Mercury Depletion

L. David Roper
http://www.roperld.com/personal/RoperLDavid.htm
21 December 2007

Mercury is mainly used in scientific instruments.The graph below shows the mercury extraction data for the world and Verhulst functions fits to the data in order to extrapolate into the future.


Mercury extraction rate for the world and a Verhulst functions fit to the data.

The red curve uses the estimated reserves value, 94 x 103 tonnes.

The crossover point at ~1956 when the amount extracted is equal to the amount left to be extracted is shown here:

Mercury Per Capita

Dividing the extraction curve above by the projected world population (asymptote ~1010), one gets:

Minerals Depletion