Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Gold mining largest source of anthropogenic arsenic

Gold mining is by far the largest single source of anthropogenic arsenic

By S. U. Dani, August 24, 2010

Table 1 shows that gold mining is by far the largest single source of world anthropogenic arsenic. If all estimated gold reserves are exploited, then gold mining will release estimated 104 million tonnes of arsenic in the environment. This is more than 20 times as much arsenic as has been released from all anthropogenic sources in the industrial age so far.

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