• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.40 no.3 s.184
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• pp.277-293
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• 2007

Seasonal and spatial variations in the concentrations of trace elements, pH and Eh were found in a creek watershed affected by mine drainage and leachate from several waste rock dumps within the As-Pb-rich Indae mine site. Because of mining activity dating back to about 40 years ago and rupture of the waste rock dumps, this creek was heavily contaminated. Due to the influx of leachate and mine drainage, the water quality of upstream reach in this creek was characterized by largest seasonal and spatial variations in concentrations of Zn(up to $5.830 mg/{\ell}$), Cu(up to $1.333 mg/{\ell}$), Cd(up to $0.031 mg/{\ell}$) and $SO_4^{2-}$(up to $173 mg/{\ell}$), relatively acidic pH values (3.8-5.1) and highly oxidized condition. The most abundant metals in the leachate samples were in order of Zn($0.045-13.909 mg/{\ell}$), Fe($0.017-8.730mg/{\ell}$), Cu($0.010-4.154mg/{\ell}$) and Cd($n.d.-0.077mg/{\ell}$), with low pH(3.1-6.1), and high $SO_4^{2-}$(up to $310 mg/{\ell}$). The mine drainage also contained high concentrations of Zn, Cu, Cd and $SO_4^{2-}$ and remained constantly near-neutral pH values(6.5-7.0) in all the year. While the leachate and mine drainage might not affect short-term fluctuations in flow, it may significantly influence the concentrations of chemicals in the stream. The abundance and chemistry of Fe-(oxy)hydroxide within this creek indicated that the Fe-(oxy)hydroxide formation could be responsible for some removal of trace elements from the creek waters. Spatial and seasonal variations along down-stream reach of this creek were caused largely by the influx of water from uncontaminated tributaries. In addition, the trace metal concentrations in this creek have been decreased nearly down to the background level at a short distance from the discharge points without any artificial treatments after hydrologic mixing in a tributary. The nonconservative(i.e. precipitation, adsorption, oxidation, dissolution etc.) and conservative(hydrologic mixing) reactions constituted an efficient mechanism of natural attenuation which reduces considerably the transference of trace elements to rivers.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.289-300
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• 2009

The Geodo mine area, had been developed for Fe and Cu ores since 1963 and abandoned in recent decades, is located in the central part of the Taebaeksan mineralized district. This area comprises of the Jangsan, Myobong, Pungchon, Hwajeol, Dongjeom, and Dumugol Formations in ascending stratigraphic order. These Formations were intruded by the Cretaceous Eopyeong granitoids that appears to produce the Geodo skarn. Their compositions are relatively oxidized quartz monzodiorite to granodiorite (magnetite series, $Fe_2O_3/FeO=0.3{\sim}1.1$). Mineralizations related skarn deposit occur in the Myobong, Pungchon, and Hwajeol Formations. The proximal skarn is zoned from andraditic garnet ($Ad_{44-95}Gr_{1-53}$) predominant adjacent to the Eopyeong granitoids to diopsidic pyroxene ($Hd_{10-100}Di_{0-89}$) predominant away from the one. The differential proportion of garnet and pyroxene is generated by water/rock ratio and their source, such as magmatic and meteoric water. This is useful tool for assessment the overall oxidation state of the entire skarn system. Gold occurs in proximal red to brownish garnet skarn, and genetically associated with Bi- and Te-bearing minerals. Skarn deposit developed in the Geodo mine area is considered as oxidized Au skarn category, based on chemical composition of the Eopyeong granitoids, zonation of skarn, and gold occurrences. Garnet-rich skarn zone will be the main target for exploration of gold in the study area. However, it is needed to the detailed survey on vertical zonation of this area as well as lateral zonation. The result of this survey would provide an important basis for the exploration of the skarn Au deposit in the Geodo mine area.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.571-588
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• 2014

