Micromorphological characteristics of soils under the abandoned fields of mines, Ningyo-toge, Japan

Jiang, Q.*; Tamura, Kenji*; Asano, Maki*; Fukuyama, Kenjin; Takahashi, Junko*; Yamaji, Keiko*

In the former open-pit mining area of Ningyo-toge mine, is the dominant in its vegetation and the vegetation succession has been suspended for 2 decades. The present work was conducted to understand the soil micromorphological characteristics on this unusual area. We set two sampling sites (site A and site B) at the former open-pit mining area. Site A is in dominant vegetation, and site B is in dominant vegetation. Soil samples were taken from each horizon of the soil profiles for chemical analysis at the sites, and thin sections were obtained from the soil core samples (0-5 cm, 10-15 cm, 30-35 cm depth of site A and Site B, respectively). The BC horizon of site B has a lower Eh, which may be due to the less voids in the underlying soil, which results in seasonal accumulation of water. And the soil thin section observation showed that the 0-5cm of soil is in good structure, but the lower layer is not fully developed and forms a block structure. The content of the five forms of Fe and Mn are residual form oxide-bound form organic-bound form carbonate-bound form exchangeable form in this study site.