Global Biogeochemical Cycling of Mercury: A Review

Mercury pollution poses global human health and environmental risks. Although mercury is naturally present in the environment, human activities, such as coal burning, have increased the amount of mercury cycling among the land, atmosphere, and ocean by a factor of three to five. Emitted to the atmosphere in its elemental form, mercury travels worldwide before oxidizing to a form that deposits to ecosystems. In aquatic systems, mercury can convert into methylmercury, a potent neurotoxin. People and wildlife are exposed to methylmercury as it bioaccumulates up the food chain. Mercury continues to circulate in the atmosphere, oceans, and terrestrial system for centuries to millennia before it returns to…