Rare Moss-Built Microterraces in a High-Altitude, Acid Mine Drainage-Polluted Stream (Cordillera Negra, Peru).

ABSTRACT: The Rio Santiago in the Cordillera Negra of Peru is severely contaminated by acid mine drainage in its headwaters. In a strongly acid stream, at about 3800 m above sea level (masl), microterraces were found with terrace walls built up of dead moss, with encrustations and interstitial fine, creamy sediment. The stream water was turbid due to the presence of similar suspended sediment, which also occurred as a thin basal layer in inter-rim basins. The moss was identified as the rare bryophyte Anomobryum prostratum (Müll. Hal.) Besch. Chemical and mineralogical analyses show that green, living parts of the moss are gradually coated by Al/Fe (hydr)oxides, inducing their senescence and death. The necromass is covered by creamy crusts through precipitation of schwertmannite-type material

SUBMITTER: Sevink J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4446526 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature