Abstract
Volcanic activity is one of the primary sources of mercury in the earth’s ecosystem. In this work, volcanic rocks from four geotectonically distinct localities (the Czech Republic – intraplate, rift-related alkaline basaltic rocks; Iceland – hotspot/rift-related tholeiitic basaltic rocks; Japan – island arc calc-alkaline andesites; and Alaska – continental arc calc-alkaline dacites) were studied. Ultra-trace Hg contents in all samples ranged from 0.3 up to 6 µg/kg. The highest Hg content was determined for volcanic ash from Mount Redoubt (Alaska, USA). In the case of basaltic volcanic rocks, the obtained results are about two orders of magnitude smaller than values formerly assumed for primary mercury contents in basaltic lavas. They are close to predicted Hg contents in the mantle source, i.e. below 0.5 µg/kg. Hg degassing is probably a key process for the resulting Hg contents in material ejected during volcanic eruption, which is previously enriched by Hg in the shallow-crust.
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04 October 2018
The original version of this article contained a mistake in Fig. 2. The country names have been missed in the figure legend along with the X-axis. The corrected figure is given below.
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Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic under project P503/12/0682, by Masaryk University under the project MUNI/A/0886/2016, by the Institute of Analytical Chemistry of the CAS under RVO 68081715, by the Institute of Geology of the CAS under RVO 67985831, and by the BUT project LO1408 “AdMaS UP – Advanced Materials, Structures and Technologies”, supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports CR under the “National Sustainability Programme I”.
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The original version of this article was revised: The country names in the X-axis of Fig. 2 has been corrected.
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Coufalík, P., Krmíček, L., Zvěřina, O. et al. Model of Mercury Flux Associated with Volcanic Activity. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 101, 549–553 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-018-2430-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-018-2430-5