It consists of the Precambrian Jirisan metamorphic complex and Sancheong anorthosite complex and the Mesozoic granitoids which intrude them in the Sancheong area, the Jirisan province of Yeongnam massif, Korea. The study area is located in the western part of the stock-type Sancheong anorthosite complex. We performed a detailed fieldwork on the Sancheong anorthosite (SA) and Fe-Ti ore body (FTO) which constitute the Sancheong anorthosite complex, and reinterpreted the origin of FTO foliation and the genetic relationship between them from the foliations, shear zones, occurrences of the SA and FTO. The new structural characteristics between them are as follows: the multilayer structures of FTO, the derived veins of straight, anastomosing uneven types and block structures related to the size reduction of SA, the gradual or irregular boundaries of SA blocks and FTO showing bulbous lobate margins and comb structures, the FTO foliation and linear arrangements of flow occurrence which is not ductile shear deformation, the discontinuous shear zone of SA, the orientation of FTO foliations parallel to the boundaries of SA blocks, the predominance of FTO foliations toward the boundaries of SA blocks and being proportional to the aspect ratio of plagioclase xenocrysts and SA xenoblocks, and the flow folding structures of FTO foliation. Such field evidences indicate that the SA is not fully congealed when the FTO is melt and the fracturing of partly congealed SA causes the derived veins of FTO and the size reduction of SA. Also the gradual or irregular boundaries of SA blocks and FTO result from the mutual reaction between the not fully congealed SA blocks and the FTO melt, and the FTO foliation is a magmatic foliation which was formed by the interaction between the FTO melt and the partly congealed SA blocks. Therefore, these suggest that the SA and FTO are not formed from the intrusion of different magmas in genesis and age but from a coeval and cogenetic magma through multiple fractionation. We predict that the FTO will show an very irregular occurrence injected along irregular fractures, not the regular occurrence like as the intrusive vein and dike. It can be applied to the designing of Fe-Ti mineral resource exploration in this area.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.39 no.2 s.177
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• pp.151-162
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• 2006

Characteristics and changes of groundwater qualify were investigated in a riverbank filtration area at Daesan-myeon, Changwon City, Korea. The total dissolved solids (TDS) in groundwater samples collected in October were much less than that in March, indicating the mixing with recharged water from precipitation, as well as the changes of dissolved oxygen profiles at monitoring wells from March to October. Redox processes at depths appeared to trigger Fe and Mn contamination of groundwater in riverbank deposits. Amorphous oxyhydroxides md carbonate minerals such as $MnCO_3$ were probably the reactive phases for dissolved Fe and Mn, respectively. Groundwater contamination by nitrate-nitrogen $(NO_3-N)$ was controlled by the redox processes and subsequent denitrification at the sampled depths. Distribution of $NO_3-N$ concentrations at monitoring wells suggested that the nitrate contaminants were originated from agricultural facilities on the riverbank deposits. Some of monitoring wells, DS-2, D-2, DS-3, SJ-1, and SJ-3, were only partially penetrated into the sand/gravel aquifer, and subsequently, could not fully function to detect the water quality changes for the pumping wells. Proper measures, with regulating agricultural activities in the riverbank deposits, should be carried out to prevent groundwater contamination of the riverbank filtration area.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.227-237
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• 2008

