Heavy metals distribution in the serpentinite-granite contact zone in El-Sid area, Central Eastern Desert, Egypt

Gado, Nour Eldin Mohamed; Osman, Abd El Moneim Mohamed; Abdelmalik, Karim Wagih

doi:10.21608/egjg.2025.348060.1101

Heavy metals distribution in the serpentinite-granite contact zone in El-Sid area, Central Eastern Desert, Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

² geology, faculty of science, Ain Shams University, Egypt

10.21608/egjg.2025.348060.1101

Abstract

The present work aims to investigate the heavy metal concentrations of the major rock units that exposed in El-Sid area, Central Eastern Desert, Egypt, and determine the hotspots areas with higher concentration levels in the investigated area. Concentrations of iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), sulfur (S) and Arsenic (AS) were measured in the heavy mineral fractions of representative samples by using Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS). The mapping of heavy metal concentrations was created by the inverse distance weighting (IDW) method. The highest concentrations of Fe, Zn and Pb were in Cataclastic granite, Monzo-Syenogranite and Qz-monzodiorite, while S is only detected in serpentinite after dunite rock. The present results showed that As was not detected in present samples. The lowest concentration of Fe was in carbonate rock stained with iron oxide and pyroxenite, Zn was in porphyritic meta-andesite, carbonate rock stained with iron oxide, serpentinite rocks and pyroxenite, and Pb was in serpentinite after dunite, serpentinite after pyroxenite with talc carbonate and pyroxenite. The results of the present study elucidate concentration levels of investigated heavy metals in rock units of the present area and refer to the hotspots areas with higher levels.

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