The purpose of this study was to directly measure the dry deposition of gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM) in western Maryland. Annual estimates were made using passive ion-exchange surrogate surfaces and a resistance model. Surrogate surfaces were deployed for seventeen weekly sampling periods between September 2009 and October 2010. Dry deposition rates from surrogate surfaces ranged from 80 to 1512pgm -2h -1. GOM dry deposition rates were strongly correlated (r 2=0.75) with the weekly average atmospheric GOM concentrations, which ranged from 2.3 to 34.1pgm -3. Dry deposition of GOM could be predicted from the ambient air concentrations of GOM using this equation: GOM dry deposition (pgm -2h -1)=43.2×GOM concentration-80.3. Dry deposition velocities computed using GOM concentrations and surrogate surface GOM dry deposition rates, ranged from 0.2 to 1.7cms -1. Modeled dry deposition rates were highly correlated (r 2=0.80) with surrogate surface dry deposition rates. Using the overall weekly average surrogate surface dry deposition rate (369±340pgm -2h -1), we estimated an annual GOM dry deposition rate of 3.2μgm -2year -1. Using the resistance model, we estimated an annual GOM dry deposition rate of 3.5μgm -2year -1. Our annual GOM dry deposition rates were similar to the dry deposition (3.3μgm -2h -1) of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) at our site. In addition, annual GOM dry deposition was approximately 1/2 of the average annual wet deposition of total mercury (7.7±1.9μgm -2year -1) at our site. Total annual mercury deposition from dry deposition of GOM and GEM and wet deposition was approximately 14.4μgm -2year -1, which was similar to the average annual litterfall deposition (15±2.1μgm -2year -1) of mercury, which was also measured at our site. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.
CITATION STYLE
Castro, M. S., Moore, C., Sherwell, J., & Brooks, S. B. (2012). Dry deposition of gaseous oxidized mercury in Western Maryland. Science of the Total Environment, 417–418, 232–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.12.044
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