An assessment of variations in mercury deposition to Antarctica over the past 34,000 years

Xuebin, Yin and Liguang, Sun and Zhouqing, Xie (2003) An assessment of variations in mercury deposition to Antarctica over the past 34,000 years. Advances in Polar Science, 14 (2). pp. 131-137.

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Abstract

We performed a comparison analysis of the variations in Mercury (Hg) concentrations and the precipitation proxies (e.g., (18)O values and (10)Be concentrations) in the Dome C ice core. The results showed that there were significant correlations between Hg and δ(18)O values, (10)Be concentrations, indicating that the accumulation rate in Dome C is one of the key factors controlling the variations of Hg concentrations in the past 34,000 years, and implying that Hg concentrations in ice core can be used as another reliable proxy of precipitation rate in Antarctica. Based upon the high-resolution δ(18)O values, we estimated the variations in mercury deposition flux to Antarctica over the past 34,000 years. The highest mercury deposition flux is about 3.80 pg cm(-2) yr(-1) during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) as high as 3.5 times of the mercury deposition flux (about 1.08 pg cm(-2) yr(-1)) in Holocene due to the fluctuations in natural mercury emissions such as the oceanic biological emissions.

Item Type:	Article
Related URLs:
Keywords:	mercury deposition flux, precipitation rate, LGM, Holocene, Antarctic Dome C ice core.
Subjects:	Unspecified
Organizations:	Unspecified
Date Deposited:	09 May 2023 12:14
URI:	http://library.arcticportal.org/id/eprint/2263

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