Iron and arsenic-rich nanoprecipitates associated with clay minerals in sulfide-rich waste dumps

Valente, Teresa Maria Fernandes
Gomes, Patrícia
Braga, Maria Amália Castro Sequeira
Dionísio, Amélia
Pamplona, J.
Grande, J. A.

Open link

Publication date

March 2015

DOI

10.1016/j.catena.2015.03.009

Publisher

Elsevier BV

ISSN

0341-8162

Journal

CATENA

Citation count (estimate)

Abstract

The relationships between clay minerals and associated iron and arsenic-rich phases are a main scientific issue in reactive mine waste-dumps. Therefore, this paper documents the composition and morphology of the fine fraction (<2 μm), including the nano-sized Fe and As precipitates, associated with clay minerals in three distinctive sulfide-rich waste-dumps: Cerdeirinha, Lapa Grande, and Penedono (Northern Portugal). The obtained results indicated that the study sites have similar relative proportions of the detrital materials. However, major differences were observed in the remainder phases, which is in accordance with the mineralogy that was inherited from the respective ore deposits. In general, the clay mineral assemblage is dominated ...