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Characteristics of soil contamination by potentially toxic elements in mine areas of Mongolia

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Abstract

Soil contamination by potentially toxic elements (PTEs), such as metal(loid)s, in mining areas was characterized on a nationwide scale in Mongolia to understand the contamination status throughout the country, according to mine types. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis exhibited better classification and explanation of soil contamination according to ore types compared to conventional statistical analysis methods such as principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). The results of PMF analysis for metal(loid) contents in 1425 topsoil samples collected from 272 mines illuminated four Factors, which primarily contributed to As (Factor 1), Pb, Zn, and Cd (Factor 2), Ni (Factor 3), and Cu and Cd (Factor 4) contaminations, respectively. In hard-rock gold mines, As was enriched and the contribution of Factor 1 was high (31.2%) due to the affinity between As and Au. In placer gold mines, the contribution of Factor 3 (41.8%) was high due to the affinity between Ni and weathering-resistant heavy minerals. For base metal, fluorite, and coal mines, contributions of Factors 2 (32.1–50.9%) and 4 (17.7–33.6%) were high owing to sulfides containing Pb–Zn–d and Cu. These impacts of mine types were altered by local geology (e.g., skarn). Meanwhile, Hg amalgamation contributed to Hg contamination in a few hard-rock gold mines. These results suggest that soil contaminants in mining areas are mainly affected by the type of deposits with geochemical affinities, region-specific ore characteristics, and artificial processing. Understanding these effects will help establish national strategies for countermeasures, such as soil rehabilitation in mining areas.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly supported by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and conducted as an ODA project for Mongolia. It was also supported by the Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (KEITI) through the project entitled “Integrated environmental forensic approaches to trace source and pathways of subsurface contaminants” funded by the Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE) (2021002440003). In addition, the third author (Soonyoung Yu) was supported by the Basic Research Project of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (23-3411). The authors appreciate the support of the Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corporation (KOMIR) in Korea, MIRECO MGL in Mongolia, and the Mineral Resources Authority of Mongolia for conducting field surveys and chemical analyses. Special thanks go to anonymous reviewers for providing constructive comments that helped to improve the manuscript.

Funding

The funding was supported by Korea International Cooperation Agency, Korea Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (Grant No. 2021002440003), Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (Grant No. 23-3411).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Green School, Korea University, Seoul, 02841, South Korea

    Sungmoon Yoon & Seong-Taek Yun

  2. Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corporation, Wonju, 26464, South Korea

    Sungmoon Yoon & Tackhyun Kim

  3. Department of New Energy and Mining Engineering, Sangji University, Wonju, 26339, South Korea

    Duk-Min Kim

  4. Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon, 34132, South Korea

    Soonyoung Yu

  5. Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, 15170, Mongolia

    Bayartungalag Batsaikhan

  6. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Korea University, Seoul, 02841, South Korea

    Seong-Taek Yun

Authors
  1. Sungmoon Yoon
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  2. Duk-Min Kim
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  3. Soonyoung Yu
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  4. Bayartungalag Batsaikhan
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  5. Tackhyun Kim
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  6. Seong-Taek Yun
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Contributions

SY: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing—Original Draft and Editing. D-MK: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—Original Draft and Editing, Supervision. SY: Formal analysis, Writing—Original Draft and Editing. BB: Writing—Review. TK: Investigation, Data curation. S-TY: Conceptualization, Writing—Review, Project administration, Supervision.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Duk-Min Kim or Seong-Taek Yun.

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Yoon, S., Kim, DM., Yu, S. et al. Characteristics of soil contamination by potentially toxic elements in mine areas of Mongolia. Environ Geochem Health 46, 15 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-023-01812-4

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