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Over three millennia of mercury pollution in the Peruvian Andes.

ABSTRACT: We present unambiguous records of preindustrial atmospheric mercury (Hg) pollution, derived from lake-sediment cores collected near Huancavelica, Peru, the largest Hg deposit in the New World. Intensive Hg mining first began ca. 1400 BC, predating the emergence of complex Andean societies, and signifying that the region served as a locus for early Hg extraction. The earliest mining targeted cinnabar (HgS) for the production of vermillion. Pre-Colonial Hg burdens peak ca. 500 BC and ca. 1450 AD, corresponding to the heights of the Chavín and Inca states, respectively. During the Inca, Colonial, and industrial intervals, Hg pollution became regional, as evidenced by a third lake record approximately 225 km distant from Huancavelica. Measurements of sediment-Hg speciation reveal that cinnabar dust was initially the dominant Hg species deposited, and significant increases in deposition were limited to the local environment. After conquest by the Inca (ca. 1450 AD), smelting was adopted at the mine and Hg pollution became more widely circulated, with the deposition of matrix-bound phases of Hg predominating over cinnabar dust. Our results demonstrate the existence of a major Hg mining industry at Huancavelica spanning the past 3,500 years, and place recent Hg enrichment in the Andes in a broader historical context.

SUBMITTER: Cooke CA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2689997 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Over three millennia of mercury pollution in the Peruvian Andes.

Cooke Colin A CA Balcom Prentiss H PH Biester Harald H Wolfe Alexander P AP

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20090518 22

We present unambiguous records of preindustrial atmospheric mercury (Hg) pollution, derived from lake-sediment cores collected near Huancavelica, Peru, the largest Hg deposit in the New World. Intensive Hg mining first began ca. 1400 BC, predating the emergence of complex Andean societies, and signifying that the region served as a locus for early Hg extraction. The earliest mining targeted cinnabar (HgS) for the production of vermillion. Pre-Colonial Hg burdens peak ca. 500 BC and ca. 1450 AD, ...[more]

PMID: 19451629

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Project description:Maras salterns are located 3,380 m above sea level in the Peruvian Andes. These salterns consist of more than 3,000 little ponds which are not interconnected and act as crystallizers where salt precipitates. These ponds are fed by hypersaline spring water rich in sodium and chloride. The microbiota inhabiting these salterns was examined by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), 16S rRNA gene clone library analysis, and cultivation techniques. The total counts per milliliter in the ponds were around 2 x 10(6) to 3 x 10(6) cells/ml, while the spring water contained less than 100 cells/ml and did not yield any detectable FISH signal. The microbiota inhabiting the ponds was dominated (80 to 86% of the total counts) by Archaea, while Bacteria accounted for 10 to 13% of the 4',6'-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) counts. A total of 239 16S rRNA gene clones were analyzed (132 Archaea clones and 107 Bacteria clones). According to the clone libraries, the archaeal assemblage was dominated by microorganisms related to the cosmopolitan square archaeon "Haloquadra walsbyi," although a substantial number of the sequences in the libraries (31% of the 16S rRNA gene archaeal clones) were related to Halobacterium sp., which is not normally found in clone libraries from solar salterns. All the bacterial clones were closely related to each other and to the gamma-proteobacterium "Pseudomonas halophila" DSM 3050. FISH analysis with a probe specific for this bacterial assemblage revealed that it accounted for 69 to 76% of the total bacterial counts detected with a Bacteria-specific probe. When pond water was used to inoculate solid media containing 25% total salts, both extremely halophilic Archaea and Bacteria were isolated. Archaeal isolates were not related to the isolates in clone libraries, although several bacterial isolates were very closely related to the "P. halophila" cluster found in the libraries. As observed for other hypersaline environments, extremely halophilic bacteria that had ecological relevance seemed to be easier to culture than their archaeal counterparts.

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Over three millennia of mercury pollution in the Peruvian Andes.

Publications

Over three millennia of mercury pollution in the Peruvian Andes.

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