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Temporal multispectral and 3D analysis of Cerro de Pasco, Peru
C A Melton1, D C Hughes2, D L Page2
1University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States of America; University of Tennessee, Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, United States of America; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States of America.
Mining in Cerro de Pasco, Peru, has led to significant lead contamination. Remote sensing analysis revealed a 17% increase in lead-bearing minerals and a 46 million m³ rise in tailing stockpile volume, highlighting environmental risks.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Science
- Geoscience
- Remote Sensing
Background:
- Mining operations globally cause widespread environmental contamination.
- Cerro de Pasco, Peru, faces severe lead contamination from mining activities, impacting residents and the environment.
- Large zinc mine tailings stockpiles are situated near residential areas, schools, and hospitals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess lead-bearing mineral presence and abundance changes using multispectral analysis.
- To quantify tailing stockpile volume changes between 2001 and 2018.
- To establish correlations between contamination sources and affected areas.
Main Methods:
- Multispectral analysis using ASTER (2001) and Sentinel-2 (2018) imagery.
- Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Adaptive Coherence Estimator (ACE), and Jeffries-Matusita distance calculations.
- Photogrammetry for tailing stockpile volume and area estimation.
Main Results:
- Detection of five lead-bearing minerals around Cerro de Pasco and Paragsha.
- An approximate 17% increase in lead-bearing minerals in the greater Cerro de Pasco area and 11% in Paragsha.
- A total tailing stockpile volume of 200,300,000 m³, with Pile 4 increasing by 46,000,000 m³.
Conclusions:
- Remote sensing effectively detects and quantifies lead contamination from mining tailings.
- Significant increases in lead minerals and stockpile volumes indicate ongoing environmental risk.
- Findings support future remote sensing studies for environmental monitoring of mining impacts.
