TY - JOUR
T1 - Marble wastes and pig slurry improve the environmental and plant-relevant properties of mine tailings
AU - Kabas, S.
AU - Faz, A.
AU - Acosta, J. A.
AU - Arocena, J. M.
AU - Zornoza, R.
AU - Martínez-Martínez, S.
AU - Carmona, D. M.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This work has been funded by the European Union FP7 Project No: CP-IP 213968-2 IRIS. R. Zornoza acknowledges a ‘‘Juan de la Cierva’’ contract from the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain). J.A. Acosta acknowledges a ‘‘Saavedra Fajardo’’ contract from the Fundación Séneca of Comunidad Autónoma de Murcia (Spain) and J.M. Arocena appreciates the assistance from the Ministry of Education (Spain) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada).
PY - 2014/2
Y1 - 2014/2
N2 - Poor soil fertility is often the biggest challenge to the establishment of vegetation in mine wastes deposits. We conducted field trials in the El Gorguel and El Lirio sites in SE Spain, two representative tailing ponds of similar properties except for pH, to understand the environmental and plant-relevant benefits of marble waste (MW) and pig slurry (PS) applications to mine tailings. Low pH (5.4) tailings (El Lirio) exhibit reduction of up to fourfold in bio-availability of metals as shown by the DTPA-Zn, Pb, water-soluble Zn, Pb and up to 3× for water-soluble Cd. Tailings in El Gorguel have high pH (7.4) and did not exhibit significant trends in the reductions of water-extractable Zn, Pb, Cd and Cu. Improvements to the edaphic (plant-relevant) properties of tailings after the amendments are not as sensitive to pH compared to the environmental characteristics. The two sites had increases in aggregate stability, organic matter (total N and organic C) although total N is higher in the El Gorguel (up to 212 μg N kg-1) than the El Lirio (up to 26 μg N kg-1). However, cation exchange capacities are similar in both sites at 15.2 cmol(+) kg-1. We conclude that the characteristics, especially pH, of tailing materials significantly influence the fate of metals but not improvements to plant-relevant properties such as cation exchange capacity and aggregate stability 1 year after the application of MW and PS amendments.
AB - Poor soil fertility is often the biggest challenge to the establishment of vegetation in mine wastes deposits. We conducted field trials in the El Gorguel and El Lirio sites in SE Spain, two representative tailing ponds of similar properties except for pH, to understand the environmental and plant-relevant benefits of marble waste (MW) and pig slurry (PS) applications to mine tailings. Low pH (5.4) tailings (El Lirio) exhibit reduction of up to fourfold in bio-availability of metals as shown by the DTPA-Zn, Pb, water-soluble Zn, Pb and up to 3× for water-soluble Cd. Tailings in El Gorguel have high pH (7.4) and did not exhibit significant trends in the reductions of water-extractable Zn, Pb, Cd and Cu. Improvements to the edaphic (plant-relevant) properties of tailings after the amendments are not as sensitive to pH compared to the environmental characteristics. The two sites had increases in aggregate stability, organic matter (total N and organic C) although total N is higher in the El Gorguel (up to 212 μg N kg-1) than the El Lirio (up to 26 μg N kg-1). However, cation exchange capacities are similar in both sites at 15.2 cmol(+) kg-1. We conclude that the characteristics, especially pH, of tailing materials significantly influence the fate of metals but not improvements to plant-relevant properties such as cation exchange capacity and aggregate stability 1 year after the application of MW and PS amendments.
KW - Amendments
KW - Mine tailing
KW - Soil properties
KW - Vegetation establishment
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84891664308&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10653-013-9517-z
DO - 10.1007/s10653-013-9517-z
M3 - Artículo en revista científica indexada
C2 - 23479083
AN - SCOPUS:84891664308
SN - 0269-4042
VL - 36
SP - 41
EP - 54
JO - Environmental Geochemistry and Health
JF - Environmental Geochemistry and Health
IS - 1
ER -