MERCURY 



413 



In the early 1950's, in Sweden and Finland, popu- 

 lation declines of seed-eating birds were traced to 

 methyl mercury used as seed dressing for the pre- 

 vention of plant diseases, and similar declines 

 among birds living on fish from waters contaminated 

 by methyl mercury were also found. Sweden banned 

 the use of mercurials in seed dressing in 1966, and 

 the sale of fish from about 40 lakes in 1967. Also, in 

 Iraq (1956), West Pakistan (1961) and Guatemala 

 (1963), humans were poisoned by eating seed grain 

 treated with mercurial fungicides. 



In Japan, between 1953 and 1960, 110 people were 

 poisoned by eating fish from Minamata Bay, which 

 was contaminated by methyl mercury in waste 

 water from a plastics plant ; subsequently, 52 deaths 

 were reported. Fishing was prohibited, and mercury 

 was eliminated from the discharge. In Niigata, 

 Japan, in 1965, five deaths resulted from 26 cases 

 of mercury poisoning ; the people poisoned had been 

 eating fish containing as much as 20 ppm (parts 

 per million) mercury as often as three times a day. 

 The plant to which discharges were traced was 

 closed. 



In the United States in 1969, several members of 

 a farm family in Alamagordo, N.Mex., were poi- 

 soned by eating pork from hogs that had been fed 

 seed grain treated with a fungicide containing 

 mercury. 



In Canada in 1970, walleye pike in Lake St. Clair 

 were found to contain as much as 7 ppm mercury. 

 The mercury was traced to the discharges from two 

 chlor-alkali plants — one at Sarnia, Ontario, and the 

 other in Michigan — and commercial fishing in the 

 lake was prohibited. In the United States in late 

 1970, food testing revealed 0.18 to 2.4 ppm mercury 

 in swordfish and as much as 1.12 ppm in 138 sam- 

 ples of canned tuna tested. Both were removed from 

 the markets (21/3 million cans of tuna), but tuna 

 was later declared safe to eat. Subsequently, analy- 

 ses of seven museum specimens of tuna caught be- 

 tween 1878 and 1909, and of one swordfish caught 

 in 1946, showed mercury in about the same amount 

 (0.13 to 1.27 ppm) as specimens caught in 1971. 



By mid-1972, the use of 12 pesticides was pro- 

 hibited, registration of 48 mercury compounds used 

 for algaecides, slimicides, and commercial launder- 

 ing was suspended, and use of 750 other compounds 

 was conditionally cancelled. Proposed mercury- 

 emission standards would prohibit the release into 

 the atmosphere of more than 5 pounds per 24-hour 

 period, which would be difficult for a large mercury 

 furnace plant to meet (Federal Register, 1971). 



More research is needed to ascertain the quanti- 

 ties of mercury in various environments in the litho- 



sphere, the reaction of mercury minerals in the 

 weathering and transportation cycle, the formation 

 of the easily assimilated toxic organic mercury 

 compounds, the distribution of mercury in the bio- 

 logical food chain, and human tolerance levels. 



Other research should be directed toward im- 

 proved techniques for recovery of mercury not only 

 from ores but especially from industrial wastes. 

 Such research could simultaneously improve the 

 environment and provide some of the mercury 

 needed by our highly industrialized society. 



REFERENCES 

 Bailey, E. H., 1959, Resources, chap. 3 of Pennington, J. W., 

 Mercury — a materials survey: U.S. Bur. Mines Inf. 

 Circ. 7941, p. 11-27. 

 Bailey, E. H., Blake, M. C, and Jones, D. L., 1970, On-land 

 Mesozoic oceanic crust in California, in (Jeolog:ical Sur- 

 vey research 1970: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 700-C, 

 p. C70-C81. 

 Bailey, E. H., and Everhart, D. L., 1964, Geology and quick- 

 silver deposits of the New Almaden district, Santa Clara 

 County, California: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 360, 

 206 p. 

 Bailey, E. H., and Smith, R. M., 1964, Mercury — Its occurr- 

 ence and economic trends: U.S. Geol. Survey Circ. 496, 

 lip. 

 Barringer, A. R., 1966, Interference-free spectrometer for 

 high-sensitivity mercury analyses of soils, rocks and 

 air: Inst. Mining and Metallurgy Trans., sec. B, v. 75, 

 p. B120-B124. 

 Clark, A. L., Condon, W. H., Hoare, J. M., and Sorg, D. H., 

 1970a, Analyses of rock and stream-sediment samples 

 from the Taylor Mountains A-6 and southern part of 

 Taylor Mountains B-6 quadrangles, Alaska: U.S. Geol. 

 Survey open-file report. 



1970b, Analyses of rock and stream-sediment samples 



from the northern part of the Taylor Mountains B-6 

 quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geol. Survey open-file report. 

 1970c, Analyses of rock and stream-sediment samples 



from the Taylor Mountains C-8 quadrangle, Alaska: 

 U.S. Geol. Survey open-file report. 



Clark, A. L., Sorg, D. H., Condon, W. H., and Hoare, J. M., 

 1971, Analyses of stream-sediment samples from the 

 Taylor Mountain D-8 quadrangle, Alaska: U.S. Geol. 

 Survey open-file report. 



Dinnin, J. I., and Worthing, H. W., 1966, Determination of 

 microquantities of mercury in sulfide ores by Penfield 

 tube-dithizone and semiquantitative spectrographic 

 methods, in Geological Survey research 1966: U.S. Geol. 

 Survey Prof. Paper 550-C, p. C220-C223. 



Eckel, E. B., 1948, Mercury industry in Italy: Am. Inst. 

 Mining Engineers Tech. Pub. 2292, p. 285-307; discus- 

 sion, Am. Inst. Mining Engineers Tech. Pub. 2474, p. 

 3-5. 



Ehmann, W. D., and Lovering, J. F., 1967, The abundance 

 of mercury in meteorites and rocks by neutron activa- 

 tion analysis: Geochim. et Cosmochim. Acta, v. 31, p. 

 357-376. 



Federal Register, 1971, National emission standards for 

 hazardous air pollutants — Proposed Standards for as- 

 bestos, beryllium, mercury: Federal Register, v. 36, no. 

 234, p. 23239-23256. 