Arsenic has recently become of the most serious environmental concerns, and the worldwide regulation of arsenic fur drinking water has been reinforced. Arsenic contaminated groundwater and soil have been frequently revealed as well, and arsenic contamination and its treatment and measures have been domestically raised as one of the most important environmental issues. Arsenic behavior in geo-environment is principally affected by oxides and clay minerals, and particularly iron (oxy)hydroxides have been well known to be most effective in controlling arsenic. Among a number of iron (oxy)hydroxides, for this reason, 2-line ferrihydrite was selected in this study to investigate its effect on arsenic behavior. Adsorption of 2-line ferrihydrite was characterized and compared between As(III) and As(V) which are known to be the most ubiquitous species among arsenic forms in natural environment. Two-line ferrihydrite synthesized in the lab as the adsorbent of arsenic had $10\sim200$ nm for diameter, $247m^{2}/g$ for specific surface area, and 8.2 for pH of zero charge, and those representative properties of 2-line ferrihydrite appeared to be greatly suitable to be used as adsorbent of arsenic. The experimental results on equilibrium adsorption indicate that As(III) showed much stronger adsorption affinity onto 2-line ferrihydrite than As(V). In addition, the maximum adsorptions of As(III) and As(V) were observed at pH 7.0 and 2.0, respectively. In particular, the adsorption of As(III) did not show any difference between pH conditions, except for pH 12.2. On the contrary, the As(V) adsorption was remarkably decreased with increase in pH. The results obtained from the detailed experiments investigating pH effect on arsenic adsorption show that As(III) adsorption increased up to pH 8.0 and dramatically decreased above pH 9.2. In case of As(V), its adsorption steadily decreased with increase in pH. The reason the adsorption characteristics became totally different depending on arsenic species is attributed to the fact that chemical speciation of arsenic and surface charge of 2-line ferrihydrite are significantly affected by pH, and it is speculated that those composite phenomena cause the difference in adsorption between As(III) and As(V). From the view point of adsorption kinetics, adsorption of arsenic species onto 2-line ferrihydrite was investigated to be mostly completed within the duration of 2 hours. Among the kinetic models proposed so for, power function and elovich model were evaluated to be the most suitable ones which can simulate adsorption kinetics of two kinds of arsenic species onto 2-line ferrihydrite.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 2014

In present study, we geochemically investigated the fresh coal ashes and the saline ash pond of an electric power plant in Korea, which burns imported bituminous coals. The goals are to see the chemical changes of the ash pond by reaction with coal ashes and to investigate the relative leachability of elements from the ashes by reaction with saline waters. For this study, one fresh fly ash, one fresh bottom ash, and 7 water samples were collected. All the ash samples and 2 water samples were analyzed for 55 elements. The results indicated that the fly ashes are enriched with chalcophilic elements such as Cu, Zn, Ga, Ge, Se, Cd, Sb, Au, Pb, and B relative to other elements. On the other hand, concentrations of As, Ba, Co, Ga, Li, Mn, Mo, Sb, U, V, W, and Zr are much higher in the ash pond than those dissolved in the seawater. Ag, Bi, Li, Mo, Rb, Sb, Sc, Se, Sn, Sr, and W show high ratios of elemental concentrations in pond water to those in the fly ash. Our results imply that the leaching of trace elements is regulated by geochemical controls such as solubility and adsorption even though the trace elements are relatively enriched on the ash surfaces after the coal combustion due to their volatilities.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2003

The chemical composition of the arsenopyrite Ib adjoining“triple mutual contact”arsenopyrite + pyrite + hexagonal pyrrhotite may serve as a useful geothermometer in Stage II. In this study it corresponds to temperature T=33$0^{\circ}C$ and f( $S_2$)=10$^{-9.5}$ atm. And the pyrite-hexagonal pyrrhotite buffer curve indicates the probable range of the two variables; T= 315∼345$^{\circ}C$, and f( $S_2$)=10$^{-1}$0.5/∼10$^{-9}$ atm. The present antimony-bearing arsenopyrite (arsenopyrite Ic) is characterized by relatively high content of antimony, ranging from 4.95 to 8.91 percent Sb by weight and excess of iron and deficiency of anions are evident. Such a high antimonian arsenopyrite has never been known within single grain. But being the high content of antimony as in the arsenopyrite Ic, it does not serve as a geothermometer. The results of microprobe analyses for four pairs of asenopyrite and sphalerite in Stage III indicate the temperature range from 310 to 34$0^{\circ}C$, and sulphur fugacity range from 10$^{-10}$ ∼10$^{-9}$ atm. These values seem to correspond with those inferred from the Fe-As-S system.m..

