Origin of Groundwater Salinity in the Draa Sfar Polymetallic Mine Area Using Conservative Elements (Morocco)

Abstract

In the Marrakech region of Morocco, where water resources are particularly limited, excessive salinity has been measured in the water from some wells intended for human consumption and irrigation. Moreover, the start-up of a mine for the exploitation of a polymetallic sulfide deposit and the progress of the exploitation work have revealed the existence of very saline deep groundwater with a total mineralization of over 80 g/L. The hydrogeochemical study using conservative elements has helped to understand the origin of the groundwater salinity in the Draa Sfar mine and to assess the contribution of the deep salinity source to the high salinities observed in the mine. The groundwater of the shallow aquifer shows almost constant Br−/Cl− and Na+/Cl− ratios, independent of the chloride content. The constant ratios of these conservative elements indicate a single autochthonous origin of Cl−, Br− and Na+, and groundwater salinity is diluted by recharge water containing low concentrations of these elements. Regarding the mine groundwater, the high Li+/Cl− ratio and Br−/Cl− ratios in the range measured on the leachates of the rocks extracted from the mine indicate that the pore water is the reservoir for dissolved chloride and the salinity of the mine’s groundwater results from a mixture between these pore waters and fresh meteoric water that seeps in from the surface and recharges the entire aquifer. This porewater would be a remnant of the hydrothermal fluids that formed the sulfide deposit.