Potentially Toxic Elements and Soil Fauna in Moatize Coal Mine Chronosequence

A chronosequence study from 0.5 to 10.6 years of restoration at the Moatize coal mine in Mozambique, authored by Sérgio da Costa Dias and last updated in May 2026. It analyzes bioavailable levels of chromium, lead, copper, zinc, and barium alongside soil organic carbon and macro- and mesofauna abundance. The data serves as a baseline for environmental monitoring and policy guidance in a region lacking legislative reference values for these contaminants.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between soil fauna recolonization and restoration time based on organism counts for Acari, Collembola, and Hymenoptera.
• Assessing ecological risk from mining contaminants based on calculated risk factor and index values for Cr, Pb, Cu, Zn, and Ba.
• Investigating interactions between soil organic carbon fractions (fulvic acid, humic acid, humin) and contaminant bioavailability.
• Benchmarking restored minesoil recovery against an unmined reference site based on comparative fauna abundance data.

Strengths

• Provides specific organism counts (e.g., 642 Acari, 227 Collembola) after 10.6 years of restoration.
• Includes a direct comparison to an unmined reference soil, quantifying recovery gaps (e.g., 84% lower Acari abundance).
• Analyzes a defined chronosequence with four restoration time points (0.5, 1.4, 5.3, 10.6 years).
• Assesses multiple bioavailable contaminants (Cr, Pb, Cu, Zn, Ba) and their calculated ecological risk indices.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is small (678.3 KB), indicating limited scope and likely a small number of sampling points.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Sérgio da Costa Dias.

Collection Method

Soil samples were collected from the 0.00−0.10 m layer across a chronosequence of afforested minesoils and one adjacent unmined reference site, followed by laboratory analysis.

Time Range

The study covers a restoration chronosequence from 0.5 to 10.6 years.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-20 05:42:55; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Moatize coal mine, Mozambique.