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Air dispersion of heavy metals in the vicinity of the As-Sb-Tl abounded mine and responsiveness of moss as a biomonitoring media in small-scale investigations

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Abstract

A systematic study was carried out to investigate air deposition and to explore the natural distribution and enrichment (contamination) with trace elements in the small area (cca. 13 km2) of an antimony-arsenic-thallium mineralization outcrop at an abandoned mine “Allchar.” The mine is located on the northwestern part of Kožuf Mount, Republic of Macedonia. The locality of Allchar is unique in its mineral composition; besides a very intriguing mineral, lorandite, there are 45 other minerals, some of which are rare. The distribution of 53 elements (with special attention to As, Sb, and Tl) were detected in 69 moss samples from eight various species collected from this area. Moss samples were analyzed following microwave digestion by inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectrometry. It was found that the atmospheric deposition for As in the moss samples on or around the Allchar mine is >6.5 times higher and for Tl is 19 times higher compared to values for the samples from the rest of the Allchar area. By the application of multivariate cluster and R-mode factor analyses (FA), five geochemical associations were determined. Cluster and R-mode FA were used to identify and characterize element associations, and five associations of elements were determined by the method of multivariate statistics. F1 (Co, Cr, Fe, Sc, Li, V, Ga, Y, Ni, Mn, Al, La-Lu, Cu, Ge, Be, Bi, and Hf); F2 (As, Tl, Sb, and Mg); F3 (Rb, Cs, and Mo); F4 (Sr, Ba, Hf, Zr, La-Lu, and Bi), and F5 (Cd, Zn, Ag, and Cu).

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded jointly by the Institute of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, and Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS)–Program Groundwater and Geochemistry and Research Institute for Analytical Instrumentation, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, POB 162, 1000, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

    Katerina Bačeva & Trajče Stafilov

  2. Geological Survey of Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Robert Šajn

  3. INCDO-INOE 2000, Research Institute for Analytical Instrumentation (ICIA), Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Claudiu Tănăselia

Authors
  1. Katerina Bačeva
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  2. Trajče Stafilov
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  3. Robert Šajn
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  4. Claudiu Tănăselia
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Correspondence to Trajče Stafilov.

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Responsible editor: Constantini Samara

The Republic of Macedonia has been admitted in the UN as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

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Bačeva, K., Stafilov, T., Šajn, R. et al. Air dispersion of heavy metals in the vicinity of the As-Sb-Tl abounded mine and responsiveness of moss as a biomonitoring media in small-scale investigations. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 8763–8779 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-1845-0

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