Spatial distribution of heavy metal contents in soils of YunFu pyrite mining area

Key words: 
• heavy metals /
• geostatistics /
• YunFu pyrite mining

Abstract: The contents of six kinds of heavy metals (Cu、Zn、Pb、Cd、Cr、Ni) in soils of YunFu pyrite mining area were determined and analyzed. The spatial distribution characteristics of all the six kinds of heavy metal elements were analyzed based on geostatistics methods. The results showed that all the average contents of the six heavy metals had exceeded the local soil background values. By the results of semivariance analysis, structural factors played a leading role in the spatial variability on Cd, Cu and Zn, and the random factors played a much weaker role on Cd, Cu and Zn. Both of Pb and Cr showed a moderate degree of spatial correlation and their random factors were similar with the structural factors. The spatial distribution revealed that the contents of Cd,Cr and Cu in soil were closely related with the mineral processing enterprises and slag stacking, Zn pollutants were mainly from agricultural fertilizers. By our results, in addition to the influence by the mineral enterprises, the effects on the contents of Ni by agricultural fertilization could not be ignored. The increasing of Pb was mainly due to the extracting ore.