Mercury in recent and century-old deep-sea fish

Abstract

To determine if mercury discharges to the environment in the last century have increased the mercury content of marine fish, a sample of 21 specimens of one deep-sea fish species collected in the 1880s was compared with a sample of 66 specimens of the same species collected in the 1970s. The specimens of Antimore rostrata were collected from between 2000 and 3000 m in the western North Atlantic Ocean. In both recent and old fish mercury increased as a function of length, but comparison of the two concentration vs. length relationships shows that there has not been an increase in mercury concentration in deep-sea fish in the last century. This result supports the idea that the relatively high concentrations of mercury found in marine fish that inhabit the surface and deep waters of the open ocean result from natural processes, not 20th century industrial pollution.