Determination of Arsenic Species Distribution in Arsenide Tailings and Leakage Using Geochemical and Geophysical Methods

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper reviewed the determination of arsenic species distribution in arsenide tailings and leakage using geochemical and geophysical methods. However, there are still some aspects you should address:

 

(1) The title order of “4.2. Arsenic species”, “4.3. Forms of metals”, and “4.4. Inner zonality of pond dumps” was wrong.

(2) The subtitle of ”4. Results and discussion” should be more specific.

(3) The conclusions should be one paragraph, and be concise and summarized.

(4) Recent references in the manuscript were not enough. You should provide more references, especially between year 2020 and year 2022.

(5) The highlights about determination should be further clarified in abstract and conclusion.

Author Response

Thank you, dear colleague!

The authors wish to thank reviewer for their time in effort in reviewing our manuscript. We hope the changes listed have made the manuscript suitable for publication and we look forward to your responses. All the queries are considered and necessary corrections are being made accordingly throughout the manuscript.

All corrections in the text according to your comments are highlighted in yellow

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors studied the possibility of arsenic migration from waste to the water and soil environment. However, they limited themselves only to the near-surface layer of the waste, which is subject to hypergenic processes. This should be indicated in the introduction, and perhaps even in the title of the article.

As shown in Figure 1, the authors collected 25 samples from 5 pond reservoirs for testing. Then the samples were pooled to obtain representative material for research (KhAtot sample). In the opinion of the reviewer, before joining, the phase composition of the samples had to be determined using the XRD method and the chemical composition of the samples using the XRF method. On this basis, a decision can be made about the possible pooling of samples. Maybe 2 samples should have been tested? Or maybe each pond reservoirs separately?

It is also a pity that the authors did not take water samples from the vicinity of pond reservoirs (piezometers, wells).

The article lacks information about the mineral composition of the tested sample. It is worth performing an XRD test, because it will help determine in which minerals arsenic is bound.

 

Remarks

Composition in tab. 2 do not add up to 100%. Please comment or normalize to 100%

The paragraphs "Water extract" and "Arsenic species" have the same number "4.2"

Author Response

Dear colleague, the authors are grateful to you for a thorough reading of the manuscript, the time spent, and valuable comments. We tried to take into account all the comments, make corrections and improve the quality of the manuscript. All corrections according to your comments are colored green. Answers to each comment are given below.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx