Assessment of mercury pollution sources in beach sand and coastal soil by speciation analysis

Background An essential requisite for controlling and monitoring mercury in the environment is to identify its species in different types of soils and sediments, as this will help not only to establish its mobility in the environment and ecosystem and the degree of its toxicity, but also to establish the source of contamination. The objective of this work was to identify the origin of mercury in beach sands and soil taken from a coastal region with previously high mining and industrial activity by characterizing the mercury species using the technique known as thermal desorption (HgTPD).