Natural and anthropogenic landscapes of the gold-mining regions in Bashkortostan (Russia)

This article presents the results of laboratory and field studies of territories in the zone of influence of the gold extracting and mining enterprises of the Southern Urals. Researches were conducted on six sites of gold mining of the past years, in order to identify natural and technogenic mercury in various natural and man-made landscapes of mining Bashkortostan. A brief description of the mineralization of the study area and types of gold deposits is given. The mercury content in bedrock, in various types of ores, man-made soils (fine-grained tailings dump, tailings), soils, bed-silts, in the soil air, in water was determined. The largest technogenic anomalies are Hg dissemination flows in bed silts of watercourses and lakes. Technogenic Hg anomalies in soils are local and are formed in the areas of mining and old ores processing. The practical absence of anomalies in transit environments with intensive Hg accumulation in long-term deposition reflects the regressive residual nature of technogenic mercury anomalies.