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.311-320
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• 2014

A magnetic separation study was conducted for a soil sampled from a landfill site where steel slag had been dumped for a long time. Heavy metal concentrating effect was evaluated by analyzing heavy metal content of magnetically separated soil and passed through soil. The effect was compared between soil after soil-washing process and original landfill soil and the effect was also tested between wet condition-magnetic separation and dry condition-magnetic separation. Separated ratio was relatively higher in non-soil washed sample. The water content has no significant effect on the separation rate. The concentrating effect of Fe, Pb, Cu, and Cd were 3.2, 2.1, 12.1, 2.5, 1.5 and 17.4, 7.0, 15.7, 9.6, 7.0 respectively for non-soil washed sample and soil washed sample. We can expect a bigger volume reduction effect from soil-washed samples. The volume reduction effect was obtained from the separation in dry condition. However, when the separation ratio is too high the volume reduction effect decreases. The magnetic separation leads to a volume reduction and concentration of heavy metals into a portion of soil in case of paramagnetic particles contained soil.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.39 no.4 s.179
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• pp.441-450
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• 2006

The on-land seismic survey in Korea was begun in mid-1960s. Kim et al.(1967) of Korea Geological Survey reported on the result of gravity and seismic reflection surveys conducted in the Pohang area for the period of 1963-64 to assess its possibility of oil entrapment. Hyun and Kim (1966) carried out a refraction survey on the tunnel wall. Since then, the KGS geophysicists had conducted seismic surveys on Kyungsang sedimentary basin as a main project for several years. In 1970s, on-land seismic surveys had been conducted for various purposes such as site investigation for the nuclear power plants and industrial complex, exploration for ground water, mineral resources and underground tunnel. The first reflection survey with CMP acquisition was attempted in 1978 by using a digital recording system. But most of on-land seismic surveys had employed the refraction method until 1980s. In 1990s, high resolution reflection and various borehole seismic surveys such as tomography, uphole, downhole, cross-hole methods have been attempted by universities and engineering companies. The applications of on-land seismic surveys have been enlarged for both academic and industrial purposes such as investigation of geologic structure of the fault and tidal flat area, construction of highway, railroad and dam, geothermal energy and mineral resource exploration, environmental assessment for waste disposal sites and archaeological investigations. In 2002, the first crustal seismic survey was carried out on the profile of 294km length across the whole peninsular. It is expected that the advanced technology and experience acquired through offshore seismic surveys, which have been conducted in continental shelf of Korea and foreign oil fields, will stimulate the more active on-land seismic explorations.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.338-356
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• 1994

Sediment samples from the continental shelf of the South Sea of Korea are analysed to determine the concentration of Al, Fe, Mn, cu, Ni, Zn, Co, Cr and Pb. among these samples, fine-grained sediments were also analysed by a sequential extraction technique to know geochemical forms of the metals in this environments. The total concentration of Al, Fe, Cr, Ni, Cu and Zn in bulk sediments decreased gradually with the increase of distance from the coastal zone. This distribution patterns are well coincide with grain size distribution. However, the patterns of Mn, co and Pb do not follow such and overall distribution. The concentration of Pb, particularly, did not show any features in areal distribution, which may be result from different pathways to the sediments, compared to the other metals. the speculation data show that a considerable amount of Cd, Mn and Co are bounded in the carbonate fraction, accounting for 42.8%, 40.3% and 30.6%, respectively. Cu, Zn, Mn and Fe are largely associated to oxide fraction with proportions of 34.4%, 23.1%, 15.5% and 13.7%, respectively. However, the metals in residual fraction account for more than 50% of the total metal concentration, except for Mn. These observations emphasize that residual fraction in the dominant component controlling the elemental concentration.quartz and glauconite grains.Accordingly,these sediments are interpreted as an extension part of transgressive sand deposit that are widely distributed on the continental shalf floor of southern Yellow Sea.