Provenance of uranium in a sediment core from a natural reservoir, South China: Application of Pb stable isotope analysis

As part of ongoing environmental investigations of U mining impacts, forty-two sediment samples of a nearly-half-meter-long sediment core retrieved from a natural reservoir near an active uranium (U) mining site, South China were analyzed to quantify the extent of U release and identify U release mechanism within the riverine catchment. Enrichment levels of U was dispersed not only in the surface sediments but also in deep sediments across the depth profile. Further analysis by SEM-EDS and XRD indicated that U partitioning in the depth profile was possibly controlled by complicated interplay of leaching and precipitation cycles of U-bearing minerals. Even with the relative complexity of U dispersal processes within the catchment, the Pb isotopic fingerprinting techniques allowed quantification of source inputs of the sediments by using a binary mixing model. The results revealed that along the depth profile, only 6%–50% of the sediment material is anthropogenically derived from the U ore tailing, with the other predominant proportions originated from geogenically natural weathering of granitic bedrocks. This study highlights the use of Pb isotopes as a powerful tool for quantitatively fingerprinting the sources of U dispersal in the sediment core, and natural-occurring U contamination that may become a hidden geoenvironmental health hazard in this area.