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NATURAL AND TECHNOGENIC ANOMALIES OF POTENTIALLY TOXIC ELEMENTS IN SOILS AROUND THE KOUNRAD MINE TMO: LITHOGEOCHEMICAL MAPPING

E. V. Lazareva 1, N. N. Dobretsov 1,2, I. S. Kirichenko 1, V. V. Litvinov 3, D. A. Aitekenova 3, I. N. Myagkaya 1

1 Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia; 2 Federal Research Center for Information and Computational Technologies, Novosibirsk, Russia; 3 Limited Liability Company ‟Design and Environmental Bureau”, Ust-Kamenogorsk, the Republic of Kazakhstan; 4 Limited Liability Company ‟Sary Kazna”, Balkhash town, the Republic of Kazakhstan

The present paper is the second part of an integrated exploration that combines techniques of space remote sensing of Earth and geochemical sampling to determine dispersion halos of potentially toxic elements around Balkhash and the Kounrad mine TMO. According to a pre-planned grid, the sampling of the TMO substance and soils of the territory was conducted, contents and distribution regularities of Pb, Cu, Ni, Zn, As, Mo, Cr, V and Mn over the area were determined in order to calculate the average contents in soils of the territory and mapping the areas of maximum pollution. Soil contamination with potentially toxic elements from two main sources was defined: 1) Balkhash enterprises (pollution of Pb, Cu, Zn, As by air, covering almost the entire territory, the maximum is near the city); 2) from acid drainage solutions (Cu, Ni, As pollution). The second type of pollution differs from the first one in a very limited distribution (relatively small areas around TMO dumps). The greatest pollution is observed on the eastern side of dumps, at the location of the plant. The pollution remained after heap leaching experiments (late 1990s).

Keywords: remote sensing, satellite data, image processing, multispectral data, probability indices, GIS, mining waste dumps, dispersion halos.

DOI 10.20403/2078-0575-2025-1-97-110

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