Results of salmon study

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Results of salmon study
The slides at right show levels of mercury found in salmon muscle and salmon liver. Click on each image to view a larger version.

The top chart depicts total mercury THg (left side), and methyl mercury MeHg (right side) found in salmon muscle (wet weight).

The bottom chart depicts total mercury Hg (left side), and methyl mercury MeHg (right side) found in salmon liver (wet weight).

The unit of measure ng/g (nanograms per gram) is the concentration of mercury in a gram of sample. The measurement can be easily converted to parts per million, the unit of measure used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For example, if a fish sample contains 50 ng/g of mercury, that would be the equivalent of .5 parts per million, or one-half part per million.

Together these charts indicate that all measurements were at or below the FDA guideline level.

(Courtesy Xioming Zhang, UAF Chemistry Department.)