Mining Institute, Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, Moscow:

A. P. Pesterev, Associate Professor, Candidate of Biological Sciences, pesterev.a@mail.ru
E. N. Chemezov, Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences

The low resistance of the northern ecosystems to anthropogenic effects is well known. This is due to the species-poor flora and fauna, and because of the limited thermal resources necessary for the survival of living organisms in the harsh natural and climatic conditions of the Arctic. The presence of permafrost adds up to these factors as permafrost loses its stability during mining and aggravates techno genesis with a number of geocryological phenomena such as solifluction, soil flow, false body, sinking, thermoerosion and other processes that promote the degradation of the terrain and the spread of pollution over large areas. These negative consequences complicate and upvalue mineral mining in permafrost. In this regard, preliminary environmental studies are needed to develop preventive measures to reduce or eliminate possible undesirable environmental transformations during development of natural resources of the Arctic regions, including pollution of the components of the northern ecosystems with heavy metals and hazardous chemicals. At the same time, the northern soils feature low depositing capacity due to the small thickness of the seasonal active layer, which quickly leads to very high concentrations of pollutants in the soil. In this aspect, this article describes the studies of the soil–vegetation cover of the mountain tundra landscapes in the north of Eastern Yakutia where alluvial gold is mined by the open pit method in the catchment areas of the northern rivers, in the basins of which the physicochemical properties and geochemical indicators of permafrost in its natural state are considered. The studied structure of the soil cover in the region can serve as the basis for the mining technology development taking into account the local peculiarities and, later on, as the framework for the restoration of the mining-disturbed lands to conform with the natural soil classification.

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