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A medical geology perspective of arsenic as a poison and medicinal agents
Published in Yong-Guan Zhu, Huaming Guo, Prosun Bhattacharya, Jochen Bundschuh, Arslan Ahmad, Ravi Naidu, Environmental Arsenic in a Changing World, 2019
Medical geology – the science that deals with the impacts of natural geologic materials and processes on animal and human health – is aimed at increasing the interactions between geoscientists, environmental and biomedical communities, and by stimulating increased research collaboration among these disciplines (Centeno, 2008; Centeno et al., 2016; Smith et al., 2010; Zikovsky & Chah, 1990) Medical geologists are a group of scientists that are primarily interested in outbreaks of disease in which the characteristics of the local geological constituents contribute to the occurrence of various disease states. For the most part, diseases of interest have often included the effects of deficiency or toxicity of a variety of metallic and non-metallic elements on various systemic organs.
Arsenic in Latin America: New findings on source, mobilization and mobility in human environments in 20 countries based on decadal research 2010-2020
Published in Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 2021
Jochen Bundschuh, Maria Aurora Armienta, Nury Morales-Simfors, Mohammad Ayaz Alam, Dina L. López, Valeria Delgado Quezada, Sebastian Dietrich, Jerusa Schneider, Joseline Tapia, Ondra Sracek, Elianna Castillo, Lue-Meru Marco Parra, Maximina Altamirano Espinoza, Luiz Roberto Guimarães Guilherme, Numa Nahuel Sosa, Nabeel Khan Niazi, Barbara Tomaszewska, Katherine Lizama Allende, Klaus Bieger, David L. Alonso, Pedro F. B. Brandão, Prosun Bhattacharya, Marta I. Litter, Arslan Ahmad
These areas have been widely studied, mainly due to the presence of Hg, which is widespread due to illegal mining. In 2009 and 2010, the same entity performed a geochemical evaluation for a medical geology assessment in the Momposina Depression at the Mompos, Magangué and San Marcos sectors, covering an area of 1000 km2 in the north of the country. García et al. (2010) presented the results of the floodplains sediments geochemical sampling in the region for the superficial and deep horizons. The regional sampling of ULD (Ultra Low Density) showed anomalous high concentrations of elements, such as As (13–35 mg kg−1), in almost all stations, which are in the range found in natural background values but exceed the mean value. The As background content in soil typically ranges from 1 to 40 mg/kg, with a mean of 5 mg/kg (CCME, 2002; Redon et al., 2013). The Momposina Depression is the confluence and deposition zone of the rivers Magdalena, Cauca and San Jorge.