Soil samples reveal urban mercury footprints
"Previous research on the spread of environmental mercury has focused on waterways. The IUPUI researchers looked at land, testing soil samples, detecting hot spots of mercury contamination in central Indiana specifically tied to local coal-fired power plants by chemical signatures. Winds blew the mercury contaminated soil to the northeast and the natural flow of waterways brought the mercury back to the southwest, far into bucolic appearing areas frequented by anglers."
"We are fouling our local as well as global environment and little has been done to stop it. It all comes down to the choices we make to produce energy. As we gain a better understanding of the deposition and risk patterns of mercury from using dirty coal as our primary energy source in the Midwest, we hopefully will be better able to stop or decrease the emission of this neurotoxin and halt the damage it is causing humans," said
senior author Gabriel M. Filippelli, Ph.D., professor of earth sciences at the School of Science at IUPUI.
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