Environmental geophysic and geochemistry studies for investigation of pollutant impacts of drainage of Qaleh Zari copper mine processing plant, South Khorasan

The Geophysical and geochemical approaches have been used widely for investigation of environmental contaminations. The main goal of this research is the study of heavey metal accumulation in soil and also investigation of the penetrating depth of drainage in soil in Qaleh- Zari Copper Mine which located at the 180 km of south west of Birjand. To achieve the goal, 2 dimensional electrical resistivity tomography method has been used. For determination of penetrating depth, a 2D electrical resistivity tomography profil has been designed with length of 520 m perpendicular to the study area. In following, 210 point has been picked. The obtained results indicate that the electrical resistivity in affectin area has been reduced up to 3 ohm-meters whereas the resistivity of surrounding formation is above 2000 ohm-meter. The geoelectric sections show that the penetrating depth of drainage is approximately 30m.The existence of joints and fractures within the bed rock which results in groundwater penetration and probably contamination from tailings dam can be the reason of decrease in resistivity of bed rock. Geotechnical studies in the study area imply to the existence of shear zone in the site. Consequently, environmental geochemistry using of enrichemnt index (EI), geo-accumulation index (GAI) and pollution index (PI) have been performed. For this purpose, the some samples from soil (3 samples) and drainage (1 sample) have been collected. Data analusis using above indexes show that the concentration of heavy metalts (V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Mo, Hg, As, Ag, Pb, Cd, Zn)have been increased by increasing of depth. So, the solis have been polluted in area. This leads to a decreation in formations resistivity that verify the results obtained from the electrical Tomography. The results of such studies can be used to manage the environmental impacts in mine.