The Apuseni Mountains, Romania: The mining activity environmental impact

The Apuseni Mountains (Romania) represent the most important romanian metallogenetic unit, being a traditional mining zone from our country. The long lasting mining activity made the Apuseni Mountains one of the most famous mining area, especially for gold ore deposits. Unfortunately, this activities also produced related pollution effects. The recovering and processing of several ore deposits, especially polymetallic ones, have caused the pollution spreading by migration of heavy metals through soil and water. Because untill now the economical interests were bigger than the ecological ones, most of this mining areas are,actually, ecological disasters.