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Hazard assessment of soil- and mine tailings heavy metals leaching in Dabaoshan mining area of northern Guangdong, South China.

JIANG Yan-xing1, LI De-xian2**, GAO Yang1, ZHANG Jing1, WANG Fu-shun1   

  1. (1School of Environment and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China; 2Institute of Mineral Resources, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China)
  • Online:2013-04-10 Published:2013-04-10

Abstract: In order to understand the remigration characteristics of the heavy metals in mining areas under the conditions of precipitation, soil and mine tailing samples were collected from the Dabaoshan mining area of northern Guangdong, and a leaching experiment was conducted under neutral conditions to analyze the release patterns of heavy metals. The leached amount of the heavy metals from soils was significantly smaller than that from the mine tailings, but the leaching patterns were similar. At initial stage, the heavy metals leached out rapidly, but with the increasing time, the leached amount decreased, and reached to a stable state at the time around 100 hours. The leaching rate of the heavy metals was in the order of Fe>Cu>Zn>Tl>Pb>Cd. The analysis of annual leaching rates showed that under the action of natural precipitation, great amount of heavy metals in the soils and mine tailings would leach to the local rivers and underground water systems, and seriously endanger the local residents.

Key words: forest soil, potentially mineralizable carbon, easily mineralizable carbon, carbohydrate, seasonal dynamics.