Increase in anthropogenic mercury in marginal sea sediments of the Northwest Pacific Ocean

Haryun Kim; Kitack Lee; Dhong-Il Lim; Seung-Il Nam; Seung Hee Han; Jihun Kim; Eunil Lee; In-Seong Han; Young Keun Jin; Yanxu Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.076

Increase in anthropogenic mercury in marginal sea sediments of the Northwest Pacific Ocean

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Mar 1:654:801-810. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.076. Epub 2018 Nov 7.

Authors

Haryun Kim¹, Kitack Lee², Dhong-Il Lim³, Seung-Il Nam⁴, Seung Hee Han⁵, Jihun Kim⁶, Eunil Lee⁷, In-Seong Han⁸, Young Keun Jin⁴, Yanxu Zhang⁹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, 37673, Republic of Korea.
² Division of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, 37673, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: ktl@postech.ac.kr.
³ South Sea Research Institute, Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, Geoje 53201, Republic of Korea; Department of Marine Environmental Science, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34113, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: oceanlim@kiost.ac.kr.
⁴ Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon 21990, Republic of Korea.
⁵ School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea.
⁶ South Sea Research Institute, Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, Geoje 53201, Republic of Korea; Department of Marine Environmental Science, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34113, Republic of Korea.
⁷ Ocean Research Division, Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency, Busan 49111, Republic of Korea.
⁸ Ocean Climate and Ecology Research Division, National Institute of Fisheries Science, Busan 46083, Republic of Korea.
⁹ School of Atmospheric Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.

PMID: 30448670
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.11.076

Abstract

Over the past century, the addition of anthropogenic mercury (Hg^ANTH) to vast areas of North Pacific marginal seas adjacent to the northeast Asian continent has tripled. Analysis of sediment cores showed that the rate of Hg^ANTH addition (Hg^ANTH flux) was greatest in the East China and Yellow Seas (9.1 μg m^-2 yr^-1) in the vicinity of China (the source continent), but was small in the Bering and western Arctic Ocean (Chukchi Sea) (0.9 μg m^-2 yr^-1; the regions furthest from China). Our results show that Hg^ANTH has reached open ocean sedimentary environments over extended areas of the northwestern Pacific Ocean, via the formation of organic-mercury complexes and deposition. The implication of these findings is that the addition of Hg^ANTH (via atmospheric deposition and riverine input) to the ocean environment is responsible for elevated Hg flux into sedimentary environments in the northwest Pacific Ocean.

Keywords: Anthropogenic Hg; Ocean sediment; Total mercury.