Interactions of Mercury with Dissolved Organic Carbon in the Everglades

Project Investigators: George Aiken, Dave Krabbenhoft and Bill Orem Project Personnel: Jarrod Gasper and Kenna Butler Proposals, Project Summaries and Work Plans Data Metadata Bibliography Publications

Summary

The goal of our research is to provide information about the interactions of mercury and dissolved organic matter that will better define this important, albeit, poorly understood process.

It is well recognized that the chemical forms of mercury in the water column and sediments are intimately related to bioaccumulation and body burden. Interactions of mercury and dissolved organic matter may play an important role in controlling the bioavailability and reactivity of mercury. The goal of our research is to provide information about the interactions of mercury and dissolved organic matter that will better define this important, albeit, poorly understood process. Ultimately, this research will lead to a more complete model of mercury behavior in the Everglades. Our research will focus on the effect of DOC on the transport and reactivity of mercury in the Everglades through a combined field and laboratory study. The underlying hypothesis of this research is that the chemistry and structural characteristics of organic matter in the Everglades have a controlling influence on mercury cycling processes such as methylation and volatilization.

The South Florida Water Management District, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the USGS South Florida Ecosystems Initiative have organized an intensive study of surface water chemistry in Southern Florida. In 1994, several onsite-research locations were selected in the Water Conservation Areas of the South Florida Water Management District in conjunction with this multidisciplinary, multiagency research project.

This work has been done as part of the U.S. Geological Survey South Florida Ecosystems Initiative and was funded in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (through Grant IAG #DW14936802-01-0). The purpose of this report is to make available to the South Florida Ecosystem Research Community the results of our investigation of DOC concentration, nature, and distribution in a prompt and widely available manner. Further additions will be made to the data file as sample collection continues, and as laboratory analyses are completed.

Proposals

• 1998
• 1999
• 2001

Project Summaries

• 2001
• 2002
• 2003

Work Plans

• 2003
• 2004

Data

• Everglades Water Quality Data (from the data exchange pages)
• Everglades Water Chemistry Data (from the data exchange pages)
• Summary of Data from Onsite and Laboratory Analyses of Surface Water and Marsh Porewater from South Florida Water Management District Water Conservation Areas, the Everglades, South Florida, March 1995

Metadata

• Interactions of Mercury with Dissolved Organic Carbon in the Florida Everglades
• Everglades Water chemistry - Cations and Anions
• Everglades Water chemistry - DOC and other parameters
• Everglades Water Quality - Field Parameters
• Everglades Water Quality - Site and Sample Information

Publications

Abstracts:

• Dissolved Organic Carbon in the Everglades, Florida
• Interactions Between Dissolved Organic Matter and Mercury (PDF (17 K) from the USGS Water Quality Workshop, October 2000. Note: PDF files require the Adobe Acrobat Reader to be read. Download the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader ®.)
• Interactions Between Dissolved Organic Matter and Mercury (from the GEER Conference, December 2000)
• Interactions of Dissolved Organic Carbon and Mercury (from the USGS Mercury Workshop, July 1996)
• Interactions of Dissolved Organic Matter with Mercury in the Florida Everglades (from the GEER Conference, April 2003)
• Interactions of Mercury with Dissolved Organic Carbon in the Florida Everglades
• Mercury-Dissolved Organic Carbon Interactions in the Florida Everglades: A Field and Laboratory Investigation (from the South Florida Restoration Science Forum, May 1999)
• Speciation and Fractionation Modeling Studies - Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) - Mercury Interaction
• Unraveling the Complexities of Mercury Methylation in the Everglades: The Use of Mesocosms to Test the Effects of "New" Mercury, Sulfate, Phosphate, and Dissolved Organic Carbon (from the GEER Conference, April 2003)

  Selected Bibliography

  Fact Sheet:

• Interactions of Mercury with Dissolved Organic Carbon in the Florida Everglades

  Report:

• Summary of Data from Onsite and Laboratory Analyses of Surface Water and Marsh Porewater from South Florida Water Management District Water Conservation Areas, the Everglades, South Florida, March 1995

  Papers:

• Binding of Mercury(II) to Aquatic Humic Substances: Influence of pH and Source of Humic Substances
• Binding of Mercury(II) to Dissolved Organic Matter: The Role of the Mercury-to-DOM Concentration Ratio
• Constants for Mercury Binding by Dissolved Organic Matter Isolates from the Florida Everglades
• Enhanced Dissolution of Cinnabar (Mercuric Sulfide) by Dissolved Organic Matter Isolated from the Florida Everglades
• Fulvic acid-sulfide ion competition for mercury ion binding in the Florida Everglades
• Inhibition of Precipitation and Aggregation of Metacinnabar (Mercuric Sulfide) by Dissolved Organic Matter Isolated from the Florida Everglades
• Mercury(II) Sorption to Two Florida Everglades Peats: Evidence for Strong and Weak Binding and Competition by Dissolved Organic Matter Released from the Peat