Subject: Plants and Pb

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 1995 02:41:37 GMT

I recently saw a journal or magazine or something that had a story on
the use of plants to absorb heavy metals from soil.  Unfortuneately, I
don't recall the plants, or the journal, or anything in particular.
so if any one could point towards any information on this subject it
would be greatly appreciated.

Chris Mayor

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From: [email-masked] (David Thomas)
Date: 2 Sep 1995 03:23:38 GMT

> Chris Mayor

I don't know about a specific article, but I do know that Lupines 
concentrate heavy metals in their tissues--they can be a problem for 
ranchers.

--Dave

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From: [email-masked] (Charles Rowland )
Date: 2 Sep 1995 04:53:09 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked]
>concentrate heavy metals in their tissues--they can be a problem for 
OK, Lupines concentrate heavy metal, i read once that some type of
aquatic plants do the same thing.  The question then becomes, what do
you do with the lupines or aquatic plants---haul them to the local land
fill?  Not a smart question, i really don't know--how do we dispose of
them responsibly???

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From: Cpurvis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 16:26:51 -0400 (EDT)

> would be greatly appreciated.
Dear Chris,

	I read an article in _Popular Science_, Nov. 94 about
 hyperaccumulators--those plants that absorb heavy metals from the soil.  
The name of the article was "The Art of Bioremediation."  Maybe this was 
the one you read?   

				--  Cpurvis

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From: [email-masked] (Joel Kroin )
Date: 7 Sep 1995 23:58:05 GMT

In <[email-masked]> "Gordon A. Fox" <[email-masked]> writes: 
>>the use of plants to absorb heavy metals from soil.
>
>The article was a newsy article in the front portion of Science a
couple 
>of weeks ago, reporting on a meeting on this topic.
>
>
>-- 
>Gordon A. Fox * Dept. of Biology 0116 * Univ. of Calif., San Diego
>9500 Gilman Dr. * La Jolla, CA 92093-0116 * USA
>Fax: (619) 534-7108 * Voice: (619) 534-0796
>
>
Many years ago some researchers found some plants which have an
affinity to absorb gold from soil over gold mine trailings. The process
was not economically feasible. I doubt if further work was done.

Regards
Hortus

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From: "Gordon A. Fox" <[email-masked]>
Date: 8 Sep 1995 04:11:52 GMT

>was not economically feasible. I doubt if further work was done.

I don't know about anyone being foolish enough to try to make money this 
way, but I do know that (1) a lot of mineral exploration has been done 
based on plants w/ known tolerances for particular minerals, and that did 
pay off, at least some of the time, and (2) there's now a growing body of 
experience in which plants are used for remediating contaminated soils. 
There are obviously limitations and problems, but I don't think the idea 
is one that should be scoffed at.

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From: [email-masked] (Ian B Staples)
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 09:37:23 GMT

>is one that should be scoffed at.

A couple of (rather old) references for those interested in this topic:

BROOKS, R.R. (1968).  Biogeochemical prospecting in New Zealand.
	_NZ Sci. Review_ v.26(1): 9-12

ANTONOVICS, J., BRADSHAW, A.D., and TURNER, R.G. (1971). Heavy metal
	tolerance in plants.  _Advances in Ecological Research_ v.7: 1-85.

The former refers, for example, to "... species such as _Viola calamina_,
which grow only over zinc deposits in Western and Central Europe."

Cheers,  Ian S.

-- 

Ian Staples                        E-mail : [email-masked]
c/- P.O. Box 1054 MAREEBA          Phone  : +61 (0)70 928 555 Home 924 847
Queensland Australia 4880            Fax  : +61 (0)70 923 593   "   "   "

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From: [email-masked] (Brian Curtiss)
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 22:20:26 -0700

In article <[email-masked]>,

> which grow only over zinc deposits in Western and Central Europe."
several other references on this topic:

Levinson, A.A. (1974) Introduction to Exploration Geochemistry. Applied
Publishing Ltd., Wilmette, Illinois, U.S.A.

    --- this book has a section on the use of vegetation surveys (that is
where veg. samples are analyzed for their chemical content).  The idea is
that some plants concentrate particular elements above what would be found
in the soil.  Also, a tree's root system "samples" to a greater depth than
could be done by digging a soil pit.

A book by Brooks that might be a bit easier to find than the article
listed by the previous poster:

Brooks, R.R. (1972) Geobotany and Biogeochemistry in Mineral Exploration.
Harper and Row.

Hope this helps.

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From: [email-masked] (George McKee)
Date: 13 Sep 1995 02:52:31 GMT

Don't know if someone has already mentioned this, but the 21 July
issue of Science had a "Research News" article by Anne Moffatt
titled "Plants proving their worth in toxic metal cleanup".
(vol.269: pp.302-303)
Like most of Science's news articles, there are no citations,
but it mentions a lot of researchers' names.  Should be easy
to track down their publications...

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