Active and abandoned mines pose serious health threats to humans, aquatic, and terrestrial biota. Northeastern Oklahoma, home to a number of Native American Tribes, is part of the well‐known Tri‐State Mining District. More than 100 years of mining production in this area has left numerous, large chat piles in the surrounding environment. Despite numerous studies and efforts on the restoration of metal contamination in this area, no studies have attempted to distinguish the contributions of different sources, particularly from the atmospheric deposition, of metals to the aquatic environment. Here, we analyzed the atmospheric deposition of Pb from Picher, a town surrounded by chat piles, and Tulsa, a primary metropolitan area in northeastern Oklahoma, from 2010 to 2016. We found that chat piles in Picher contain ~20% and 6% of fine particles that are subjective to windborne transport and human inhalation, respectively, and these fine particles contain disproportionally high concentrations of Pb. Despite the absence of industrial and human activities, airborne Pb in Picher is 2–5 times higher than that of Tulsa. A conservative estimate showed that airborne Pb may contribute up to 10% of annual Pb mass flux to a lake 18 km away from the chat piles in Picher and probably a much higher contribution for soil and water located adjacent to Picher. Despite known limitations, our study represents the first attempt to evaluate the significance of Pb‐laden airborne particulate matter from a large‐scale abandoned mining area where the humans are particularly vulnerable to metal exposure.

中文翻译：

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美国俄克拉荷马州东北部废弃矿山废物中的空气铅 (Pb)


活跃和废弃的矿井对人类、水生和陆地生物群构成严重的健康威胁。俄克拉荷马州东北部是许多美洲原住民部落的家园，是著名的三州矿区的一部分。该地区 100 多年的采矿生产在周围环境中留下了无数大型废渣堆。尽管对该地区金属污染的恢复进行了大量的研究和努力，但没有研究试图区分金属的不同来源，特别是大气沉积对水生环境的贡献。在这里，我们分析了 2010 年至 2016 年皮彻（一个被聊天堆包围的小镇）和塔尔萨（俄克拉荷马州东北部的一个主要大都市区）的大气沉降量。我们发现皮彻的聊天堆含有约 20% 和 6% 的铅。分别受风传播和人类吸入影响的细颗粒，这些细颗粒含有不成比例的高浓度铅。尽管没有工业和人类活动，皮歇尔空气中的铅含量比塔尔萨高 2-5 倍。保守估计表明，空气中的铅可能占皮歇尔距矿堆 18 公里处湖泊年铅质量通量的 10%，而对皮歇尔附近土壤和水的贡献可能要高得多。尽管存在已知的局限性，我们的研究还是首次尝试评估来自大规模废弃矿区的含铅空气颗粒物的重要性，这些矿区人类特别容易受到金属暴露的影响。