Impact of shallowly deposited ore-bearing dolomites on local soil pollution aureoles of As, Cd, Pb, and Zn in an old mining area

Purpose

The study area, located in Upper Silesian Industrial Region, was rich in significant amounts of ores that were classified of Mississippi Valley type. Being these ores especially rich in Pb and Zn, an intense development of mining and ore extraction industry was verified in this area. The goal of this study was to investigate how local pollution aureoles of As, Cd, Pb, and Zn were influenced by the presence of shallowly deposited ore-bearing dolomites.

Materials and methods

Very extensive sampling campaign was carried out, and over 1,000 samples were collected in the area of about 150?km². Local aureoles of investigated metals were calculated for two soil layers. The first one covered the part of soil core from the soil surface to the depth of 20?cm and the second one from the depth of 40?cm to the depth of 60?cm. All spatial distributions of particular metals in soil were calculated by means of ordinary kriging using free softwares QGIS and SAGA.

Results and discussion

Maximum concentrations of Pb and Zn in soil in study area were very high, reaching over 24,000 and 77,000?mg/kg, respectively. Maximum concentrations of As and Cd were also very high, reaching about 1,000?mg/kg. Those maximum values were observed in the direct vicinity of the Boles?aw mine and its mine dumps. Almost all local aureoles were located within the range of ore-bearing dolomites. It was especially visible for Pb and Zn, minerals very common in ore deposits. Otherwise, local aureoles of As and Cd were more related with the vicinity of mines and other pollution sources, being more associated to the anthropogenic pollution than to the presence of ore-bearing dolomites.

Conclusions

The aureoles of Pb and Zn, and in moderate degree of As, were associated with a mineral composition of ores. Differently, the location, the shape, and spatial pattern of Cd aureoles suggest that they were mostly influenced by anthropogenic pollution. Anthropogenic factors were dominating over the lithogenic ones and masking the influence of the shallowly deposited ores.     

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Rovibrational spectroscopy of molecules boasts extremely high precision, but its usefulness relies on the assignment of spectral features to corresponding quantum mechanical transitions. In the case of ortho-H(2)-CO, a weakly bound complex abundant in the interstellar medium (although not yet observed there), the rather complex spectrum has been unexplained for more than a decade. We assigned this spectrum by comparison with a purely ab initio calculation. For most lines, agreement to within 0.01 centimeter(-1) between experiment and theory was achieved. Our results show that the applicability of rovibrational spectroscopy can be extended with the assistance of high-accuracy quantum mechanical computations.     

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Droplets of one liquid suspended in a second, immiscible liquid move through a microfluidic device in which a channel splits into two branches that reconnect downstream. The droplets choose a path based on the number of droplets that occupy each branch. The interaction among droplets in the channels results in complex sequences of path selection. The linearity of the flow through the microchannels, however, ensures that the behavior of the system can be reversed. This reversibility makes it possible to encrypt and decrypt signals coded in the intervals between droplets. The encoding/decoding device is a functional microfluidic system that requires droplets to navigate a network in a precise manner without the use of valves, switches, or other means of external control.     

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