes (IDPA-CNR), Dorsoduro 2137, 30123 Venice, Italy
- University of Antwerp, Department of Chemistry, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk, Belgium
- Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d'Essais (LNE), Department of Biomedical and Inorganic Chemistry, 1 rue Gaston Boissier, 75724 Paris CEDEX 15, France
- Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement UMR 5183 Université Joseph Fourier de Grenoble/CNRS 54, rue Molière, B.P. 96, 38402 St Martin d'Heres cedex, France
- School of Earth Sciences and Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Siena, via del Laterino 8, 53 100 Siena, Italy
- School of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
- Royal Museum for Central Africa, Geology Department Leuvensesteenweg, 13, 3080 Tervuren, Belgium
- Polytech Grenoble (Institut Universitaire de France), Université Joseph Fourier, 28 avenue Benoît Frachon, B.P. 53, 38041 Grenoble, France
- Unité de Formation et de Recherche de Physique (Institut Universitaire de France), Université Joseph Fourier, Domaine Universitaire, B.P. 68 38041 Grenoble, France
- Korea Polar Research Institute, 7-50, Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 406-840, Korea
- University of Venice Ca' Foscari, Department of Environmental Sciences, Dorsoduro 2137, 30123 Venice, Italy
Correspondence to: Paolo Gabrielli1,4,5 e-mail: gabrielli.1@osu.edu
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