Identification and study of mineral indicator plants in Chelpo mineralization area (North Kashmar)

Authors

1 MSc student in Environmental geology, Department of Petroleum Engineering and Geology, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran

2 Department of Geology and Petroleum Engineering, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

Geobotany, as a useful tool in the exploration of minerals, has found a lot of use in environmental studies and the cleaning of contaminated environments. Chalpo is located 45 km north of Kashmer city (Khorasan Razavi). Due to the occurrence of antimony-gold deposit and geological and geochemical characteristics along with the specific vegetation of the region, the geobotanical study of the plants of the area was carried out to identify mineral indicator plants, introduce endemic plants and the geochemical effect of the region on important metallophytes. Sampling was done in precise and specific steps from the plant organs and the soil where the roots of the plants are located. The amount of elements in the soil, root and shoot samples of the plant was compared.Based on the results of chemical analyses, the arsenic content of all plant species is higher than the normal level in plants. Ih has measured above 2000 ppm arsenic in Asperula glomerata subsp. turcomanica. Most plants concentrated one or more elements higher than normal, which is very important both from the point of view of the exploration of metal minerals and from the environmental studies. Despite the proximity location of the collected samples, the plants showed very different absorption rates in each element. The endemic plant Astragalus hekmat-safaviae with a very high accumulation coefficient of arsenic (9), antimony (25) and molybdenum (51) can be introduced as an absorbent or superabsorbent for these metals and as an accumulator for copper and zinc elements. The Asperula glomerata subsp. turcomanica, one of the typical plants of the region, shows an accumulation coefficient of about 2 for zinc and molybdenum. The Jurinea sp. which was observed in this study for the first time, shows the accumulation coefficient and the transfer coefficient factor higher than one for zinc and molybdenum.

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History

  • Receive Date: 19 November 2022
  • Revise Date: 01 January 2023
  • Accept Date: 10 January 2023

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