- Reaction score
- 1,681
When British environmental geochemist Jon Hawkings arrived in Greenland for the first time in 2012, he was impressed.
"It's mind-blowing: You look onto the horizon and it's just ice and it goes on for 150, 200 kilometers at least."
He went to the Arctic with a group of international scientists. Their goal was to investigate the relationship between nutrients entering coastal ecosystems from glacial meltwater. But the group's research took an unexpected turn.
The scientists analyzed samples from meltwater rivers and fjords and found concentrations of dissolved mercury among the highest ever recorded.
Like contaminated rivers in China.
Despite it being a pristine and remote environment, with no industrial activity or apparent source of pollution, runoff water coming from three different glaciers in southwest Greenland contains as much mercury as water in far more industrialized areas.
Read more here. (Deutsche-Welle)
"It's mind-blowing: You look onto the horizon and it's just ice and it goes on for 150, 200 kilometers at least."
He went to the Arctic with a group of international scientists. Their goal was to investigate the relationship between nutrients entering coastal ecosystems from glacial meltwater. But the group's research took an unexpected turn.
The scientists analyzed samples from meltwater rivers and fjords and found concentrations of dissolved mercury among the highest ever recorded.
Like contaminated rivers in China.
Despite it being a pristine and remote environment, with no industrial activity or apparent source of pollution, runoff water coming from three different glaciers in southwest Greenland contains as much mercury as water in far more industrialized areas.
Read more here. (Deutsche-Welle)
