Results: Increased Burning of Peatland Soils Creates "Hotspots" for Mercury and Carbon Emissions in Wildfires

This project found that when one includes mercury released from burning peatlands in boreal forests, mercury emissions can be 15-fold larger than previously suggested. Read about the study in this USGS press release or in the Geophysical Research Letters article. The following list includes related papers which also may be of interest:

• A paper documenting the release of carbon, nitrogen, and mercury from an Alaskan prescribed burn called FROSTFIRE
• A related paper describing FROSTFIRE (see reference above)
• A paper describing peatland burning in historical and future climates
• A paper discussing how fire regimes are changing in boreal forest
• A paper documenting the amount of mercury in vegetation
• This paper discusses combustion releases of hydrocarbon and other trace organics from fire