Any of the four stage of the small-scale gold production process, namely amalgamation, separation of amalgamation, removal of excess mercury, and burning of the remaining amalgam, release mercury in the environment. As a result and along Wikipedia, "11% of the human-generated sources of mercury (50% of the total, the other half comes from natural sources, such as the volcanic activity) comes from gold production. The three largest point sources for mercury emissions in the U.S. are the three largest gold mines. Hydrogeochemical release of mercury from gold-mine tailings has been accounted as a significant source of atmospheric mercury in eastern Canada". It is acknowledged to be second only (thought quite far behind…) to coal combustion as a source of human-generated mercury emission in the atmosphere.
http://mining.about.com/od/Accidents/a/Why-Is-Mercury-Used-In-Gold-Mining-And-Why-Is-It-A-Problem.htm
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