Assessment of heavy metal pollution degree at the Levikha mine dumps

In the modern world, there is an acute problem how accumulated harm objects impact on the environment. The sources of such objects in the Middle Urals are mining industry wastes. The main volume of mining waste in the Urals accrue to the areas where overburden and host rocks are located.We have assessed the environmental load of three different-aged Levikhinsky copper pyrite mine dumps. And the pollution factor (Cf), pollution load index (PLI), geoaccumulation index (Igeo), enrichment factor (EF) and potential environmental risk (RI) have been determined for Cu, Ni, Zn, Mn, Co and Fe. The calculations results have shown the greatest load in the eastern dump at sampling points L-15 and L-16, where the index value is approaching 3, indicating pollution from medium to high. At the same time, one is can observe a contamination decrease for all metals in the central part of the dump at points L-17 and L-18, by the reason of their age. At point L-19, the soil is not contaminated with copper, but both at points L-19 and L-20 critically high Zn content was recorded. Despite the high soil contamination degree in some locations, the potential environmental risk of the dumps remains low. The article presents calculation results and assumptions based on the obtained data.

Prokopyeva A. A., Degtyarev S. A., Boltyrov V. B., Shaikhutdinova M. M., Storozhenko V. A. Assessment of heavy metal pollution degree at the Levikha mine dumps. MIAB. Mining Inf. Anal. Bull. 2024;(12-1):34-46. [In Russ]. DOI: 10.25018/0236_1493_ 2024_121_0_34.

The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 24-17-20033, https://rscf.ru/project/24-17-20033/.

A.A. Prokopyeva¹, Master’s Degree Student, e-mail: ana.prokopeva.2000@mail.ru, ORCID ID: 0009-0003-9087-2864,
S.A. Degtyarev¹, Lecturer, e-mail: Ljstymail@gmail.com, ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7046-3244,
V.B. Boltyrov¹, Cand. Sci. (Geol. Mineral.), Professor, e-mail: glzchs@mail.ru, ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5564-0054,
M.M. Shaikhutdinova¹, Master’s Degree Student, e-mail: merfeiyr@yandex.ru, ORCID ID: 0009-0004-4965-2103,
V.A. Storozhenko¹, Master’s Degree Student, e-mail: v-a-stor@mail.ru, ORCID ID: 0009-0004-5353-6922,
¹ Ural State Mining University, 620144, Ekaterinburg, Russia.

A.A. Prokopyeva, e-mail: ana.prokopeva.2000@mail.ru.

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