An investigation into the problems associated with revegetating chrysotile tailings

Abstract

The present investigation was initiated because of the limited success achieved in the past at attempts to revegetate chrysotile tailings with their associated inherent environmental risk factors. The current set of experiments and surveys, as with several previous studies, were conducted at Msauli chrysotile mine, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. All soil and leaf samples were collected, and the total percentage canopy cover, species frequency, percentage cover per species, percentage alive biomass, and phenology per species quantified. This was done in nine randomly selected 1m2 areas, on both the upper (steeper) and lower (less steep) slopes of previously revegetated slopes, with comparable samples from areas within the native vegetation serving as controis. Nine composite (consisting on average of three 500g samples) replicate soil samples per slope gradient, as well as leaf samples (ca. 5g of dried above ground leaf material) representative of the species composition, were sampled in the same plots...