Mercury in European agricultural and grazing land soils

Agricultural (Ap, Ap-horizon, 0–20 cm) and grazing land soil samples (Gr, 0–10 cm) were collected from a large part of Europe (33 countries, 5.6 million km2) at an average density of 1 sample site/2500 km2. The resulting more than 2 × 2000 soil samples were air dried, sieved to <2 mm and analysed for their Hg concentrations following an aqua regia extraction. Median concentrations for Hg are 0.030 mg/kg (range: <0.003–1.56 mg/kg) for the Ap samples and 0.035 mg/kg (range: