Silver is well known to be thermally etched in an oxygen-rich atmosphere and has been extensively studied in the laboratory to
understand thermal etching and to limit its effect when this material is used as a catalyst. Yet, in many industrial applications
the surface of rolled silver sheets is used without particular surface preparation. Here, it is shown by combining FIB-tomography,
FIB-SIMS and analytical SEM that the kinetics of thermal etch pitting are significantly faster on rolled Ag surfaces than on polished
surfaces. This occurs due to range of interacting phenomena including (i) the reaction of subsurface carbon-contamination with
dissolved oxygen to form pores that grow to intersect the surface, (ii) surface reconstruction around corrosion pits and surface
scratches, and (iii) sublimation at low pressure and high temperature. A method to identify subsurface pores is developed to show
that the pores have {111} and {100} internal facets and may be filled with a gas coming from the chemical reaction of oxygen and
carbon contamination.