Environmentalists from France and China in samples of soil and water from the bottom of the Mariana trench found a large number metilirovannah of mercury, the source of which can only be a human civilization. Earlier this is the toxic chemical found only in the surface layers of the oceans.
In the past we have suggested that methylated mercury occurs only in the upper layers of the ocean. Therefore, it was thought that the deep species of fish were protected from the accumulation of these toxins. It turned out that it is not — EurekAlert quotes one of the study’s authors, Chinese environmentalist Jouy sun.
Mercury compounds are harmful to humans and other living beings. A particular danger mercury poses to indigenous peoples of the North, who eat fish, meat of seals and polar bears. Scientists believe that pure mercury is mobile, but chemically inactive, and methylated — on the contrary, easily penetrates into living organisms.
During a series of dives in the Mariana trench ecologists have collected samples of soil, water and deep-water crustaceans, which live at depths of 5.5 to 9.2 thousand meters. Large amounts of mercury they are found everywhere, the ratio of its isotopes was the same as fish, shellfish and other inhabitants of the near-surface layer of the seas. Scientists have concluded that from the upper layers of the Pacific Union gradually penetrates to the bottom and quickly accumulates there.
Wrote NEWS.ru in the night from 8 to 9 may, the Russian Autonomous unmanned vehicle “Vityaz” made of ultra-deepwater dive to the bottom of the Mariana trench. As told by the senior consultant of the press service of Fund of perspective researches (FPI) Vadim Saranov, “hero” sank to a depth of 10 km, having stayed there for three hours without taking the time to dive and the ascent. The complex recorded a depth of 10 028 m, a record for devices of this class. For the dive machine broke about 4 miles away in the Abyss of the Challenger, making the mapping and videoing the seabed, as well as studying the parameters of the marine environment.
