Mining is a Main Source of Mercury to San Francisco Bay

A recent article in Indian Country Today profiled a University of Michigan and RMP study on sources of mercury to San Francisco Bay sediment and the food chain. Using "fingerprinting" of mercury isotopes, Gretchen Gerkhe and Joel Blum showed that mining waste from mercury mines is a dominant source of mercury to the South Bay. A gradient of isotopic signatures is seen from south to north as the South Bay mercury mixes with a second "fingerprint" in the north, which could be from historic gold mining waste or dispersed industrial releases. The findings were recently published in an article in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta and one in Environmental Science and Technology.