Mobility and attenuation of arsenic in sulfide-rich mining wastes from the Czech Republic.

The mineralogical composition of mining wastes deposited in countless dumps around the world is the key factor that controls retention and release of pollutants. Here we report a multi-method data set combining mineralogical (X-ray diffraction, electron microprobe and Raman microspectrometry) and geochemical (sequential extraction and pore water analysis) methods to resolve As mobility in two 50-years-old mining waste dumps. Originally, all of the As in the mining wastes selected for the study was present as arsenopyrite and with time it has been replaced by secondary As phases.