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Characteristics of soil heavy metals concentrations in the tailings of Guliku placer gold mine in the Greater Khingan Mountains.

HU Ya-lin1**, WANG Cheng-yi2, WANG Hong-quan1,3, ZENG De-hui1   

  1. (1 State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110164, China; 2 Forestory Research Institute of Heilongjiang Province, Harbin 150081, China; 3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China)
  • Online:2014-10-10 Published:2014-10-10

Abstract: Mine tailings have become the potential sources of soil heavy metals contaminations. There are large areas of mine tailings in the Greater Khingan Mountains where is one of the most important distribution regions of placer gold mine in China because of nearly a century of mining activities. However, few studies have assessed the characteristics of soil heavy metals contaminations in the tailings of placer gold mine in this region. In this study, we investigated soil Hg, As, Pb, Cd and Cr concentrations and their distribution in the tailings of Guliku placer gold mine. Moreover, soil pollution risk was evaluated using Nemerow index. We found that: (1) soil As, Cd and Cr concentrations increased significantly by 83%, 78% and 101% in the tailings of placer gold mine as compared to natural forest soil. (2) soil Hg and Pb concentrations were different among sampling locations, but not for soil As, Cd and Cr. (3) soil Hg, As, Pb, Cd and Cr concentrations were all lower than the firstgrade environmental quality standards for soils (GB 15618-1995) of China. Our results implied that soil heavy metals contaminations in the tailings of placer gold mine in the Greater Khingan Mountains were not serious. Therefore, we should pay more attention to soil water or nutrient limit rather than soil heavy metals contaminations during ecological restoration of placer gold mine tailings in the Greater Khingan Mountains.

Key words: slope aspect, slope position, revegetation approach, species diversity