Acid Mine Drainage in Appalachia: Sources, Legacy, and Treatment

Surface Coal Mine Soils: Evidence for Chronosequence Development

“…The results observed here are also consistent with previous work [27] that demonstrated that colloids of clay were transported in pore waters of this same watershed, resulting in correlated trends in clays and Al, K, and Mg. With respect to elements that do exhibit a dominantly linear increase or decrease across the transect, the distributions of Mn, Zn, and As (Figure 5, group 5) were observed to have maximum values in concentration in the middle of the transect, with other elements in group 5 exhibiting a more muted response. The distribution of Mn is likely impacted by the following factors: (1) release of soluble Mn(II) through the oxidative dissolution of primary sulfides followed by the transport and re-precipitation of Mn-oxide similar to Fe [18,[70][71][72]; KSU-URC-2019(2) release of Mn(II) and sequestration by clay minerals [73] followed by the potential transport of clay minerals described above; and (3) accumulation and cycling of Mn in soluble-phases and organic matter due to plant-soil interactions [26]. Although previous work has shown that Zn typically behaves in a similar way to Fe and the other trace metals in similar settings [72,73], Zn exhibited the same concentration profile as Mn.…”

“…Metal(loid)s associated with the primary sulfide minerals (e.g., As, Cu, Pb, Zn, etc.) released during weathering are transported down gradient and potentially re-sequestered during formation of secondary Fe phases [18]. These changes in mineralogy and bulk composition can be significant indicators of the evolution of anthropogenic materials to a mature soil [19].…”