2009-2010 Measurements of Atmospheric Mercury Species at Two Sites in Atlantic Canada
John Dalziel*, Robert Tordon and Stephen Beauchamp
Air Quality Science Division
Meteorological Service of Canada
Environment Canada
45 Alderney Drive
Dartmouth, N.S. B2Y 2N6
In 2009, Environment Canada began continuously measuring the levels of three gaseous Hg species – gaseous elemental mercury (GEM), gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM) and particulate bound (<2.5 µm) mercury (PBM2.5) at two sites in Atlantic Canada. One site located on a building roof adjacent to the Halifax harbour in Nova Scotia while the second site is located at Kejimkujik National Park on Environment Canada's CAPMoN site (NS01). At both sites, two hour sampling cycles were conducted to pre-concentrate GOM and PBM2.5 and the GEM was measured at 5 minute intervals during these cycles. The continuous sampling and analysis of gaseous mercury species was conducted using Tekran's 1130/1135 samplers and the 2537 analyser. This poster illustrates and discusses the nine months of GEM, GOM and PBM2.5 data collected at both sites from October 2009 to July 2010. The Halifax data for this time period show GEM having a median of 1.62 ng m-3 and a range from 0.63 to 371 ng m-3; GOM show a median of 1.50 pg m-3 with a range from detection limit (dl) to 62 pg m-3 and for PBM2.5 a median of 2.10 pg m-3 and a range from dl to 41 pg m-3. The data from Kejimkujik, show GEM having a median of 1.42 ng m-3 and a range of 0.42 to 2.13 ng m-3; GOM a median of 0.35 pg m-3 with a range from the detection limit (dl) to 12 pg m-3 and for PBM2.5 a median of 1.78 pg m-3 and a range from dl to 34 pg m-3. A comparison of the mercury species data from both sites show for GEM and GOM the median values from this 9 month data set are significantly (P=<0.001) different. A significant difference between median values of PBM2.5 for Halifax and Kejimkujik was not evident from the data. This poster will also illustrate the temporal trends observed for the gaseous Hg species from both sites during this 9 month period.
*Corresponding author: Phone: 902-426-6791, Email: