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Mineralogical Magazine; October 2005; v. 69; no. 5; p. 877-886; DOI: 10.1180/0026461056950295
© 2005 Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland
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Hydrochemical associations and depth profiles of arsenic and fluoride in Quaternary loess aquifers of northern Argentina

C. Warren1,3, W. G. Burgess1,* and M. G. Garcia2

1 Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
2 Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia en Quimica Aplicada, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Tucumán 4000, Argentina
3 Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford University, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PR, UK

* E-mail: william.burgess{at}ucl.ac.uk

Arsenic and fluoride in groundwater from Quaternary loess deposits in Argentina pose major health concerns. Common sources for arsenic and fluoride have been suggested but the processes of mobilization are disputed, and distributions in groundwater are largely unresolved at a sample density >1/50 km2. At Los Pereyras in Tucumán Province, northern Argentina, we have evaluated distributions and hydrochemical associations of arsenic and fluoride with a sample density of 0.75 per km2 over an area of 75 km2, to a depth of 230 m. Groundwater in the loess is oxic and alkaline. Fluoride is restricted to the upper 20 m of the Quaternary loess, where it reaches 8.3 mg/l. Arsenic has a vertical layering consistent with that of fluoride, ranging from 20 to 760 µg/l in the upper 20 m and 58–163 µg/l below this. There are two sources of arsenic, one unrelated to the fluoride source. Positive correlations between arsenic and fluoride with pH, but not with alkalinity, support desorption from iron oxyhydroxides as the likely mechanism of release to groundwater for arsenic and fluoride, rather than the weathering of silicate minerals. Stratigraphic and/or palaeohydrological controls may explain the observed depth distributions within the loess aquifer.

KEYWORDS: arsenic, fluoride, loess, aquifer, Argentina, groundwater




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