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Total gaseous mercury levels in the vicinity of the Central Mexico mountain mining zone and its dispersion area

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Abstract

Mercury emitted to the atmosphere has a long residence time (up to a year) and can travel long distances before being deposited to land or ocean surfaces. The objective of this study were to evaluate the total gaseous mercury (TGM) ambient levels in the San Joaquín, Querétaro, mining region and to observe whether the TGM emissions from mining activity impact other regions of the country due to its dispersion. TGM was measured using an automatic Tekran model 2537A air mercury analyzer; the monitoring was carried out during March, April, and May 2015. From the ambient measurements carried out, the 8-h average concentrations range from 67 to 74 ng/m3, while the monthly averages for these three months were from 40 to 41 ng/m3 (1.3 ± 0.4 ng/m−3). Mercury concentrations did not vary significantly during the 24-h survey measurement, reporting an average value of 40.3 ± 0.75 ng/m3 (40.1 ng/m3 averages) and an extreme value of 235 ng/m3. In order to identify the possible TGM fate, a set of trajectories was obtained for different time periods using the wind fields from the Water Research and Forecasting (WRF) meteorological model and a dispersion was performed by using the CALPUFF model driven by the WRF-CALMET model to identify the TGM levels in the site vicinity.

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Data availability

Raw data is not publicly available; data requests can be made to the corresponding author: PhD. Rocío García through this email: “gmrocio@atmosfera.unam.mx”.

Code availability

The code is available from the corresponding author by request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Manuel Garcia and Wilfrido Gutiérrez for their technical support and Martin Rangel, Isela Martinez, and Moises Lopez of Postgraduate Program at the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM for its initials in Spanish).

Funding

This work was funded by grant National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change, México (INECC for its initials in Spanish).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, Mexico, Mexico

    Rocío García-Martínez, Rubén Pavia-Hernández, Ricardo Torres-Jardon, Agustín Garcia-Reynoso, Amparo Martínez-Arroyo & Luis G.Ruíz-Suárez

  2. Centro de Geociencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Juriquilla, Bulevar. Juriquilla 3001, Querétaro, 76230, México

    Gilberto Hernández-Silva

  3. Instituto de Geografía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, Mexico, Mexico

    Miguel Flores-Espinosa

  4. Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, Mexico, Mexico

    Ann Wellens

  5. Departamento de Geología, Universidad de Sonora, Rosales y Encinas, 83000, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico

    Benedetto Schiavo

  6. Instituto Nacional de Ecología y Cambio Climático, 04530, Mexico City, Mexico

    Amparo Martínez-Arroyo, Arturo Gavilán-García & Luis G.Ruíz-Suárez

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  1. Rocío García-Martínez
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  2. Gilberto Hernández-Silva
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  3. Rubén Pavia-Hernández
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Correspondence to Rocío García-Martínez.

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García-Martínez, R., Hernández-Silva, G., Pavia-Hernández, R. et al. Total gaseous mercury levels in the vicinity of the Central Mexico mountain mining zone and its dispersion area. Air Qual Atmos Health 14, 1953–1967 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-021-01068-w

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