Monitoring the Effects of Surface Coal-Mine-Reclamation on Soil Biological Properties

Abstract

Surface coal mining is a large-scale disturbance that disrupts soil properties that requires reclamation. Reclamation monitoring and success typically focuses on vegetation communities, but soil monitoring may improve our understanding of barriers to reclamation success. In this study, we assessed biological presence in stockpiled soils using seed viability screening and phospholipid fatty acid analysis. We found microbial communities had distinct shifts in structure, declines in overall abundance of organisms with increased stockpile depth, and that total seedling emergence was lower in stockpiled soils than the reference site. In addition, we measured carbon pools, vegetative cover, and other edaphic properties in a chronosequence of reclaimed mine land (chapter two) in order to quantify how reclamation affects soil properties. We found disturbance affected all soil properties at every treatment (years since reclamation) and that all soil carbon pools measured were significantly (p <0.005) lower than that of the reference site.