Soils and plants in an anthropogenic dump of the Kokdzhon phosphorite mine (Kazakhstan)

Soil development is a crucial aspect in the process of mine spoil restoration and is also critical for the establishment of the vegetation. In this short paper, we present the features of mine proto-soils (i.e. soils at the early stage of development) and the natural vegetation species colonizing mine sites in a dry arid environment of Kazakhstan characterized by surface disturbance due to mine activity to access phosphorite deposit.These disturbed soils showed morphological features very different from each other (particularly horizons depth and sequence), even if the main chemical features were quite homogeneous. This is reasonably linked to the features of the Human Transported Material derived from mine operation that was scattered around the mine area. The most abundant natural plants found in the study area belong to the Poacee, Asteraceae and Fabacee families (with 4 species each). Biomass contribution for all species is very low; the root biomass was greater than above ground biomass, contributing to a modest soil development

Impact of space and rocket activity on soil cover in central Kazakhstan

The results of environmental monitoring and integrated assessment of the stability of brown, mostly solonetzic soils and solonchaks to chemical pollution and mechanical stresses at the fall places of the first stage of “Proton” launch vehicle (LV) in the Yu-2 zone (Central Kazakhstan) are provided. With the help of GIS technologies, zoning maps of the investigated territory have been created based on the criteria of soil cover resistance to the impact of space and rocket activity (SRA)