| The same paragraphs machine-translated to German and then back to English: An ice sheet in the southwestern region of Greenland releases huge amounts
Quantities of mercury in nearby rivers. The discovery is worrying since
the poisonous metal can accumulate in marine animals, which are a key
Nutritional component for local indigenous communities. Mercury is a naturally occurring metal found in some rocks. How
Glaciers slowly flow downhill, they grind the rock below,
possibly releasing mercury into their meltwater. To find out if this happens in Greenland, Jon Hawkings at
Florida State University and his colleagues analyzed flowing meltwater
from the southwestern edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Hawkings and his team completed two expeditions to Greenland in 2015
and 2018 water samples from three meltwater rivers that
receive significant amounts of water from the Greenland ice sheet - up
up to 800 cubic meters per second. The samples were filtered to remove them
any sediment and protected from contamination. Then the researchers
analyzed the mercury concentration in each. “[Mercury concentrations in this region] are at least ten times higher
than an average river, ”says Hawkings. That is, the meltwater is
as rich in mercury as some heavily polluted rivers - except here
if the mercury was not brought directly into the water
People. “Although this mercury is not introduced by humans, the ice is
The sheet metal melts much faster due to climate change, ”says
Hawkings. |