The soils affected by the spill of a pyrite mine were analysed in 100 sampling points at three depths (0-10, 10-30, and 30-50 cm) in 1998 (after the tailings were removed), 1999 (after the cleaning of the highly contaminated areas), and 2004 (after the tilling of the upper 20-25 cm). The comparative study reveals that the removal of the tailings left a heterogeneous distribution pattern of the ...

Standard procedure for dispersing natural soils for particle size fractionation can be too aggressive for soil containing coal and other organic particles from coal industries. We have investigated ultrasonic dispersion for the latter in four soils differing in pedogenesis (Phaeozem, Podzol, reclaimed mine soils), carbon content (27.5±138.6 g kg), clay content (80±153 g kg) and sources of parti...

Antimony (Sb) is a naturally occurring toxic element commonly associated with arsenic (As) in the environment and both elements have similar chemistry and toxicity. Increasing numbers of studies have focused on microbial As transformations, while microbial Sb interactions are still not well understood. To gain insight into microbial roles in the geochemical cycling of Sb and As, soils from Sb m...

Dispersion and runoff of mine tailings have serious implications for human and ecosystem health in the surroundings of mines. Water, soils and plants were sampled in transects perpendicular to the Santiago stream in Zimapan, Hidalgo, which receives runoff sediments from two acidic and one alkaline mine tailing. Concentrations of potentially toxic elements (PTE) were measured in water, soils (rh...

There are many sources trough which the soil get enriched and contaminated with REEs. The determination of REEs in environmental samples has been limited because of the lack of sensitive analytical techniques. Soil samples were collected from four sites including open cast coal mine, natural coal burning, coal washery and control in the coal field located in Dhanbad, India. Total concentrations...

The problem of reducing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere is indirectly related to the potential storage options in different environments in the earth's crust. One of the promising possibilities for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere is the geological storage of CO2 in deep, unminable coal seams. Measurements of the CO2 adsorption of 10 lignite samples from the Velenj...

Bioaccessible U, Th, Pb and the 238U decay products 214Pb and 210Pb have been determined, using a modified Unified BARGE Method (UBM), in waste solids and soils from an abandoned uranium mine in South West England, UK. Maximum aqua regia extractable concentrations for U, Th and Pb were 16,200, 3.8 and 4750 μg g-1, respectively. 238U had highest activity concentrations near the mine shaft, where...

16 The common practice of remediating metal contaminated mine soils with compost can reduce 17 metal mobility and promote re-vegetation, but the effect of introduced or colonising 18 earthworms on metal solubility is largely unknown. We amended soils from an As/Cu (1150 19 mgAs kg and 362 mgCu kg) and Pb/Zn mine (4550 mgPb kg and 908 mgZn kg) with 0, 20 5, 10, 15 and 20 % compost and then intro...

Coal and lignite play a major energy supply role in many European countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet mining activities are a heavy source of ecosystem contamination, posing significant environmental threats. The primary goal of this study was to isolate and identify autochthonous lignite mine spoil bacteria and evaluate their potential in bioremediation of these polluted soils. Tw...

Mining is one of the major causes of elevation of naturally-occurring radionuclide material (NORM) concentrations on the Earth's surface. The aim of this study was to evaluate the human risk associated with exposure to NORMs in soils from mine tailings around a gold mine. A broad-energy germanium detector was used to measure activity concentrations of these NORMs in 66 soil samples (56 from fiv...