Assessment of mercury exposure among small-scale gold miners using mercury stable isotopes

Sherman, Laura S.; Basu, Niladri; Rajaee, Mozhgon; Evers, David C.; Buck, David G.; Petrlik, Jindrich; DiGangi, Joseph

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2014.12.021

Cited by 49 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…17−21 However, from Figure 1c, six participants had higher Δ 199 Hg values for hair compared to rice. Of the six participants, four ingested fish ≥ twice/weekly, one ingested fish < twice/weekly, and one did not ingest fish.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…17−21 Among fish consumers, hair δ 202 Hg was enriched by ∼2‰ compared to seafood, suggesting MDF occurred during MeHg metabolism. 17−21 However, no significant MIF was observed during trophic transfer because photochemical reactions are the primary cause for MIF, as noted above. 2,3,7 The absence of MIF during metabolic processes suggests MIF may be used as a tool to trace MeHg sources in food webs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stable Mercury Isotopes in Polished Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Hair from Rice Consumers

Rothenberg

Yin

Hurley

et al. 2017

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Mercury (Hg) isotopic signatures were characterized in polished rice samples from China, U.S., and Indonesia (n = 45). Hg isotopes were also analyzed in paired hair samples for participants from China (n = 21). For the latter, we also quantified the proportion of methylmercury intake through rice (range: 31–100%), and the weekly servings of fish meals (range: 0–5.6 servings/weekly). For these participants, 29% (n = 6) never ingested fish, 52% (n = 11) ingested fish < twice/weekly, and 19% (n = 4) ingested fish ≥ twice/weekly. In rice and hair, both mass-dependent fractionation (MDF, reported as δ202Hg) and mass-independent fractionation (MIF, reported as Δ199Hg) of Hg isotopes were observed. Compared to rice, hair δ202Hg values were enriched on average (±1 standard deviation) by 1.9 ± 0.61‰, although the range was wide (range: 0.45‰, 3.0‰). Hair Δ199Hg was significantly inversely associated with %methylmercury intake from rice (Spearman’s rho = −0.61, p < 0.01, n = 21), i.e., as the proportion of methylmercury intake from rice increased, MIF decreased. Additionally, hair Δ199Hg was significantly higher for participants ingesting fish ≥ twice/weekly compared to those who did not ingest fish or ingested fish < twice/weekly (ANOVA, p < 0.05, n = 21); Overall, results suggest that Hg isotopes (especially MIF) in human hair can be used to distinguish methylmercury intake from rice versus fish.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable Mercury Isotopes in Polished Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Hair from Rice Consumers

Rothenberg

Yin

Hurley

et al. 2017

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…Hg can be extremely mobile in the environment, with gaseous forms in the atmosphere, and with particle-reactive forms allowing it to travel through soils and rivers and into the oceans (Fitzgerald et al, 2007). Hg(II) has a high affinity for complexing with (or adsorbing to) sulfur-rich ligands in organic matter (Schartup et al, 2015) and this leads to Hg accumulation with organic carbon in soils (Amos et al, 2013;Smith-Downey et al, 2010;Biswas et al, 2008) and sediments (Hollweg et al, 2010). The high mobility of Hg implies that the amount of Hg in Earth surface reservoirs is transient, even in the steady-state prehuman Hg cycle (Amos et al, 2013), and that Hg can be potentially mobilized by human impacts such as the thawing of Arctic permafrost (Schuster et al, 2018;Obrist et al, 2017) or enhanced wildfire activity (Turetsky et al, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stable isotopes provide a powerful tool for determining the origins (Kwon et al, 2014;Li et al, 2014;Sherman et al, 2013Sherman et al, , 2015Balogh et al, 2015;Demers et al, 2015;Donovan et al, 2013Donovan et al, , 2014Gehrke et al, 2011;Sun et al, 2016;Tsui et al, 2014;Sonke, 2010;Yin et al, 2013) and transformations (Kwon et al, 2013(Kwon et al, , 2014Rodriguez-Gonzalez et al, 2009;Chandan et al, 2015;Yang and Sturgeon, 2009;Foucher, 2013;Jiskra, 2012) of Hg in the natural environment. Hg has seven stable isotopes, with six at high abundance (>1 %).…”

