The transfer of methylmercury between ambient air and different lake waters

With the intention to elucidate, at least partly, why lakes situated nearby sometimes exhibit very different concentration of methylmercury in their fish population, two such lakes have been studied. A newly developed bubbling method was applied to determine very low concentrations of airborne methylmercury and the actual distribution constant (air/water). The water in one of the lakes studied was clear. In the other it was brownish. The result of the investigation showed that water in the clearwater lake with respect to the distribution of methylmercury between air and water behaved nearly in the same way as MQ-water. The behaviour of the brownish lakewater was however quite different. It turned out that the bubbling procedure in this case resulted in generation of some methylmercury in this water.