UCSB researcher documents the enduring contaminant legacy of the California gold rush

An unintended legacy of California's gold rush, which began in 1848, endures today in the form of mercury-laden sediment. New research by Michael Singer, associate researcher at UC Santa Barbara's Earth Research Institute, shows that sediment-absorbed mercury is being transported by major floods from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Central Valley lowlands. The findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fuente : http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/uoc...