Mining soil metal concentration

Diverse techniques have been employed to identify the sources of elements in atmospheric dust (and surface dust) (Table V). Some involve considering trends in concentration and others use various statistical methods. The degree of sophistication and detail obtained from the analyses increases from top left to bottom right of the Table. The sources identified as contributing the elements in rural and urban atmospheric dusts are detailed in Table VI. The principal sources are crustal material, soil, coal and oil combustion emissions, incinerated refuse emissions, motor vehicle emissions, marine spray, cement and concrete weathering, mining and metal working emissions. Many elements occur in more than one source, and they are classified in the... 

In many mountain-industrial areas there are 3 1 landscape-functional zones with different extents of the anthropogenic transformation of natural environments. As a rule, the first zone is the spatial complex joining mines, pits and tails site area with almost whole degradation of soil and vegetation cover and high metal concentrations in dust, technogenic depositions, waters and plants. 

Heavy metal toxicity in plants is infrequent (143). In many cases, metal concentrations in plant parts show poor correlation with soil concentrations of the element (147). Plants tend to exclude certain elements and readily accept or concentrate others. Lisk (148) reported natural plant soil concentration ratios of 0.05 or less for As, Be, Cr, Ga, Hg, Ni, and V. Cadmium appears to be actively concentrated and selenium appears to be easily exchangeable. Indicator plants are capable of markedly concentrating specific elements, e.g., Astragalus spp. for selenium (138) and Hybanthus floribundus for nickel (149). Plants growing on mine wastes have been shown to evolve populations which exhibit metal-specific tolerances (150). 

Soils in the neighbourhood of metal mines and smelters show metal concentrations exceeding up to 100 times the background. In Pb-Zn mining regions of Poland, the highest concentrations of some metals are found, e.g. Pb 8200 ppm, Cd 140 ppm, Zn 13 250 ppm. Also very high amounts of Cu up to 7400 ppm and Pb 2000 ppm were found in soils near copper mines and smelters. 

Mining and industrial activities produce large quantities of volatiles and dust particles and increase concentrations of trace elements and heavy metals in soils, waters, and vegetation. When mineral deposits containing concentrated trace elements and heavy metals are exposed at the earth s... 

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