Antimony and arsenic dispersion in the Macleay River catchment, New South Wales: a study of the environmental geochemical consequences

Arsenic in Surface Soils Affected by Mining and Metallurgical Processing in K. Mitrovica Region, Kosovo

“…Contamination of the environment by arsenic from both anthropogenic and natural sources has occurred in many parts of the World and is now recognized as a global problem [ 5 , 6 ]. The principal anthropogenic sources for soil contamination by As include base metal smelters [ 7 – 15 ] and the mining of arsenic [ 8 , 16 – 18 ], lead and zinc [ 7 , 10 , 11 , 15 , 19 – 21 ], gold [ 18 , 22 , 23 ] and other types of mines [ 24 – 30 ]. Power plants that burn As-rich coals or treated lumber, disposal sites for wastes from As-processing plants, and industrial and municipal dump sites also represent sources of arsenic contamination in soil [ 1 , 5 ].…”

Seasonal Temperature Oscillations Drive Contrasting Arsenic and Antimony Mobilization in a Mining‐Impacted River System

“…These vein deposits have been subject to mining and ore extraction over the past century, most notably at the Hillgrove Mine (Figure 1). Historic deposition of several million tons of As‐ and Sb‐bearing waste rock and mine tailings into the Bakers Creek drainage system is regarded as the primary source of Sb and As contamination in Macleay river‐channel and floodplain sediments (Ashley et al, 2007). Contaminated channel sediments are dominated by As(V) and Sb(V) species, while Fe(III) precipitates (i.e., ferrihydrite, feroxyhyte, lepidocrocite, and nanoparticulate goethite) play an important role as host phases (Johnston et al, 2020).…”

“…The Macleay River catchment is on the east coast of Australia ( Figure 1) and has a cool temperate-tosubtropical climate with summer-dominated rainfall. Detailed descriptions of regional geology, geomorphology, and contamination are presented in Ashley et al (2007), while information on As and Sb speciation, partitioning, and redox cycling are presented in Johnston et al (2020). Prior studies show that the Macleay River system contains elevated concentrations of Sb and As in river-channel sediments for 300 km (from the upper catchment to the coastal floodplain), due to historic mining activities (Ashley et al, 2003(Ashley et al, , 2007Tighe et al, 2005).…”

“…Arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb) are toxic and carcinogenic metalloids that are common co‐contaminants in aquatic environments impacted by mining activities (Arsic et al, 2018; Ashley et al, 2007; Fawcett et al, 2015; Johnston et al, 2020; Tighe et al, 2005). The aquatic behavior of As and Sb is a subject of considerable concern and ongoing research effort (Filella et al, 2002; Herath et al, 2017; Karimian et al, 2018; Smedley & Kinniburgh, 2002).…”

Analysis and mapping of geochemical anomalies using logratio-transformed stream sediment data with censored values

“…The downstream distance limit is probably conservative but is based on findings elsewhere that dispersion trains of pathfinder elements (e.g., As) reach at least 2 km downstream from epithermal-Au deposits (cf. Ashley et al, 2007;Fletcher, 1996;Leduc and Itard, 2003;Williams et al, 2000). Each binary geochemical backgroundanomaly map is crossed with the map of ground-truth presence/absence of geochemical anomalies.…”