Total and organic mercury in Barents Sea pelagic fish.

Abstract

One of the main questions, when studying mercury levels in natural samples, is to define how far the measured concentrations correspond to natural- or background-levels or to actual contamination due to human activities. To establish background pristine levels of Hg in the marine environment, areas of very low human activities are often proposed. Arctic and Antarctic waters, together with deep oceans waters, are best suited and provide themselves for such studies. Barents Sea areas were used in this study, even if the existence of an important atmospheric transport of Hg probably caused an increase of Hg levels at a global scale. Instead of analyzing mercury from the very low concentrations in sea water, it is much easier to identify it from the higher concentrations which organisms, used as bioindicators, have built up in their tissues. By using these bioindicators to study the bioavailable fraction of the stable residues, one also integrates small scale temporal and spatial variations. Pelagic fish were used in this work to study the ecotoxicology of Hg in the Barents Sea. This study has been made possible due to recent access of the Barents Sea to western scientists and it is to serve as a complement tomore » existing studies by the same team in the Greenland and Norwegian seas, and the southwestern part of the Barents Sea. 19 refs., 4 figs., 2 tabs.« less