The geomorphic control and the environemental impact of geochemical processes in the Pangeon Mountain Area, Northern Greece

Abstract

In this paper a total of seven samples (a river sediment, two surface soil samples, and four surrounding rocks) from the Pangaion area, Northern Greece, were collected and analyzed for their content in 10 major (Al, Ca, Cl, Fe, K, Mg, Na, P, S, and Si) and 32 trace elements (Ag, As, B, Ba, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Ga, Ge, Hg, La, Li, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Rb, Sb, Se, Sn, Sr, Th, Ti, U, V, W, Y, Zn, and Zr). The sampling was based on the major geomorphological processes of the area. The two soil samples are typical of the in-situ rock weathering. The sediment of River Marmaras fingerprints the geochemical processes of the weathering processes and human activity in the drainage basin of the S-SE Pangaion Mountain Area. The extraction of the elements was based on the digestion of 0.1 g of each sample with 2 ml HNO3 and the soil-sediment fraction used was the < 200μm. The analytical methods used were ICP-OES and ICP-MS. The results indicate that the river sediment sample is the one with the highest concentrations, especially in some environmentally important elements, such as As, which has a concentration (32.9 mg kg-1) that is fourteen times greater than the observed in soil samples.