Mineralogical and Chemical Characterization of Rocks, Soils, Sediments, and Water Containing Hazardous Substances

Dear Colleagues,

Hazardous substances (HSs) include inorganic contaminants such as potentially toxic elements (PTEs) and technology-critical elements (TCEs) and organic contaminants such as emerging contaminants, pesticides, POPs, mycotoxins, PAHs. These substances can naturally accumulate in soil, sediments, and/or water during the weathering of rocks or other natural processes. In addition, they can be supplied by anthropogenic activities such as mining, industrial, urban, or agricultural activities.

The environmental contamination of HSs is becoming increasingly serious in many countries around the world, along with urbanization and industrialization, which pose a severe hazard to ecosystems and human health. The increased content of HSs can adversely affect the biological properties of the soil–sediment–water system, cause changes in the food chain, have a toxic effect on plants, and can contaminate groundwater.

The main aim of this Special Issue “Mineralogical and Chemical Characterization of Rocks, Soils, Sediments, and Water Containing Hazardous Substances” is to further our understanding of the natural and anthropogenic processes that occur in different environmental matrices at various scales, from a bulk, micron-scale, and nanoscale to an atomic scale. For this reason, we encourage the submission of original papers related to field studies, laboratory experiments, and mineralogical and chemical characterizations with a focus on inorganic and organic geochemistry, metal speciation, contaminant and pollutant mobility and behavior, the distribution and weathering of minerals, and the dynamics of natural and anthropogenic materials and elements in rocks, soils, sediments, and water.

This Special Issue aims to cover a broad range of topics relevant to the presence of HSs in different ecosystems, including (but not limited to):

• The main factors conditioning HS mobility under specified conditions and consequences.
• Detailed HS partition among minerals and associated potential mobility.
• Establishment of sources of HS causing contamination in soil, sediments, or water.
• Weathering of HS-bearing rocks and mining wastes.

The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together researchers from different fields involving geochemistry and mineralogy in soil, sediment, and water to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the natural and anthropogenic cycles of trace elements.

We look forward to receiving your contribution.

Dr. Silvia Fornasaro
Prof. Dr. Nosir Shukurov
Dr. Gevorg Tepanosyan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• potentially toxic elements
• emerging organic contaminants
• technology-critical elements
• elemental mobility
• risk assessment
• rock weathering
• geogenic vs. anthropogenic sources
• persistent organic pollutants
• metal-rich airborne particles