The effects of the long-term contamination of water reservoirs with mine effluents were investigated at an abandoned mine site in Upper Silesia, southern Poland. The studies covered metal content and mobility in bottom sediments as well as water chemistry in relation to the content of metals in selected macrophytes and their physiology and the composition of phyto- and zooplankton communities. ...

To circumvent some of the previous limitations associated with contaminant-monitoring programs, we tested the suitability of the water strider (Hemiptera: Gerridae) as a mercury sentinel by comparing total mercury concentrations in water striders and brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) from a variety of stream sites in New Brunswick, Canada. There was a strong association between the two variab...

Contributors to this symposium have outlined the present status of our scientific knowledge of what is one of the most fascinating regions on this globe, the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand. No completely satisfactory definition of this region exists. It may be defined as those islands which lie within the Subantarctic zone of surface waters, bounded to the north by the Subtropical Converge...

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) is a federal government department specializing in the sustainable development and use of natural resources—energy, minerals and metals, forests—and in Earth sciences. NRCan deals with natural resource issues that are important to Canadians. These issues are examined from both a national and international perspective, our expertise in science and technology, pol...

The generation and migration of bedforms (eg, ripples, megaripples and sand bars) on sandy bottoms in the nearshore (0-8 m water depths) provides a mechanism for objects on the seafloor to become buried. As a bedform migrates past a mine, the mine will fall to the low point of the bedform trough before subsequently being buried by the passage of the following bedform crest. The statistics of mi...

An acid metal-contaminated soil from the Aljustrel mining area (a pyrite mine located in SW Portugal in the Iberian Pyrite Belt) was subjected to chemical characterisation and total metal quantification (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn). Water-soluble metals were determined and a sequential extraction procedure was used to investigate metal speciation. Two bioavailable metal fractions were determined...

The process of mining affects all the components of environment and ecology. resulting in different types of pollution problems like soil, surface and ground water pollution. Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and mine spoil dumps may contain an elevated amount of Heavy metals. Physiological effect of heavy metal toxicity on algal species like Chlorella vulgaris, Scenedesmusbijugatus, Oscillatoriaamphibi...

Coal is an important non-renewable energy source of and can be associated with radioactive elements. In Figueira city, Paraná state, Brazil, it was recorded high uranium activity near the coal mine that supplies a local thermoelectric power plant. In this context, the radon activity (Rn-222, produced by the Ra-226 decay in the U-238 natural series) was evaluated in groundwater, river water and ...

The human-health risk posed by gardening near a legacy mine and smelter in an arsenic-endemic region of Arizona was characterized in this study. Residential soils were used in a greenhouse study to grow common vegetables, and local residents, after training, collected soil, water, and vegetables samples from their home gardens. Concentrations of arsenic measured in water, soil, and vegetable sa...

A declining crocodile population and fish mortalities attributed to pansteatitis, along with increasing blooms of Microcystis aeruginosa and Ceratium hirundinella, have led to serious concerns about water quality in Loskop Dam, on the Olifants River, South Africa. Major impacts include acid mine drainage and eutrophication associated with sewage effluent. However, the specific causes of panstea...