Authors: Reyes, Bertha¹; Bautista, Francisco²; Goguitchaichvili, Avto³; Morton, Ofelia⁴

Source: Studia Geophysica et Geodaetica, Volume 55, Number 2, April 2011 , pp. 377-388(12)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the study of the correlation between magnetic parameters with the level of contamination by heavy metals in urban soils. We report a magnetic investigation of urban soil samples from Merida, state of Yucatan, Southern Mexico. It appears that most of our samples contain ferrimagnetic minerals as the magnetic carriers, probably coming from the titanomagnetites/titanomaghemites series. This is inferred by the acquisition of isothermal remanent magnetization, which shows that most of samples are almost completely saturated at about 200 mT. The S₋₂₀₀ value (factor characterizing stability of remanent magnetization) is between 0.8 and 1.0, characteristic of ferrimagnetic minerals. The susceptibility vs. temperature measurements also point to some titanomaghemites and titanomagnetites as probable responsible for magnetization. On the other hand, measurements of magnetic susceptibility at high and low frequencies helped us to determine the high content of superparamagnetic grains in the majority of the samples, although not all of these showed high values of magnetic susceptibility. We found that the most contaminated samples by Pb and Zn showed the higher saturation isothermal remanent magnetization values, whereas the higher values in magnetic susceptibility correspond to samples contaminated by Cr. Finally, we noted that a high level in Sr decreases the magnetic susceptibility.

Keywords: soil contamination; magnetic susceptibility; magnetic monitoring; magnetic parameters; heavy metals

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11200-011-0021-6

Affiliations: 1: Laboratorio Interinstitucional de Magnetismo Natural, Instituto de Geofísica - Sede Michoacán, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, 58089, Morelia, Mexico, Email: baguilar@geofisica.unam.mx 2: Laboratorio de Suelos y Agua, Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, 58089, Morelia, Mexico 3: Laboratorio Interinstitucional de Magnetismo Natural, Instituto de Geofísica - Sede Michoacán, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Campus Morelia, 58089, Morelia, Mexico, Email: avto@geofisica.unam.mx 4: Laboratorio de Paleomagnetismo, Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510, México D.F., Mexico

Publication date: 2011-04-01

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