Witwatersrand Basin_Mineral and Trace Elements Data

The Witwatersrand basin in South Africa comprises unrehabilitated mining waste tailings characterised by unbalanced content of trace elements including Fe, S, Cu, Mn, Cr(t), Zn, Ni, Co, Mo, and P. To assess the quality of soil from the abandoned historical gold mine tailings, the geochemical, pH, and electrical conductivity data were generated from 21 soil samples. The data show a significantly low pH ranging from 1.9 to 5.3 and electrical conductivity ranging from 43 to 679 mS/m. A concentration factor expressed as the ratio of the concentration of trace metals in the samples to the concentration of trace metals in the background soil, used together with geoaccumulation index (Igeo) show that the investigated sites comprise elevated Cu content in the tailings than in the uncontaminated crustal background soil.