Oceanographers examine mercury levels of pelagic fish in Hawaii
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 17:35
in Earth & Climate
In the open ocean, species of large predatory fish will swim and hunt for food at various depths, which leads to unique diets in these fish. Oceanographers and geologists in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) and colleagues have found that those fish that hunt deeper in the open ocean have higher mercury concentrations than those that feed near the surface of the ocean because their deep water food has higher mercury. This research was detailed in the August 18th early edition of the prestigous journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.