Mercury (Hg) decontamination in active and decommissioned mining areas is a difficult task since Hg may affect environmental matrices and man-made materials. Despite its toxicity as an inorganic form being rather limited with respect to organic compounds (e.g., methyl-Hg), severe effects to human health and ecosystems are recognized. In this work, we review the geochemical activities carried out in the last 13 years at the Abbadia San Salvatore (AbSS) mining and production area. This site belongs to Mt. Amiata (Tuscany, central Italy), which is considered the third-largest Hg-district in the world. Air, water, soil and man-made materials within the AbSS area were investigated to verify to what extent such matrices were affected by Hg contamination. The geochemical investigations are used as important tools to proceed with specific remediation operations of edifices, mining structures and machineries as well as the local groundwater system. To the best of our knowledge, restoration of decommissioned areas affected by Hg contamination at a large scale, such as the AbSS exploitation and production site, is rather uncommon. Currently, the remediation activities in the AbSS area are going on and they are expected to be concluded at the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027, when the former mining area will turn into a public archeometallurgical museum.
Vaselli et al. (Sat,) studied this question.