Study of potential environmental risk of metallic trace elements in mine tailings: Case of Sidi Bou Othmane abandoned mine in Marrakech - Morocco

Environmental pollution by heavy metals originated from functional and or abandoned mines can become a very important source of contamination both in soil and water. therefore,the characterization of chemical and physical tailings properties is important to assess the risk of potential environmental mobility of toxic trace metals that are contained in this kind of waste. the chemical forms of some heavy metals in tailings of sidi bou othmane mine in north-west of marrakech city (morocco) were studied by determining of cd,cu,pb,and zn species using standard solvent extraction and atomic absorption spectrophotometric techniques. the chemical pools of the metals indicated that the metals were distributed into six fractions with most of the metals residing in the non-residual fractions,suggesting how readily the metals are released into the environment. results showed cadmium and copper were predominantly associated with short-term mobile fraction (f1 and f2) while lead was largely associated with long-term mobile fraction (f3,f4 and f5) and zn was essentially bound to fe- mn oxide phase (f4). out of the four studied heavy metals considered in this study,zn and pb appeared the most potentially bioavailable indicating its possibility of entering the food chain.