Mercury and methylmercury in Baltic Sea sediments, and Polish and Lithuanian soils

We re view the cur rent en vi ron men tal pol lu tion by mer cury in the soils of Po land and Lith u a nia and in the sed i ments of the Bal tic Sea. Mer cury is doc u mented to have many neg a tive im pacts on the en vi ron ment as a toxic trace el e ment. In many dif - fer ent chem i cal forms, it is be ing re leased into the en vi ron ment by both geogenic and anthropogenic ac tiv i ties, with most be - ing re leased from anthropogenic sources. Methylmercury is con sid ered one of the most toxic forms found in the en vi ron ment. Mer cury levels in sed i ment and var i ous point sources in creased af ter World War II in the Bal tic Sea, which was used as a dumpsite. Pre vi ous stud ies show no tice able dif fer ences in to tal mer cury in the Bal tic Sea. In the Warta and Odra rivers in Po land, mer cury levels are also higher than the back ground value, though re cent find ings sug gest that river sed i - ments are not the main source of mer cury to ma rine sed i ments. Con cen tra tions in soils in Po land and Lith u a nia were be low the level of limit val ues (1 and 1.5 mg/kg-1 re spec tively), but Up per Silesia showed con cen tra tions (up to 4.01 mg center dot kg-1) above the limit val ues. Fur ther more, be tween 1992 and 2006, mer cury levels in Wroc3aw dropped dra mat i cally. The dom i - nant trees in the area can af fect mer cury ac cu mu la tion. No data were avail able for com par i son with the soils in Es to nia and Latvia.