See more from this Division: Topical Sessions
See more from this Session: Soil Geochemistry: Databases and Applications at Regional to Continental Scales
Abstract:
This region, and specifically the area of Mineral de Pozos, was an old mining district, dating since XVII century. There it was established a 40x40 km grid, with a sampling density of 16 square kilometers (100 sampling points). After a near total digestion and ICP-MS analysis, the A horizon data showed geochemical anomalies for several potentially toxic elements like As (up to 1335 mg/kg), Cd (up to 54.25 mg/kg), Hg (up to 354 mg/kg), Pb (up to 5,935 mg/kg) and Se (up to 24 mg/kg).
The geochemical anomalies are located over the mineralized zones of Mineral de Pozos and Santa Gertrudis, but these two areas also have several waste rock deposits, that after being sampled showed the following maximum values: As (1,550 mg/kg), Cd (46.30 mg/kg), Hg (128 mg/kg), Pb (7,300 mg/kg) and Se (69 mg/kg).
Based on these results, the deposits represent a potential source of soil contamination, but at this point it is still difficult to differentiate the natural geochemical background from the anthropogenic impact caused by old mining and metallurgical activities.
See more from this Division: Topical Sessions
See more from this Session: Soil Geochemistry: Databases and Applications at Regional to Continental Scales