1Laboratoire de Toxicologie et d'hygiène Industrielle, 1 rue Gaston Veil, 44035, Nantes Cedex, France
2Laboratoire Régional du diagnostic épidémiologique et d'hygiène du milieu-Marrakech-Maroc
3Département de biologie, Faculté des Sciences Semlalia, Marrakech-Maroc
4Laboratoire de physique des solides et des couches minces, Bd Moulay Abdellah. BP, 2390-40001, Marrakech Maroc
Environmental pollution by heavy metals originated from functional mines can become a very important source of contamination both in soil and water. Therefore, the characterization of tailings chemical and physical properties is important to assess the risk of potential environmental mobility of toxic trace metals that are contained in this kind of waste. The chemical forms of some heavy metals in soils and mine tailings around a Draa Lasfar mine in north-west of Marrakech city (Morocco) was studied by determining soil Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn species using standard solvent extraction and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometric techniques. The Chemical pools of the metals indicated that the metals were distributed into six fractions with most of the metals residing in the non-residual fractions, suggesting how readily the metals are released into the environment. Considering that the metals mostly occur in the most available forms, it is most likely that the metals must have been derived from a variety of human activities involving dredging, processing and use of metals and/or substances containing metal contaminants, specially mining activity that can pose a risk for the environment due to discharge of tailings all around the mine area.
Speciation, heavy metal contamination, mining activity, sequential extraction, soils and tailings
