Portal de Cartagena
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Can the native vegetation of an area mining soils regenerate?
The answer is yes.
The test has put on the table the doctor engineering Minas Italo Montofré, with the thesis "Application of Phytotechnologies to Tailings Mining Located in Desert Zones', defended at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT).
To do this, the researcher has focused in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
This area is considered one of the most important mining regions in the world, it is the first in world copper production and number two in extracting manganese, as revealed Montofré work.
Mining generates a huge volume of waste that pose a focus of chemical contamination by heavy metals and physical risks by structural instability.
The thesis, which have led Angel Faz, Elizabeth Lam and Manuel Canovas, has shown that plants native to Chile help absorb nutrients and immobilize chemicals in the mining soil such as Copper, Cadmium, Zinc, Manganese, Iron and Lead.
As explained by one of the directors of the thesis, Angel Faz, "vegetation growing in a contaminated soil is able to regenerate because it creates a surface that protects and creates a layer on the ground that minimizes the impact of pollution".
To this have been used native plant species Atacama Desert as Prosopis mesquite and Atriplex nummularia, identified as tolerant and exclusoras of different metals in the soil.
This technique, pioneered in desert areas, has also shown that there is no tendency of translocation of metals, that is, soil contaminants not mobilize other areas affecting populations, waterways, forthcoming soil, so that also minimize the impact on health of people and the environment.
They try to put the results of this methodology to the service of the great mining of Chile, as well as the Copper Mining Corporation country, because it is closely related to plans mine closure, mandated by law.
This work has been carried out within the Interuniversity and Sustainable Doctoral Program Environment Mining, coordinated by Professor Angel Faz Cano, where the Catholic University of the North (UCN), Antofagasta, Chile, the Lam doctor, who is a professor of participating UCN, specialist mine closure and Dr. Canovas, graduated from the UPCT and professor at the UCN.
Source: UPCT
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