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ELEMENTAL MERCURY IN COPPER, SILVER, AND GOLD ORES: AN UNEXPECTED CONTRIBUTION TO LAKE SUPERIOR SEDIMENTS WITH GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS
Citation:
Kerfoot, W. C., S. L. Harting, R. Rossmann, AND J. A. Robbins. ELEMENTAL MERCURY IN COPPER, SILVER, AND GOLD ORES: AN UNEXPECTED CONTRIBUTION TO LAKE SUPERIOR SEDIMENTS WITH GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS. Allan, R; Horowitz, A; and J. Miller (ed.), JOURNAL OF GEOCHEMISTRY 2:185-202, (2002).
Description:
Mercury and copper inventories are low in central Lake Superior and increase markedly towards the Keweenaw Peninsula...where copper, mercury, and silver inventories are elevated and highly correlated. High copper, silver, and mercury inventories can be traced back to shoreline stamp sand piles, the parent ores, and to smelters. - - - Stamp mills discharged at least 364 million metric tons to "stamp sand" tailings, whereas smelters refined five million metric tons of native copper, liberating together at least 42 metric tons of mercury. The Keweenaw situation is not unique, as mineral-bound mercury is commonplace in the U.S. and Canadian Greenstone Belts and of worldwide occurrence in massive base metal ores.