knowledge of the probable origin and behaviour of arsenic certainly gives valuable insights into the potential for transfer in the environment and of the risks involved in mining sites. sequential extraction analyses are common experiments often used to study the origin and behaviour of potentially toxic elements. the method, however, presents some deficiencies, including labor-intensive proced...

Latin American labor power has decreased dramatically in the 1990’s. In spite of this phenomenon, Chilean subcontracted laborers in the copper industry organized and forced the government to increase social protection for temporary workers. What circumstances allowed for the successful unionization? I argue that the unionization of subcontracted workers is due to a change in the labor instituti...

A bacterial strain, Pseudomonas putida S4, was isolated from smelter drainage of copper mines. The strain exhibited resistance to several heavy metals, like aluminium (Al), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co) besides copper (Cu). Strain S4 could accumulate Cu from the Cu-supplemented growth medium. In the present study, we have demonstrated the Cu2+ removal capacity of this strain from various ...

During its 25 years of production from 1972 to 1998, the Gibraltar Cu-Mo mine in east-central British Columbia (Figure 1) milled a total of 324 million tons of ore containing an average 0.351% Cu from four open pits. Fieldwork during 2000 involved just over two weeks of detailed pit mapping at the mine. Results of this work and several earlier intervals of pit mapping conducted in 1998 and 1999...

Mine drainages of La Poderosa (El Campillo, Huelva, Spain), located in the Rio Tinto Basin (Iberian Pyrite Belt) generate carotenoid complexes mixed with copper sulfates presenting good natural models for the production of carotenoids from microorganisms. The environmental conditions of Rio Tinto Basin include important environmental stresses to force the microorganisms to accumulate carotenoid...

We measured the quartz content of 20 bulk settled dust and 200 respirable dust samples in a cross-sectional dust exposure assessment that is part of an epidemiological study to ascertain the risk of nonmalignant respiratory diseases among Zambian copper miners. Dust samples were collected from the copper mines of Mopani Copper Mine plc (Mufulira and Nkana Mines). Analytical measurements employe...

Background The Sossego mine, located in Canaã dos Carajás, Pará, Brazil, has a pond of wastes with low copper concentrations economically unfeasable for extraction. In this place, we can improve environmental conditions and, at the same time, recover part of the ore diluted in these wastes, through evaluation and use of the local biodiversity, in bioremediation processes, once the use of this t...

Here, we report on the draft genome of a copper-resistant and acidophilic Desulfosporosinus sp. BG, isolated from the tailings of a molybdenum-tungsten mine in Transbaikal area. The draft genome has a size of 4.52 Mb and encodes transporters of heavy metals. The phylogenetic analysis based on concatenated ribosomal proteins revealed that strain BG clusters together with the other acidophilic co...

Richness and diversity of ant species are related to environmental factors such as vegetation, soil, presence of heavy metals, and insecticides, which allow the use of the assemblage members as terrestrial indicators of environmental conservation status. This study presents the results of ground ants surveyed in Minas do Camaquã in the municipality of Cacapava do Sul (Camaquã Basin), State of R...

In a town located in a desert area of Northern Chile, gold and copper open-pit mining is carried out involving explosive processes. These processes are associated with increased dust exposure, which might affect children's respiratory health. Therefore, we aimed to quantify the causal attributable risk of living close to the mines on asthma or allergic rhinoconjunctivitis risk burden in childre...