Subject: Biogeology [Was: Plants and Pb]

From: [email-masked] (Ian B Staples)
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 09:37:23 GMT

"Gordon A. Fox" <[email-masked]> writes:
>[email-masked] (Joel Kroin ) wrote:
>>Many years ago some researchers found some plants which have an
>>affinity to absorb gold from soil over gold mine trailings. The process
>>was not economically feasible. I doubt if further work was done.

>I don't know about anyone being foolish enough to try to make money this 
>way, but I do know that (1) a lot of mineral exploration has been done 
>based on plants w/ known tolerances for particular minerals, and that did 
>pay off, at least some of the time, and (2) there's now a growing body of 
>experience in which plants are used for remediating contaminated soils. 
>There are obviously limitations and problems, but I don't think the idea 
>is one that should be scoffed at.

A couple of (rather old) references for those interested in this topic:

BROOKS, R.R. (1968).  Biogeochemical prospecting in New Zealand.
	_NZ Sci. Review_ v.26(1): 9-12

ANTONOVICS, J., BRADSHAW, A.D., and TURNER, R.G. (1971). Heavy metal
	tolerance in plants.  _Advances in Ecological Research_ v.7: 1-85.

The former refers, for example, to "... species such as _Viola calamina_,
which grow only over zinc deposits in Western and Central Europe."

Cheers,  Ian S.

-- 

Ian Staples                        E-mail : [email-masked]
c/- P.O. Box 1054 MAREEBA          Phone  : +61 (0)70 928 555 Home 924 847
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