Correlation Of Heavy Metal Concentration In Selected Hyperaccumulator Plants To The Lithologies In Sokor, Kelantan

Roniza Ismail^{1, a)}, Afida Ayub¹ and Nursufiah Sulaiman¹

¹Faculty of Earth Science, Jeli Campus, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, 17600, Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia

a) Corresponding author: [email protected]

Sokor, Kelantan is quite well known with gold deposition and few gold mines have been operated there. Located within the central gold belt, it is highly potential to be found with more valuable metals deposit. Thus, this study was conducted using hyperaccumulator plants as a medium to check the absorption of metal compound in the plant body as well as to measure the concentration of heavy metal elements in the soil around the potential area. The selected plants such as Melastoma Malabathricum, Mimosa Pudica, Dactylis Glomerate, Rhamnus Frangula and Syzygium Zeylanicum have been collected together with the soil samples at nine different locations within the study area. The samples were prepared appropriately before analysed using Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF). The concentration of heavy metal elements such as silver (Ag), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe) and etc. can act as pathfinder for gold deposition. Based on the results, elements such as Mn in sample 18AFDS1 and Fe in sample 18AFD8(5) have shown promising concentration compared to others with concentration of 86.76 ppm and 173.1 ppm respectively. Bioaccumulation Factor (BF) which represents the ratio of element concentration between plants and soil also was used as an indicator for metal adsorption within the collected samples. The sample which gives BF value more than 1, is assumed to be located close to the potential deposit. Plant species such as Melastoma Malabathricum, Rhamnus Frangula and Dactylis Glomerate have shown positive results because the BF values are more than 1. As a conclusion, the concentration of pathfinder elements in hyperaccumulator plants can be used as an indicator to locate the potential gold deposition aside from soil samples.