The importance of mercury as an environmental contaminant stems from its ubiquitous nature, due largely to the multitude of sources, its volatility and its persistence in nature. While mercury was once thought to be a threat only in the areas surrounding large industrial facilities, recent research has found that even remote and pristine waters can have elevated levels of mercury compounds in fish and other wildlife. An important factor in our ability to understand the chemistry, transport, bioaccumulation and toxicity of this multimedia contaminant, is the requirement that an interdisciplinary and regional approach be applied.
The measurement sites for GLAMAP's Atmospheric Mercury Network are shown in Figure 1. Twenty-four hour integrated samples of total gaseous Hg and total particulate Hg were taken on an every-sixth-day schedule at each of the sites shown for a two-year period. The data is available for each site for both the gaseous and particulate measurements.
Preliminary results from the Great Lakes Atmospheric Mercury Assessment Project can be found in the GLAMAP Newsletters.
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