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Atmospheric mercury accumulation rate in northeastern China during the past 800 years as recorded by the sediments of Tianchi Crater Lake

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Abstract

An evaluation of the history of anthropogenic mercury (Hg) emissions is needed to quantify total atmospheric Hg emissions since the Industrial Revolution. Thus more long-term records of Hg accumulation rate from natural archives are needed. In the present study, a sediment core from Tianchi Lake, a crater lake in northeastern China, was used to reconstruct atmospheric Hg accumulation rates during the past 800 years. The results show that both Hg concentration and Hg accumulation rate began to increase from 29.5 to 40.2 ng g−1 and from 1.44 to 2.26 μg m−2 yr−1, respectively, at ~ 1750 AD, synchronous with the initiation of the Industrial Revolution. The Hg accumulation rate and Hg concentration increased significantly at ~ 1850 AD, and subsequently, there were two prominent peaks, at ~ 1940 AD and ~ 1980 AD, which are temporally consistent with the Second World War and the peak in commercial usage of Hg, respectively. The Hg accumulation rate and Hg concentration decreased after ~ 1980 AD, possibly because of the decrease in the global Hg background at that time. Differences in regional Hg emissions and atmospheric circulation may be responsible for the different trends in Hg accumulation rate after ~ 1980 AD in the Tibetan Plateau and northeastern China. Our results provide new data for evaluating natural and anthropogenic Hg emissions to the atmosphere in China.

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Acknowledgements

This study was jointly supported by the Ministry of Land and Resources (award 201311137), the National Science Foundation of China (awards 41888101, 41822707, 41672159, 41301040), the Geological Survey Program (award DD20160306), the Youth Science Fund of Heilongjiang in China (award QC2013C039), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (award 2018498).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. General Institute of Ecological Geology Survey and Research of Heilongjiang Province, Harbin, 150030, China

    Tao Zhan, Jun Zhang, Yongfa Ma & E Li

  2. School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Xin Zhou, Xiaoqing He, Luyao Tu & Xiaoyan Liu

  3. Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, K1N 6 N5, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Wenhan Cheng

  4. Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China

    Junyi Ge

  5. Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Monitoring of Geographic Environment for Heilongjiang Province, Harbin Normal University, Harbin, 150025, China

    Yuanyun Xie

  6. Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Yansong Qiao

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  1. Tao Zhan
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  7. Junyi Ge
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  9. Jun Zhang
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  10. Yongfa Ma
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  11. E Li
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Correspondence to Xin Zhou.

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Zhan, T., Zhou, X., Cheng, W. et al. Atmospheric mercury accumulation rate in northeastern China during the past 800 years as recorded by the sediments of Tianchi Crater Lake. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 571–578 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06927-9

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