Contamination assessment of heavy metals in the soils of an abandoned copper mine in Lasail, Northern Oman

ABSTRACT

Abandoned mine areas exhibit heavy metal contamination. This severely reduces the soil quality. This paper concerns the assessment of soils near an abandoned copper mine in Lasail, northern Oman. Seventy-two soil samples were collected and analysed for heavy metals using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The extent of heavy metal pollution was evaluated based on the geo-accumulation index (Igeo), enrichment factor (EF), and pollution index (PI). According to these indices, Copper (Cu), Mercury (Hg), Zinc (Zn), Arsenic (As) and Iron (Fe) are impacting the soils. Of these, Cu and Hg concentrations are 50 and 300 times more than the permissible limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO). There is an urgent need for the remediation and restoration of the soils in this area and a proposal is presented here.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• contamination
• heavy metals
• soils
• remediation
• Oman

Acknowledgments

We thank Drs Bernhard Pracejus and Daniel Moraetis, Earth Sciences Department, Sultan Qaboos University for their valuable assistance in the field.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by a postgraduate scholarship awarded to one of the authors (TMP) by Sultan Qaboos University.