Nature Communications (May 2020)

Arsenic contamination of Bangladesh aquifers exacerbated by clay layers

  • Ivan Mihajlov,
  • M. Rajib H. Mozumder,
  • Benjamín C. Bostick,
  • Martin Stute,
  • Brian J. Mailloux,
  • Peter S. K. Knappett,
  • Imtiaz Choudhury,
  • Kazi Matin Ahmed,
  • Peter Schlosser,
  • Alexander van Geen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16104-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Generally it is thought that confining clay layers provide protection to low-arsenic groundwaters against intrusion of shallower, high-arsenic groundwater bodies. Here, the authors show that impermeable clay layers can increase arsenic input to underlying groundwater systems due to reduction of iron oxides coupled to carbon oxidation.