International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No.26, 260-271
267
As mentioned earlier mercury reaches Arctic by air as well as ocean currents and a significant increase in the
mercury deposition in the Arctic region has been observed during last decades (Sprovieri et al., 2005). The
atmospheric depletion events influenced by the factors such as sunlight, presence of halogens and ozone are being
depositing mercury to the land or water especially during the spring time (Lindberg et al., 2002; Berg et al., 2003;
Ariya et al., 2004). The ionic mercury form may evolve from the oxidation of stable mercury compounds liberated
during the rock weathering. The increase in permafrost melting might have also caused fast releasing of
historically accumulated mercury (Walker, 2007; Oberman, 2008; Stern et al., 2012). Studies done by Givelet et al.
(2004) showed that mercury concentration in the permafrost peat was about 20 to 50 ng/g and in the Beaufort sea
cost, permafrost peat cores showed higher mercury concentration, varied from 20 to 100 ng/g (Leitch, 2006).
More studies are needed to address the release of mercury from permafrost as the flux of mercury depends on the
mercury concentration in the permafrost, the thawing rate and the erosion rate (Klaminder et al., 2008; Stern et al.,
2012). The fractionation study indicate that even though we succeeded in reducing mercury emission worldwide,
the already deposited mercury will be a significant threat to Arctic biota as the major portion was weakly bound
fractions.
3 Conclusion
The sediments of Kongsjorden have low concentration of total mercury except for a few sites in outer zone.
However the high concentration observed at inner site indicates the influence of increased glacial melting. The
fractionation study showed that the major portion of mercury found in these sediments was in elemental form
followed by easily available forms and this may enhance the methylation potential of the system. Very low
mercury content was noticed in sulphide fraction (mercury of natural origin) which indicated that the mercury
present in the Kongsfjorden sediment was of anthropogenic origin and very recent, most probably deposited
through long range transport or from glacial melting. More studies are to be conducted to finalise the role of
AMDE, permafrost melting, oceanic currents in the transport of mercury to the Kongsfjorden.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge NCAOR, MoES, Government of India for the permission and support given for conducting studies in
Arctic. The corresponding author acknowledges the financial support from the Department of Science and Technology (DST-SERB),
and Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, and KSCSTE, Government of Kerala for developing the mercury
analytical facility. Mr. Gopikrishna acknowledges DST-INSPIRE fellowship. Authors are also acknowledging the suggestions given
by anonymous reviewers.
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