Medical Geology

INTRODUCTION
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GEOCHEMICAL
agenda 16

GEOLOGICAL FACTORS
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INTRODUCTION
The Beginning
Self medicating elephants which
dig out swallow soft rock, grind
and swallow soft it at a cave
Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano
in western Kenya contained
sodium which stimulating
against toxins.

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The Beginning

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The Beginning
Homo Habilis ± 2 million ago ate white
powder to settle upset stomach (Tanzania
Archeologist), kaolinite as known modern
use like in Africa

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History
• Lead poisoning cause lung problems related to rock crushing During late Assyrian
periods (1550–600 BC), the Song Dynasty (1000 BC), Ming Dynasty (14th–17th
century AD).
• Mercury was used during the Roman Empire to ease the pain of teething infants, to
treat syphilis during the sixteenth century and in the felting process in the 1800s
(Fergusson, 1990).
• Arsenic was used for therapeutic purposes by the ancient Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and
Peruvians to improve the complexion
• Lung cancer deriving from metal dust and radon inhalation among miners working in
the Erzgebirge of Germany to mine silver in association with uranium.
• Balneology – healing hot springs; traces of human dating back 600.000 years ago
• We must also consider the qualities of the waters, for as they differ from one another
in taste and weight, so also do they differ much in their quality – Hippocrates (460 -
377 B.C.)
• " Water is of the same quality as the rocks across which it flows." Aristotle (1 B.C.)

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Talisman and Amulets
Composed of various rocks and minerals which
have certain psychological effects

Quartz is used in mood related

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Hematite for healing of cardiovascular and circulatory disease
History
• formation and development of descriptive medical geography – spatial
and human relationship (to end 19th) by mapping the distribution of
disease
• John Snow, 1854; found out Cholera distribution took place at houses
which its water from public water pumps near main street in London
• Fluoride in some Colorado District water helpt children for having
less gap teeth (Dentist) – Early 20th

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Landscape Geochemistry
Landscape geochemistry
fill the gap in the
borderline area between
geography and geology in
treating the relationship
between living and non -
living nature by Soviet
pedologist (mid 20th)

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 Medical Geology
• International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)
established Medical Geology as working group
lead by Olle Selinus in 1996 and formally
established the International Medical Geology
Association (IMGA) in 2004 in Italy

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June 27, 1943 - November 18, 2023
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 Medical Geology

• Medical geology is defined as the science dealing

with the relationships between natural geological
factors and human health problems (Olle Selinus,
Robert Finkelman, 2010)

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Development Chart

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Geochemical
Elements Classification :

Source: Groundwater Geochemistry and Health, 1996; reproduced with

kind permission of the British Geological Survey
Förstner and Wittman, 1981
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Elements in
groundwater

(Edmunds and Smedley, 1996)

GEOLOGICAL
FACTORS
Geological Environments
Geological Environments:
1. Upper Lithosphere
2. Lower Boundary
Level modern scientific
i.e.:
mineral mined deposits
(4.000 m), O&G Borehole
(9.200 m)

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Useful Properties of Geology
Environment :
1. Geological Ambient
a) the esthetic and sensual ambient;
b) shelters and obstacles;
c) the fertile (pedological) ambient
2. Geological Wealth
a) For food, medicaments, agrotechnical purposes, hygiene
b) geological energy potentials;
c) raw material for manufacture

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General Properties of Geology
Environment :
1. Variability of the environment in space and time
2. Heterogeneity of the environment, which in the hydrogeological
sense is manifested in the form of unequal filtration properties of
different rocks
3. Adaptive capacity, i.e., ability of the environment to change under
new or disturbed natural conditions;
4. Discreteness of the geological environment, which is manifested in
the guise of rock properties such as crack formation, karstification,
etc.

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Geology Factors :
• Minerals & rocks • exogenous geological processes
• geological formations • mineral raw materials and ranges of their
• soil distribution,

• geomorphologic factors • radioactive elements and radioactivity,

• tectonic activity and structural forms • macro - and microelements in rocks, soil,
and water.
• thermal fields
• endogenous geological processes
(earthquakes, volcanic activity)

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Mineral & Rocks:
1. Magmatic Rocks Northern Ghana
Sodium exchange for calcium,
and anion (fluoride and OH)
exchange as the groundwater
interacts with fluorapatite and
micas in the granites

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Mineral & Rocks:
2. Sedimentary Rocks
• The concentration of selenium in black shales, hard coal, and petroleum is 10 to 20 times
greater than the average content of this interesting element in the lithosphere.
i.e.: Selenium - bearing black shales represent the parent material of Western Plains of the
United States and when absorbed it can affect the motor system and senses of animals.
• The Izhor Plateau near Saint Petersburg (Russia) is built of carbonate sediments rich in calcium
carbonate as a result of which the soil is very fertile

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Geological Formations:
body of rock having a consistent set of physical characteristics (lithology) that distinguish it from
adjacent bodies of rock and occupies a certain stratigraphic position.
i.e.:
• The elevated level of fluoride originates from Marine sediments episodically enriched with ash
and fluoride - rich sublimates during volcanic activity from Miocene to present day in Northern
Tanzania
• In the terrain of Ultramafic Formations has varies around 43% MgO which rich in Magnesium
which cardiovascular disease occur more rarely as do hypertension and renal calloses.

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Rock Weathering/Soil:
Weathering:
• Physical disintegration: Insolation, Frost (Ice), Mechanical Salt Crystallizing – Crack in Rocks,
Water Capillary, Roots Action
• Chemical decomposition through Oxidation, Hydrolysis, Carbonization, Hydration
i.e.: The higher the content of aluminum in bird feathers, the more striking their color manifested
in parrots, hummingbirds, and other tropical birds.

