The Element Mercury

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Mercury is an element of the earth, and can take place naturally as well from manmade. Mercury continuously comes up towards the surface of the earth’s crust, because of the high temperature of the earth’s mantle, and this can make mercury a very mobile source. Surface rocks can contain high levels of concentrated mercury, which can add to the levels of emission standards of mercury. Natural sources can come from the earth crust, volcanoes, and erosion. Others are from weather, floods, and forest fires. This type of contamination is beyond mans control, and must be considered part of our atmosphere mercury levels. Scientist to this day have been struggling to separate the two from mans involvement to the natural output of mercury. Other mercury emission to our atmosphere is anthropogenic, which is mans influence of nature. Some of these included mining, coal plants, cement production plants, caustic soda production plants, ore processing, medical wastes, chemical production facilities, and wild fires.

Volcanoes can vary on the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere, and it can depend on if they are in eruption or degassing stage. Researcher measure mercury emission by Hg/SO2 (mercury/sulfur dioxide) ratio, and this is in the volcanoes eruption columns. Some researchers say this approach is not accurate, because of the lack of data and the volcanoes instability. Some researchers say this area needs more research, in order to get a better reading on the actual amount of mercury that goes into our atmosphere. Bidirectional fluxes or just flux means that gaseous mercury can either spill into the air or go down. Small amounts of degassing can put mercury gas into the lowest part of the atmosphere, which can have lasting effec...

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