1887

Abstract

Contamination from both active and abandoned underground coal mines, surface mines and coal refuse piles has been studied by direct methods, i.e., boreholes. However borehole location can be difficult and so it is proposed here to undertake an electrical resistivity investigation and hydrochemistry studies to evaluate relationships between sources and areas of shallow aquifer contamination based principally on the conductivity of the pore fluid as well as properties of the medium. The resulting geophysical-geochemical model defines a horizon around the water table depth, where low resistivity anomalies (ranging between 28 and 76 Ω.m) is correlated with high sulphide contents (ranging between 203 and 293 mg/l) and low pH (average 4.3). The physical and geochemical conditions, resulting from the oxidation of the sulphide minerals, suggest that the low resistivity anomalies are associated with acidic and metal-rich pore water with specific electrical conductance (SEC) values ranging between 484 and 604 µS/cm for the three shallow well-water samples (S-1, S-2 and S-3). Furthermore, the low resistivity features appeared in the central part of the study area around Okpara coal mine and in the northeastern part of the study area around Obwetti fireclay mine, consistent with the geologic and environmental understanding of the site.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20143440
2012-09-03
2024-03-29
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http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20143440
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