Amalgam (chemistry) term pollution. Today, mercury amalgamation has been replaced by other methods to recuperate gold and silver from ore in developed nations. Hazards of mercurial toxic waste have played a major role in the phasing out of the mercury amalgamation processes. However mercury amalgamation is still regularly used by small-scale gold placer miners (often illegally) & particularly in developing countries. Mercury salts are, compared to mercury metal and amalgams, highly toxic due to their solubility in water. The presence of these salts in water can be detected with a probe that uses the readiness of mercury ions to form an amalgam
Amalgam tattoo from pencil leads), and is sometimes termed a "graphite tattoo", although this is less common than tattooing with amalgam. The diagnosis is clinical. Amalgam tattoo can be distinguished from other causes of localized oral pigmentation because it does not change significantly in size or color, although it may appear to slowly enlarge for several months after the initial implantation of the metal particles. Some amalgam tattoos appear radio-opaque on radiographs (i.e. they show up on x-rays), although in many cases amalgam tattoos have no radiographic features since the responsible particle(s) of amalgam are very small even though clinically the area