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A biogeochemical study of more than 20,000 soil and plant samples from the North Caucasus, Dzungarian Alatau, Kazakh Uplands, and Karatau Mountains revealed features of the chemical element uptake by the local flora. Adaptation of ore prospecting techniques alongside environmental approaches allowed the detection of geochemical changes in ecosystems, and the lessons learned can be embraced for soil phytoremediation. The data on the influence of phytogeochemical stress on the accumulation of more than 20 chemical elements by plants are considered in geochemical provinces, secondary fields of deposits, halos surrounding ore and nonmetallic deposits, zones of regional faults and schist formation, and over lithological contact lines of chemically contrasting rocks overlain by 5–20 m thick soils and unconsolidated cover. We have corroborated the postulate that the element accumulation patterns of native plants under the natural geochemical stress depend not only on the element content in soils and the characteristics of a particular species but also on the values of ionic radii and valences; with an increase in the energy coefficients of a chemical element, its plant accumulation decreases sharply. The contribution of internal factors to element uptake from solutions gives the way to soil phytoremediation over vast contaminated areas. The use of hyperaccumulating species for mining site soil treatment depends on several external factors that can strengthen or weaken the stressful situation, viz., the amount of bedrock exposure and thickness of unconsolidated rocks over ores, the chemical composition of ores and primary halos in ore-containing strata, the landscape and geochemical features of sites, and chemical element migration patterns in the supergene zone.

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The study presents a complex characteristic of zircon from the Verkhneurmiysky intrusive series with Li-F granites. A wide range of morphological and chemical properties of zircon allowed us to obtain new information on the formation and alteration of zircon from biotite and zinnwaldite granitoids and to determine its features, which contribute to the correct definition of Li-F granites formed directly before the tin mineralization. The reviled trends of zircon morphology and composition evolution in the Verkhneurmiysky granites series are: the high-temperature morphotypes are followed by low-temperature ones with more complicated internal structure with secondary alteration zones, mineral inclusions, pores, and cracks; the increasing concentration of volatile (H2O, F), large ion lithophile (Cs, Sr), high field strength (Hf, Nb) and rare-earth elements with decreasing crystallization temperatures and the determining role of the fluid phase (predominantly, F) in the trace element accumulation. The composition of zircon cores in biotite and zinnwaldite granites is very similar. However, the zircon rims from zinnwaldite granites are much more enriched in trace elements compared to those from biotite granites. The first study of zircon from the Verkhneurmiysky granitoids provides new data on the formation and alteration conditions of granitoids, including zinnwaldite ones.

The Samolazovskoye deposit (Central Aldan ore region, Russia) is confined to the porphyry syenite lopolith (J3-K1), localized between the granitic gneiss Archean basement and the series of the Vendian-Lower Cambrian carbonate cover rocks. Four hydrothermal-metasomatic parageneses have been identified within the deposit: skarn paragenesis, developed on the syenites and carbonate cover rocks contact; so called «gumbaite» paragenesis (kalifeldspar + fluorite + carbonate ± quartz), superimposed on the intrusive massif rocks; feldspatholitic paragenesis (quartz + feldspar), developed in the granitic gneisses of the crystalline basement; ore-bearing fluorite-roscoelite-carbonate-quartz paragenesis, superimposed on all of the above. The article compares ores evolved within gumbaitic syenites, basement feldspatholites and breccias, composed of all the above-mentioned rocks clasts. The geochemical study of given ores, resulted in two identified elements associations: gold-telluride (Au, Sb, As, V, Tl, Te, Hg, W) related to the fluorite-roscoelite-carbonate-quartz hydrothermal-metasomatic paragenesis and (uranium)-polymetallic (Bi, Cu, Pb, Zn, Mo, Se, Li, U), associated with the syenites gumbaitization (?). There is only gold-telluride association within the basement ore bodies, while the ore bodies localized in the syenites intrusion hold both associations, along with the Au and Ag contents being an order of magnitude higher. Breccia ores are characterized by the maximum concentrations of the ore elements. Gold-telluride association of the Samoazovsky deposit ores is specific to epithermal Au-Te mineralization associated with alkaline (A-type) magmatism.