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confidence: 99%

A model of mercury cycling and isotopic fractionation in the ocean

Archer

2018

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Mercury speciation and isotopic fractionation processes have been incorporated into the HAMOCC offline ocean tracer advection code. The model is fast enough to allow a wide exploration of the sensitivity of the Hg cycle in the oceans, and of factors controlling human exposure to monomethyl-Hg through the consumption of fish. Vertical particle transport of Hg appears to play a discernable role in setting present-day Hg distributions, which we surmise by the fact that in simulations without particle transport, the high present-day Hg deposition rate leads to an Hg maximum at the sea surface, rather than a subsurface maximum as observed. Hg particle transport has a relatively small impact on anthropogenic Hg uptake, but it sequesters Hg deeper in the water column, so that excess Hg is retained in the model ocean for a longer period of time after anthropogenic Hg deposition is stopped. Among 10 rate constants in the model, steady-state Hg concentrations are most sensitive to reactions that are sources or sinks of Hg(0), the evasion of which to the atmosphere is the dominant sink term in the surface ocean. Isotopic fractionations in the interconversion reactions are most strongly expressed, in the isotopic signatures of dissolved Hg, in reactions that involve the dominant dissolved species, Hg(II), including mass independent fractionation during Hg photoreduction. The Δ199Hg of MMHg in the model, subject to photoreduction fractionation, reproduces the Δ199Hg of fish in the upper 1000 m of the ocean, while the impact of anthropogenic Hg deposition on Hg isotope ratios is essentially negligible.

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“…Stable isotopes provide a powerful tool for determining the origins ( (Kwon et al, 2014;Li et al, 2014;Sherman et al, 2015;Sherman et al, 2013;Balogh et al, 2015;Demers et al, 2015;Donovan et al, 2014) and transformations (Kwon et al, 2013;Kwon et al, 2014) of Hg in the natural environment. Hg has seven stable isotopes with six at high abundance (<1%).…”

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confidence: 99%

A model of mercury cycling and isotopic fractionation in the ocean

Archer¹

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. Mercury speciation and isotopic fractionation processes have been incorporated into the HAMOCC offline ocean tracer advection code. The model is fast enough to allow a wide exploration of the sensitivity of the Hg cycle in the oceans, and of human exposure to Hg via monomethyl-Hg incorporation into fish. Vertical particle transport of Hg appears to play a discernable role in setting present-day Hg distributions, which we surmise by the fact that in simulations without particle 10 transport, the high present-day Hg deposition rate leads to an Hg maximum at the sea surface, rather than a subsurface maximum as observed. Hg particle transport has only a relatively small impact on anthropogenic Hg uptake, but it sequesters Hg deeper in the water column, so that excess Hg is retained in the model ocean for longer after anthropogenic Hg deposition is stopped. The concentration of monomethyl Hg is sensitive to its production rate, with model experiments suggesting that human impacts on ocean oxygen concentrations could have as significant an impact on oceanic MMHg 15 concentration as the anthropogenic Hg emission itself. Eight different isotopic fractionation mechanisms are simulated, independently and combined together, to predict their expression in the spatial distributions of isotopic signatures of Hg species in the ocean.

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Assessment of mercury exposure among small-scale gold miners using mercury stable isotopes

Cited by 49 publications

References 58 publications

Stable Mercury Isotopes in Polished Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Hair from Rice Consumers

Stable Mercury Isotopes in Polished Rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Hair from Rice Consumers

A model of mercury cycling and isotopic fractionation in the ocean

A model of mercury cycling and isotopic fractionation in the ocean

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