Mercury fractionation in sediments downstream of the abandoned mine site of La Soterraña (Asturias, Spain)

Asturias (Northern Spain) has been an important mercury mining area during the twentieth century. The mining and smelting of ore has been the responsible for the large release of mercury to the aquatic and terrestrial environments in the area. The present work sought to evaluate the fractionation of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Silva, V., Fernández-Martínez, R., Loredo, J., Ordoñez, A., Rucandio, I.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Subjects:
Abandoned mines
Aquatic environment
Fluvial sediments
Fractionation
Mercury
Mercury (metal)
mercury fractionation
mercury mine
Mining
River basins
Rivers
sediment
Sediments
sequential extraction
Smelting
Sulfide
Terrestrial environments
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Summary:Asturias (Northern Spain) has been an important mercury mining area during the twentieth century. The mining and smelting of ore has been the responsible for the large release of mercury to the aquatic and terrestrial environments in the area. The present work sought to evaluate the fractionation of mercury in stream sediments from the Caudal River basin in central Asturias by using sequential extraction. A novel five-step sequential extraction procedure was used to assess Hg partitioning. Total mercury concentrations varied between 12 and 443 mg.Kg−1. Sequential extractions revealed that both Elemental Hg and bound to sulfide Hg constituted the major forms of mercury in the samples.
ISSN:2267-1242
2555-0403
2267-1242
DOI:10.1051/e3sconf/20130106004