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Geochemistry and the kinetics of nutrition
• if K2 > K1 = depletion
of essential elements
• if K1 =0, most essential
nutrients (major and
trace) will fall below
the optimum value for
nutrition and as a
result of this infertility
prevails
• Smectite continue and
produce thick soil
Fyfe et al., 1983

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A thick laterite profile from Sri Lanka
Dissanayake and Chandrajith, 2009 29
Geochemistry
Arsenic :

• Contain in volcanic glasses (5.9 mg/Kg) , phyllites (18 mg/Kg), and shales (174 mg/Kg), coal (0.3
– 35.000 mg/Kg)
• Great affinity for sulphur and substitute to sulphur
• High concentration in sulphides such as pyrite (FeS2), realgar (AsS), orpiment (As2S3),
Arsenopyrite (FeAsS)
• Waters from hydrothermal sources or soils derived from detritus of mineral ore (especially Au)
workings.
• Well waters or irrigation waters from sandstones high in arsenopyrite.
• Contamination >10 µg/L (WHO)

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Environmental transfer of arsenic :

National Academy of Science, 1977

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Sequence Mechanism in Mineral :
1. As (III) [Aresenopyrite] +
CAOS (Arsenite
Oxidizers)+HAOS
(Heterotrophic arsenate
oxidizers) = As (V) on
Ferryhydrite
2. As (V) on Ferryhydrite +
Oxidant (O2/
NO3)+Microbial (Anoxic
Conditions)= As (III) [Liquid]
into well

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Arsenic Pollution in Bengal Basin:
1. 10 Million are to be
contaminated
2. 95% of population of
Bangladesh use groundwater
as drinking water
3. Shallow aquifer system (10-
70 m below ground level to
be the main cause of

Ravenscroft et al., 2001

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Fluoride (Aswathanarayana et al. – 1985):
• Leaching of the rocks rich in fluorine, e.g. granites (750 mg/kg), alkalic rocks (950 mg/kg),
volcanic ash and the bentonites (750 mg/kg), phosphatic fertilizers 3.0-3.5%.
• Dissolution of fluorides from volcanic gases by percolating
• groundwaters along faults and joints of great depth and discharging as fresh and mineral springs.
• Rainwater which may acquire a small amount of fluoride from marine aerosols and continental
dust.
• Industrial emissions such as freons, organo-fluorine and dust in cryolite factories.
• Industrial effluents.
• Run-off from farms using phosphatic fertilizers extensively

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Iodine:
• Sedimentary Deposits of marine origin (Fuge and Johnson, 2015)
• Volatilization of Igneous (Granite, Granodiorites, Tonalites) and Metamoprhic Rocks (Gneisses
Mica Schist, Amphibolites, Marbles, Granulites) which dissolved 75 – 95% of its content at
metamorphic temperature (Muramatsu and Wedepohl, 1998)
• Seaweeds and phytoplankton release iodine containing organic gases (CH3I, CH2I2 etc)

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Iodine Cycle:

Dissanayake et al., 1998

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Recycling of Iodine:

After Muramatsu et.al, 2004

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Daily Intake of Iodine:

WHO, 2001

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Assessing Iodine Nutrition Criteria in school – aged
children :

WHO, 2001

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Iodine Deficiency Disorders:

https://www.my-personaltrainer.it/benessere/img/cretinismo.jpg 41
Tectonic Activity and Structural Forms:
Rift Valley Basin (Ethiopia) is influenced by Geothermal
waters with high concentration of fluoride and or total
dissolved salts so that 8.5 / 10 million are exposed to
high fluoride contamination (>1.5 mg/L WHO
standard). (Tamene, 2006)

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http://images.energy365dino.co.uk/standard/123934_6298d18ab531467ebc65.jpg
 Fluorosis
Skeletal Fluorosis Dental Fluorosis

https://hindrop.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/blog-fluorosis1.jpg https://image.slidesharecdn.com/fluorosis-130926141637-phpapp02/95/skeletal-fluorosis-a-case-report-39-
638.jpg?cb=1380205097

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Thermal Field
Sand Bathing in Ibusuki – Japan
Dark warm sand (±550C)
infusion of minerals from
volcanic hot springs of Mt. Fuji
of Satsuma been tradition since
Edo Period to cure rheumatism
and to stimulate blood
circulation and metabolism

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-japan-kyushu-island-ibusuki-city-thermal-sand-bath-147270240.html
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Endogenous geological processes
Mt. Toba Eruption– Indonesia
(74.000 years ago)
Released ± 2.000 MT Si02 into
Stratosphere, oxidized into
sulfate aerosols, caused global
cooling of 3.5 – 90C (Osipove,
2021)

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_a9L_9okyPTlUtTgFHstJYb_Sr2b2X6As-
y2J6L2ie0ptZG_V1xpyrlLzbM39AiFCs5T2i5RqykFweRg2mBZC3VEkY6ke4RXKc1meD7XlCFTvZrK7Vy2HA
x_j8mL1O2UNKvbulGw0Ix4_/s1600/toba+map.jpg 45
The Future of Medical Geology
• Health Impacts of Global Climate Change
• Health Impacts of Natural Disasters
• Urban Medical Geology
• Veterinary Geology
• Global Dust (Interaction of Microbes and Minerals)
• Medical Geology and Mental Health
• Occupational Health
• Mechanism of Interaction

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 EDWIN PRANATA

thank you
+6281311411982
edwinsiahaan@geologist.com