Do volcanoes emit mercury? Understanding the behaviour of Hg in volcanic products.

火山会释放汞吗？

• 批准号: NE/C511180/2
• 负责人: David Pyle
• 金额: $ 20.82万
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2006 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FC511180%2F2
• 关键词: Do; volcanoes; emit; mercury; Understanding

This is a proposal to make some modern measurements of the quantities of volatile trace metals that are released to the atmosphere by volcanoes. Volcanic gases are often equated with sulphur. In fact, sulphur is just one component of volcanic gases; and in just the same way that sulphur from volcanoes can affect the atmosphere, so may other species. We wish to make measurements of mercury at volcanoes. Mercury is a curious element: in its elemental form (Hg(o)) it is very volatile, and is not usually very reactive. As a result, once it is in the atmosphere it will stay there for a long time (about a year), before eventually being removed. Mercury is of general interest because it is highly toxic [the cause, for example, of the condition described by the phrase 'mad as a hatter']. It has no 'useful' function for biological organisms, but becomes concentrated up the food chain. One of the big problems with the current understanding of natural mercury in the atmosphere is that the books don't balance: we don't know very well where mercury is released from; and we don't know where it ends up. It is possible that volcanoes contribute to this imbalance: some people think that volcanoes may release a large amount of mercury, perhaps as much as half of all natural emissions; others think that it is so small that it can be ignored. By making measurements close to the vent of two active volcanoes using some new and very sensitive equipment, we hope to resolve this problem: at the very least, we'll know how much mercury is released by steady, gentle activity at the world's persistently active volcanoes. These volcanoes might not hit the headlines, but our idea is that they are always there in the background, supplying gases and particles to the atmosphere. A second scientific problem that we want to look at is to understand how mercury escapes from molten lavas; in what forms it escapes (is it mainly in the gaseous form? or does some of it very quickly form very small particles? and if so , what happens to those particles?); and we want to use the way that mercury behaves to understand more about the extreme (hot, oxidising, chemically reactive) environment that is a volcanic plume. A third aspect that we also wish to study is to use the erupted rocks and minerals (at the same two volcanoes, Etna and Kilauea) to try and understand how mercury and its chemically-similar 'cousins' (metals including Cd, Zn, Cu) behave as a rock cools and crystallises. We think that mercury and cadmium, for example, should have a slight preference for certain minerals (clinopyroxene, feldspar), and that as a result their concentration in the melt won't change much during crystallisation, but may change a little by 'degassing'. We can test this idea using precise (laser) measurements of small samples of real rocks.

这是一项建议，以对火山释放到大气中的挥发性痕量金属的数量进行一些现代测量。火山气体通常等于硫。实际上，硫只是火山气的一部分。与火山的硫所可能影响大气一样，其他物种也可以。我们希望对火山进行汞的测量。汞是一个奇怪的元素：以其元素形式（Hg（o）），它非常挥发，通常不是很反应。结果，一旦它在大气中，它将在那里呆了很长时间（大约一年），然后最终被删除。汞具有普遍关注，因为它是有毒的[例如，“疯狂”作为hatter'的条件的原因]。它对于生物生物没有“有用的”功能，但变得集中在食物链上。当前对大气中天然汞的理解的最大问题之一是，这些书没有平衡：我们对汞的释放位置不太了解；而且我们不知道它的结局。火山可能会导致这种不平衡：有些人认为火山可能会释放大量汞，也许是所有自然排放的一半。其他人则认为它很小，以至于可以忽略。通过使用一些新的非常敏感的设备对两个活火山的通风口进行接近的测量，我们希望解决这个问题：至少，我们知道在世界上持续活跃的活火山上，通过稳定，温和的活动释放了多少汞。这些火山可能不会撞到头条新闻，但我们的想法是它们总是在背景中，向大气中提供气体和颗粒。我们要看的第二个科学问题是了解汞如何从熔融熔岩中逃脱。它以什么形式逃脱（主要是以气态形式？或其中一些形式很快形成很小的颗粒？如果是这样，那些颗粒会发生什么？）；我们想利用汞表现方式更多地了解火山羽流的极端（热，氧化，化学反应性）环境。我们也希望研究的第三个方面是使用爆发的岩石和矿物（在同一两个火山，埃特纳和基拉韦亚）尝试了解汞及其化学相似的“ Cousins”（包括CD，Zn，Cu）的化学相似的“ Cousins”（包括CD，Zn，Cu）的表现为岩石冷却和结晶。我们认为，例如，汞和镉应该对某些矿物（Clinopyroxene，feldspar）略有偏爱，因此，它们在结晶过程中的浓度不会发生太大变化，但可能会随着“脱气”的变化。我们可以使用精确的（激光）测量真实岩石的小样品来测试这个想法。

项目成果

Melt inclusions track pre-eruption storage and dehydration of magmas at Etna

• DOI: 10.1130/g30040a.1
• 发表时间: 2009-06-01
• 期刊: GEOLOGY
• 影响因子: 5.8
• 作者: Collins, S. J.;Pyle, D. M.;Maclennan, J.
• 通讯作者: Maclennan, J.

Major and trace element distributions around active volcanic vents determined by analyses of grasses: implications for element cycling and bio-monitoring

通过草分析确定活火山口周围的主要和微量元素分布：对元素循环和生物监测的影响

• DOI: 10.1007/s00445-010-0374-7
• 发表时间: 2010
• 期刊: Bulletin of Volcanology
• 影响因子: 3.5
• 作者: Martin R