• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-43
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• 2017

This study investigated mineralogy, spectral characteristics and heavy metal contamination including Cd, Ni, Al, Fe, Mn and S for white precipitation in Miin falls based on XRF, XRD, and spectrometer. As a result, Al concentration was abnormally high at all samples, and most of the samples showed high contamination level in Cd and Ni. XRD results detected quartz, kaolinite, rhomboclase, aluminocoquimbite, and gibbsite which infers that heavy metal elements are distributed by adsorption with clay minerals. Spectral characteristics of white precipitation can be described by increasing pattern of reflectance in visible spectrum and decreasing pattern of reflectance in longer wave length including near infrared and shortwave infrared spectrum. The absorption features reveals that spectral characteristics of white precipitation is mainly controlled by kaolinite, rhomboclase, aluminocoquimbite, and gibbsite. The relationship between heavy metal concentration and absorption depth showed high positive correlation for Al concentration and absorption feature at 2202 nm of Al-OH absorption. This spectral characteristics indicates that absorption depth could be effectively used for estimation of heavy metal concentration.