ABSTRACT
Serious ecological disasters in the 1950s in Japan and Sweden brought mercury into the limelight of public interest. The semi-millennium of mining and processing of mercury ore at one of the largest natural mercury accumulations of the world-the Idrija mercury ore deposit-did not attract attention; which was probably due to the lack of an accidental event, at least in recent history. Weathering of the ore deposit with its load of 500,000 tonnes of mercury in the form of cinnabar and native metal has been a low intensity process in comparison with the anthropogenic intervention. This implied large mass transport and energy transfer inducing significant chemical disequilibria and intensive dispersion of mercury as a pollutant. The primary task of the survey outlined in this chapter was to complete an overall picture of the pollution within different environmental compartments. The cessation of mining was a decision of the Slovenian government as a requirement for environmental protection did not quieten public anxiety. Thousands of tonnes of mercury has been spilled or emitted in some other manner to the environment at Idrija. This survey is an attempt to illustrate a more realistic and complete assessment of the size of the contamination, its character and fate, which may assist in any future health adverse effects and a requirement for remediation.
