Figure 2.

Liquid mercury is used in artisanal and small‐scale gold mining. a) Trommels are used to crush rock and mix mercury with ore. b) As much as 1 kg of liquid mercury is added to each trommel along with water and 20 kg of ore. c) Excess mercury is recovered, but mercury‐rich mine tailings are often released directly into the environment. d) Additional mercury is used on the mercury–gold concentrate to form a solid amalgam, which may be isolated by hand. e) The mercury–gold amalgam is heated with a torch to distill the mercury and allow isolation of gold. f) A sample of gold isolated in an artisanal mine. All images are used with permission from Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta (YTS) and Pure Earth.