In Greenland melt water, scientists have found prohibitively high levels of mercury, but this is not the result of human activity

Greenland's ice is closely related to a number of existing environmental problems. But in the latest study, scientists discovered another unexpected problem that they had not even thought about before.

It turned out that an unexpectedly large amount of mercury is present in glacial waters, which can have extremely negative consequences for local fisheries.

An accidentally discovered problem and its consequences

Scientists were not engaged in a targeted study of the level of mercury, they carried out a whole set of measurements aimed at determining the quality of water that flows from local melting glaciers.

Scientists have taken water samples from three rivers and two fjords located directly near the ice sheet. And the main task of the scientists was to study the amount of nutrients that enter the coastal ecosystems.

So, analyzing the collected samples, scientists found that ice-cold melt water contains more than 150 nanograms of mercury per liter. And this is 150 times higher than the average in the river for a minute. But even more mercury has been found in particulate form in the sediment, which is called "ice flour." There mercury was found up to 2000 nanograms per liter.

As R. Spencer, lead researcher on the research team, this result was extremely unexpected. So far, scientists have several assumptions as to what exactly is the result of such a high concentration, and the main one is a geological source. But there are two important questions:

1. Where does this mercury come from?

2. Where does it go after that?

Concerning the first question, scientists do not think that the appearance of mercury is not related to human activity. This is both good news and bad news, as it raises another question-problem: How to control this entire process?

So far, all efforts to manage mercury have been based on the idea that the increase in the concentration of a hazardous metal on planet Earth is related to human activities. But mercury from clean climates such as glaciers can be a source of mercury that can be nearly impossible to deal with.

As for the second question, scientists are concerned that mercury may well get into the water food web, from which it can very easily end up at our dinners tables. This is because Greenland is one of the largest suppliers of seafood around the world.

Scientists still need to do a lot of additional research to more fully assess the impact of this phenomenon.

Scientists shared the results of the study on the pages of the journal Nature geoscience.

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