Journal of Geochemical Exploration
Journal of Geochemical Exploration
5 years ago

Environmental geochemistry of near-neutral waters and mineralogy of zinc and lead at the Angouran non-sulphide zinc mine, NW Iran

This study aims to investigate the geochemistry of major ions, trace and rare earth elements (REE) near the Angouran Zn-Pb mine. Thermodynamic modelling and saturation indices were computed using PHREEQC. Process and tailings water samples of the Calcimin processing plant were near neutral (pH=5.8–7.9) and had high concentrations of SO4 (1179–15,000mg/L), Zn up to 18,529mg/L, Pb up to 1780μg/L, As up to 465μg/L and Cd up to 230μg/L. Water of the Angouran pit was neutral-alkaline (pH=7.6–8.25) with low concentrations of SO4 (21–87mg/L), elevated concentration of Zn up to 27mg/L, Pb up to 586.3μg/L and Cd up to 33μg/L. Water flowing out of the Angouran Mine adit was neutral-alkaline (pH=7.5–8.05) with variable SO4 content (30–2294mg/L), Zn content up to 8mg/L, Pb up to 123μg/L and As up to 35.4μg/L. Elements As, Pb, Cd, Ni and Zn concentrations in the plant waters were higher than USEPA effluents limits. Generally, the types of water in the plant and the mine ranged from Zn-SO4, Na+K-SO4 to Ca-HCO3, respectively. North-American Shale Composite (NASC) normalised patterns of the mine and the spring water samples showed middle REE (MREE) and high REE (HREE) enrichment. The most toxic elements including Pb, Cd, Ni, and Zn were predicted as cationic form in the plant water. The prediction further showed that smithsonite (ZnCO3), hydrozincite Zn5(OH)6(CO3)2, hemimorphite Zn4Si2O7(OH)2, and beudantite (PbFe3(AsO4)(SO4)(OH)6) were oversaturated in some water samples.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0375674217304211

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.