Abstract
The mining and metallurgical industries rank among the most important anthropogenic sources of pollution. These activities generate important quantities of solid wastes (tailings, slags, fly ash, dusts),which are often stored on the dumps, in the tailing ponds, or in other types of disposal sites without any specific treatment.
These wastes still contain significant amounts of metals and metalloids, which can subsequently be released through either chemical or biological weathering and, together with liquid effluents from mines and smelters, can contaminate various compartments of the environment, primarily the "critical zone" including soils, surface waters, and groundwater. As a result, they represent a severe environmental risk for the biota, including humans.
An understanding the mineralogical and geochemical processes affecting the fate of contaminants in the mining- and smelting-impacted areas is of key importance for the development of suitable remediation techniques, which then can potentially be applied at these sites.