Dissolved total mercury and methylmercury concentrations in the Southern Ocean during the PS133/1 expedition (22 October – 9 November 2022)

DOI

Water samples for total mercury (Hg) and methylmercury (MeHg) were collected in the Southern Ocean between 22 October and 9 November 2022 during the PS133/1 expedition, covering depths from 20 to 7000 m. Sampling was conducted using an ultraclean Titan rosette system (SBE-911Plus, Seabird) equipped with 24 × 12 L Ocean Test Equipment (OTE) bottles and a metal-free winch with a synthetic reinforced Vectran cable. After recovery, the clean CTD rosette was covered with clean plastic caps and transferred by trolley to an ISO Class 5 clean laboratory container. Each bottle was introduced through a clean airlock, rinsed externally with Milli-Q water from the container's integrated water treatment system, and subsampled following GEOTRACES ultraclean protocols. Samples for total Hg were collected unfiltered into pre-cleaned 60 mL glass vials to minimize contamination. Samples for MeHg were collected unfiltered into 250 mL HDPE Nalgene bottles and acidified to 0.4 % v/v with ultrapure trace-metal-grade HCl. Total Hg concentrations were determined using a custom single gold-trap purge and trap system following US EPA Method 1631. Dissolved MeHg concentrations were quantified by gas chromatography coupled to sector field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (GC–SF–ICP–MS) with isotopic dilution calibration.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.987320
Related Identifier IsSupplementTo https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GB008767
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.987320
Provenance
Creator Pérez-Rodríguez, Marta ORCID logo; Biester, Harald
Publisher PANGAEA
Contributor Tippenhauer, Sandra; Trimborn, Scarlett
Publication Year 2026
Funding Reference Danish National Research Foundation https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001732 Crossref Funder ID DNRF145 Danish Center for Hadal Research, HADAL; German Research Foundation https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659 Crossref Funder ID 528941462 https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/528941462 Controls of Primary Production on Southern Ocean Mercury Cycling (COPPSOM); German Research Foundation https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659 Crossref Funder ID GPF 20-1_053 Island Impact: Understanding the Regional Impact of South Georgia on Southern ACC Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Function; German Research Foundation https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001659 Crossref Funder ID GPF 20-2_024 South Polar Carbon: Benthic Carbon Mineralization and Preservation in Southern Ocean Bathyal, Abyssal and Hadal Sediments
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 100 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-40.002W, -56.289S, -24.946E, -51.288N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2022-10-22T02:01:02Z
Temporal Coverage End 2022-11-09T19:36:26Z