"Mobilization of Antimony and mercury in gold mining environments: Overview of two case studies"
By:
Suzanne Beauchemin, Natural Resources Canada, CANMET-MMSL, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. sbeauche@nrcan.gc.ca
The presentation will illustrate the impact of gold mining on the mobilization of metal(loid) contaminants in two very different socio-environmental contexts.
The first part of the talk will summazrize an on-going study documenting the mobilization and attenuation processes of antimony in the environs of a typical Canadian mesothermal gold deposit, where stibnite is the primary Sb-bearing sulfide mineral associated with pyrite. A field study was conducted at Bralorne Mine (BC, Canada) to investigate the change in solubilit and solid-phase speciation of Sb in sediments collected at key locations along a mine effluent. Flow-through leaching column experiments evaluated the occurence of galvanic interaction between stibnite and pyrite as a mechanism enhancing the oxidation of stibnite and its release from geologic materials to mine waters. The results of this study to-date will be discussed.
The second part of the presentation will give an overview of the impact of small and medium-scale gold mining in Guyana (South America) on the mobilization of mercury and its impact on Amerindian populations with a traditional fish-based diet. Results from the first phase of this CIDA funded project (2002 to 2006) on the monitoring of mercury in sediments, fish and human hair from mining and non mining areas will be briefly reviewed. The objective and results of the subsequent awareness program, initiated in 2007, on alternative non-carnivorous fish diet will then be discussed.
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