Notice of RetractionConcentration and Distribution of Mercury Speciation in Waters from an Old Gold Mining Area in Zhaoyuan, China

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

We hereby retract the content of this paper. Reasonable effort should be made to remove all past references to this paper.

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The concentration and speciation of mercury (Hg) in water samples collected from gold mining area were investigated to understand whether the waters was polluted in Linglong Town, Zhaoyuan, China, by the long period of gold mining. The concentrations of total Hg (THg) ranged from 0.032 to 0.225 μg/L, with average concentration 0.078 μg/L. Of different species of Hg, particulate Hg (PHg) ranged from 0.021 to 0.106 μg/L, dissolved Hg (DHg) ranged from 0.011 to 0.119 μg/L, and reactive Hg (RHg) ranged from 0.0009 to 0.0025 μg/L. The Hg concentrations of sediments varied from 0.456 to 5.712 mg/kg. However, Hg contents of sediments in rivers were higher than that of in reservoirs. In most water samples, the percentage of PHg exceeded 50 percent. A positive correlation was found between PHg and THg (p<;0.01). In contrast to waterbodies in other areas, Hg concentrations of waters in Linglong were considerably lower than polluted areas by gold mining with amalgamation and Hg mining, close to the concentrations in high Hg background areas in China, but obviously higher than natural waters. It indicated Hg pollution in Linglong to a certain extent due to gold mining activities.