Mercury in Hair of Mammoth and Other Prehistorical Mammals as a Proxy of Hg Level in the Environment Associated with Climate Changes
Source abstract
Abstract
The paper presents the first results of Hg determination in the hair of prehistorical animals (woolly mammoth, steppe bison, and woolly rhino). Hair of prehistorical mammals can be used as an archive that preserves changes of environmental pollution at the paleoscale. The aim of our study was to assess the levels of Hg exposure of ancient animals and to understand whether Hg concentration in hair could be used as a proxy indicating changes of mercury levels in the environment following global climate changes. We assessed changes of Hg exposure recorded in hairs of seven specimens of mammoth fauna mammals that inhabited the Yakutia region in the period from 45 to 10 ka yr BP. Hg concentrations in hair varied from 0.017 to 0.177 µg/g; the lowest Hg concentration were determined in older specimens (45–33 kyr yr BP). The two highest concentrations belonged sample from the Last Glacial Maximum and the Karginian interstadial (57–24 kyr BP) periods. Our hypothesis is the increase of Hg concentrations in hair reflecting environmental Hg level might be forced by high dust load in cold periods and thawing permafrost in warm climatic periods. Long-term variations of Hg level recovered from Ice Age animals’ hair correlate with Hg profiles of concentration and deposition reconstructed from the Antarctica ice core.
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Research context
OpenAlex topics: Mercury impact and mitigation studies · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
Institute for Water and Environmental Problems, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science SB RAS, 656038 Barnaul, Russia
Diamond and Precious Metals Geology Institute, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, 677890 Yakutsk, Russia
Biological Department, Institute of Natural Sciences, M.K. Ammosov’s North-Eastern Federal University, 677000 Yakutsk, Russia
Funding
Institute for Water and Environmental Problems, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences; Institute of Diamond and Precious Metal Geology, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences; Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
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