The wild fig tree can provide a cheap and effective way to monitor mercury pollution near hand -made and small gold mining places throughout the global south. A study published in the magazine Borders in Environmental Sciences It was analyzed if the fig trees (ficusIt can serve as a vital monitoring tool near small gold mines.
Mines, mostly in South America, Southeast Asia, and Saher African sub -Africa, are used as liquid mercury to separate crude from gold, which led to the release of high levels of pollution by mercury. The contaminated air caused by burning mercury golden gone for gold insulation can endanger human health and animals. But the industry – largely unorganized – lacks reliable monitoring data, write researchers.
A ficus It is a rapid growth form that develops in tropical areas. These trees have annual rings, which are not common in tropical trees.
The researchers analyzed the tree nuclei from five places to study in the Madri de Dios area in Peru. Three places were adjacent to small mines and two places that were far from Minas Gerais.
Mercury levels in tree rings were “strongly linked” to mercury levels in the atmosphere, according to researchers, and trees closest to mines had higher concentrations of mercury in their rings. The air sample confirmed mercury measurements.
The study studied tree rings from 1941 to 1999 and from 2000 to 2019. In two locations near modern mining cities where the mercury and gold mix was burned, the team found less concentrations of mercury in the trees during the previous period, when mining operations in the area were not firm, and higher levels after expanding gold mining.
Trees provide a “broader and cheaper biological network” over decades of model modular mines monitoring, which focuses on short periods, as researchers write.
“We are trying to reduce emissions. To do this, we must be able to measure them, to know the impact over time,” says the author of the study, Jacqueline Gerson, Assistant Professor of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, author of the study, Jacqueline Gerson, Assistant Professor of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University.
“This really provides a method that can be used throughout the global south to understand mercury changes over time, as well as mercury space indicators.”
Exclusive general/the Washington Post
