TITLE:
Properties of Soils of Abandoned Coal Mine Industrial Areas (Primorsky Krai, Russia)
AUTHORS:
Olga D. Arefieva, Valentina G. Tregubova, Natalya V. Gruschakova, Valerij T. Starozhilov
KEYWORDS:
Luvisols, Gleysols, Spoil Heaps, Abandoned Coal Mines, Heavy Metals
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.6 No.6,
June
22,
2018
ABSTRACT: Lipovtsy coal field mine №4 processed north-western reserves of Lipovtsy
field in Primorski Krai (Russia). In 1997, the mine was declared unprofitable
and was abandoned by natural flooding with no arrangement of mine water
discharge and in 2005 it was fully flooded. The main sources of pollution in
the studied area are spoil heaps (mine wastes), underspoil filtering waters and
mine waters which are being discharged on the surface after finishing of “hydraulic
funnel” artificial support. The study of technogenic landscape of
abandoned mine industrial area showed that its morphologic form is dominated
by spoil heaps. Soils located near mine waste body differ from benchmark
soils by chemical properties and size distribution. The influence of active
hydrochemical mine and drainage water flows is the reason of the
above-mentioned variation in soil properties. Results showed that, there exist
a high correlation ratios between chemical composition of mine waters and
water extracts from soil: Between the alkalinity of mine waters and electrical
conductivity of soil water extracts (r = 0.73), between mine water iron content
and pH of soil water extract (r = −0.56), between the solid residue of mine
waters and electrical conductivity of soil water extracts (r = 0.72), between the
mine waters calcium content and electrical conductivity of soil water extracts
(r = −0.75), between the alkalinity of mine waters and silicon dioxide content
of soil water extracts (r = 0.61), between the mineralization of mine waters
and chrome content of soil water extracts (r = 0.73).