Mine Vegetation In Europe

Abstract

Without human impact, excessive concentrations of some heavy metals in soils are the results of natural mineralization caused by the presence of undisturbed ore bodies near the surface. Since the retreat of the Quaternary ice-sheets in Europe, these metalliferous sites were open for colonization by plants, if these plant species had the physiological adaptations to metal excess. The assemblage of species associated with such soils on undisturbed ore bodies is defined as the original heavy metal vegetation.1

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