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Characterisation of mineral forms of arsenic in garden soils from a historic gold mining region

2025· article· en· W4409186815 on OpenAlexafffundabout
Sean McHale, Heather E. Jamieson, Michael J. Palmer, Iris Koch

Bibliographic record

VenueThe Science of The Total Environment · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldEnvironmental Science
TopicHeavy metals in environment
Canadian institutionsAurora CollegeQueen's UniversityRoyal Military College of CanadaGeological Survey of Canada
FundersNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
KeywordsArsenicMineralGold miningMining engineeringGeochemistryArchaeologySoil waterGeologyEarth scienceGeographyMetallurgySoil scienceMaterials science

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Soils in the Yellowknife region were contaminated with arsenic by >50 years of atmospheric mining emissions from ore roasting operations. Persistent community concern regarding contamination of local garden soils prompted this investigation. One hundred and fifteen soil samples were collected from 110 resident gardens and were analysed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for elemental analysis. Arsenic concentrations were below local remediation soil quality guidelines for residential areas (160 mg kg −1 ) in all soil samples, but 62 % of samples exceeded national Canadian soil quality guidelines (12 mg kg −1 ) for the protection of environmental and human health. Ten samples, with relatively high arsenic concentrations, were analysed by scanning electron microscope with automated mineralogy to identify solid phase arsenic hosts; four samples were further analysed by synchrotron-based microanalysis to identify crystal structure of target mineral grains. The predominant mineral host of arsenic in the garden soils was identified as arsenopyrite , which could be geogenic, anthropogenic (e.g., repurposed mine waste), or both. Arsenic trioxide from ore roaster stack emissions was identified in five garden soils mineralogically analysed. Arsenic-bearing iron oxides were detected in nine of the soils mineralogically analysed; in three of these soils, roaster-generated iron oxides generated by ore roasting were identified. Garden soil arsenic concentrations (14 mg kg −1 median) were substantially lower than values determined by a previous study for undisturbed, Public Health Layer soils in the region (390 mg kg −1 median); likely, mixing of surface soils with soil beneath, and use of purchased soils in gardening has dispersed the surficial arsenic enrichment consequent of ore roasting.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.000
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.032
Threshold uncertainty score0.064

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0000.000
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0000.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.012
GPT teacher head0.212
Teacher spread0.200 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes3
Has abstractyes

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