Environmental Geology of Lake Van Basin

Abstract

One of the most important mining activity areas of the ancient Anatolian civilizations is Lake Van Basin. Urartians, capitalized around City of Van, has tremendous metal produced and famous Urartian ceramics for centuries. Moreover, their mastery in metal production gives the name of the Bronze Age, one of the antic epoch of Anatolian civilizations. Considering this historical background, it is clear that metal and industrial raw material production took place in the basin for couple of thousands of years, which they can also be accepted as environmental contaminants for Lake Van. The final drainage of the rivers of Lake Van Basin is the Lake Van itself. Thus, all pollutants derived from economic activities in the basin were drained to the lake and the geochemical composition of the lake has changed according to the amount of the anion-cation-heavy metal composition of drained waste waters. This study focuses on geological environment and contaminations derived from urban areas and agricultural activities are out of interest. This study aims to demonstrate the environmental impact of the mining activities, quarries, non-mined mineralization areas, natural radioactive contaminations and geothermal discharges in the basin. The special geochemical composition of the Lake Van started to change after urbanization around the lake and un-controlled industrial activities; the long-term geochemical effects of the geological composition of the basin will be discussing in this paper with the exception of the environmental impact of the humanitarian contaminants. After this study, the mineral location map of the basin was updated and the environmental impacts of mining works and natural geological contaminants on the Lake Van have been evaluated. Remote sensing techniques were used to locate the mineralization and alteration zones and dip maps were prepared to evaluate the erosion effect onto these sites. The relation between radioactive anomalies described in previous studies and geology have been examined. As a consequence, the mining works such as gravelsand production, pumice and other quarries and mines are precipitating the erosion of the basin. Afterwards, both chemical contamination and sedimentation rate were increased. As a result, Natural Habitat of Lake Van is getting polluted day after day because of these uncontrolled mining works and geological - geomorphological behavior of the Lake Van Basin. As a solution, comprehensive geochemical studies shoul be undertaken immediately in tha Basin including all pollutants derived both from civilization works and the nature fo the geological environment. These studies should be used to construct the sustainable environmental management system of the Lake Van Basin.

Keywords

• Lake Van Basin, Geological Components, Mining Wastes, Environmental Geology

Environmental Geology of Lake Van Basin

Abstract