The acidic mine pit lakes of the Iberian Pyrite Belt: An approach to their physical limnology and hydrogeochemistry

Physico-chemical gradients and meromictic stratification in Cueva de la Mora and other acidic pit lakes of the Iberian Pyrite Belt

“…These mine voids were progressively flooded by the entrance of direct rainfall, runoff, ground water and mine drainage from nearby galleries and waste piles. At present, more than 20 pit lakes with highly acidic water containing high metal and sulphate concentrations exist in the provinces of Huelva and Sevilla (Sánchez-España et al 2008a). Combined, these pit lakes contain around 25 9 10 6 m 3 of AMD.…”

“…30 m in San Telmo or 10 m in Cueva de la Mora). As regards to the monimolimnia, recent research (Sánchez-España et al 2007a, 2008a has revealed the existence of two distinct stratification patterns. Type I lakes, represented by San Telmo or N a S a del Carmen, have a chemically uniform monimolimnion with no vertical gradients.…”

“…Recent morphometric observations based on airborne photography and depth profiles (IGME 2008;Sánchez-España et al 2008a) suggest that the different types of hydrochemical stratification in the IPB pit lakes could be related to geometric factors, such as the pit geometry and relative depth (here, the relative depth was defined as…”

Geomicrobiology of Acid Mine Drainage in the weathering zone of pyrite-bearing schists in the Rudawy Janowickie Mountains (Poland)

“…With re gard to chem ical com po si tion, they are sim i lar to other widely dis cussed oc cur rences of AMD (Murad et al, 1994;Web ster et al, 1994;Leduc et al, 2002;Joeckel et al, 2005). Limno logi cal, mi cro bi o log i cal and hydrogeochemical stud ies of such res er voirs, formed in py rite mines near Rio Tinto in the "Span ish Py rite Belt", have been pub lished by Sánchez-EspaÔa et al (2008), González-Toril et al (2011) andSánchez-Andrea et al (2011). Wa ter from these res er voirs is charac ter ized by phys i cal and chem i cal prop erties sim i lar to those found in the work ings of the Wieoeciszowice mine.…”

“…Wa ter from these res er voirs is charac ter ized by phys i cal and chem i cal prop erties sim i lar to those found in the work ings of the Wieoeciszowice mine. Chem i cal char acter is tics men tioned by Sánchez-EspaÔa et al (2008) vary from neu tral, with rel a tively low metal con tent, e.g., the Los Frailes res er voir (pH = 7.2, 0.07 mg Fe l -1 ) to ex tremely acid such as the Corta Atalaya with pH = 1.2, iron 608 Andrzej Borkowski, Jan Parafiniuk, Dorota Wolicka and Pawe³ Kowalczyk Ge netic anal y sis (16S rRNA) of the bac te rial com mu nity from slime stream ers iso lated from drain age of the mine nearby the Pur ple Pond con tent (36.7 g l -1 ) and cop per con tent (1.3 g l -1 ). Most of these bas ins are, how ever, typ i cal acid res er voirs with pH within 2.2-3.6 (Sánchez-EspaÔa et al, 2008), for which in ter est ing micro bi o log i cal in ves ti ga tions were also pre sented.…”