Atmospheric Hg Emissions from Preindustrial Gold and Silver Extraction in the Americas: A Reevaluation from Lake-Sediment Archives

Human activities over the last several centuries have transferred vast quantities of mercury (Hg) from deep geologic stores to actively cycling earth-surface reservoirs, increasing atmospheric Hg deposition worldwide. Understanding the magnitude and fate of these releases is critical to predicting how rates of atmospheric Hg deposition will respond to future emission reductions. The most recently compiled global inventories of integrated...