Mercury levels and accumulation trends in organisms from the Argentine Sea: a critical review

MARCOVECCHIO, J.E.; BOTTÉ, S.E.; DE MARCO, S.G.

Belem, Brasil

Workshop; INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF MERCURY – IMPACTS OF HG ON SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA; 2003

Naional Institute for Minamata Disease and Universidade Federal do Pará

Studies on mercury occurrence, concentration and distribution in marine organisms from the Argentine Sea has been started in the earliest 80´s, and have been permanently developed up to the present. Significantly differences have been established between Hg contents within organisms living in coastal areas (i.e., fishes, mollusks, marine mammals, etc) and those species living offshore. In all cases biological tissues were mineralized according with an own modification of the method previously described by Uthe et al.(1970), while analytical determination of total mercury has been carried out through flameless atomic absorption spectroscopy with cold vapor technique (CV-FAAS). In all cases analytical quality were checked against international reference materials. Most of analyzed fish species from the Argentine Sea have presented mercury values lower than standards internationally accepted as apt for human consumption, even several cases (big sharks, flat fish, etc) with higher ones exists in particular sites of the studied area. In the case of marine mammals, most of analyzed species (including dolphins, porpoises, whales, sea lions and seals) have always presented recordable mercury contents, and in several cases very high ones. Finally, in the case of birds, also most of studied species have presented mercury residues in their tissues, with a wide range of values between them. Both mercury bioaccumulation and biomagnification processes were evaluated in the studied organisms, as well as the potential qualification of marine foodstuffs for human consumption. All these results were discussed within an environmental framework, keeping in focus the potentiallity of injuries against the Human health.