We published first Cu isotope data in pine tree rings and surrounding polluted and unpolluted soils in the Zambian Copperbelt. In highly polluted soil profiles, there is greater Cu isotope fractionation and Cu isotope compositions in tree rings indicate that there was a non-root uptake of Cu uptake by the trees.
Mihaljevič M., Jarošíková A., Ettler V., Vaněk A., Penížek V., Kříbek B., Chrastný V., Sracek O., Trubač J., Svoboda M., Nyambe I. (2018): Copper isotopic record in soils and tree rings near a copper smelter, Copperbelt, Zambia. Science of the Total Environment 621, 9-17. (DOI)
On Friday February 3, 2018, Alice Jarošíková defended her PhD entitled “Experimental in situ transformation of smelting wastes in soils”. On the photo, where she is second from the left, you find her together with two reviewers Prof. Edgar Hiller (Comenius University, Bratislava) and Prof. Barbora Doušová (Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague) and her supervisor, Prof. Vojtěch Ettler. Congratulations, Alice!
Check the great paper by Petr Drahota and co-authors about low-temperature formation of As sulphides, which has just been published in GCA! Drahota P., Mikutta C., Falteisek L., Duchoslav V., Klementová M. (2017): Biologically induced formation of realgar deposits in soil. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 218, 237-256. (
Special issue of European Journal of Mineralogy dedicated to Dr. Zdeněk Johan (1935-2016), our former close collaborator and friend and a world-famous mineralogist, has just been published. This special issue was co-edited by Vojtěch Ettler and contains 20 excellent papers. (
Dr. Nikolai Pedentchouk from University of East Anglia (UK) gave a short course on Stable Isotopes in Earth Sciences on Tuesday, April 18 and 20, 2017. Lectures were supplemented with practical sessions in our isotope lab. Program included fundamentals of light isotopes and systematics of C, O and H isotopes.
We studied how thallium isotopes can be used for tracing anthropogenic pollution in soils contaminated by emissions from coal-fired power plants. These results are the first published isotope data generated by our brand new MC-ICP-MS lab. Vaněk A., Grosslova Z., Mihaljevič M., Trubač J., Ettler V., Teper L., Cabala J., Rohovec J., Zadorova T., Penizek V., Pavlu L., Holubik O., Nemecek K., Houska J., Drabek O., Ash C. (2016): Isotopic Tracing of Thallium Contamination in Soils Affected by Emissions from Coal-Fired Power Plants. Environmental Science and Technology 50, 9864-9871. (
In the footsteps of previous research on zýkaite (Majzlan J., Amoako F.Y., Kindlová H., Drahota P. (2015): Thermodynamic properties of zýkaite, a ferric sulfoarsenate. Applied Geochemistry 61, 294-301, 
Alice Jarošíková, PhD candidate in our research group, won Best Poster Prize at SEGH 2016 meeting in Brussels. She briefly describes her research at the web site of Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health (
Mobility of metal(loid)s in soils is strongly affected by their binding to solids. We studied smelter- and mining-derived particulates with high levels of metals and metalloids (As, Sb) and their stability in soils from dry semi-arid and wet subtropical areas in Africa. Ettler V., Johan Z., Kříbek B., Veselovský F., Mihaljevič M., Vaněk A., Penížek V., Majer V., Sracek O., Mapani B., Kamona F., Nyambe I. (2016): Composition and fate of mine- and smelter-derived particles in soils of humid subtropical and hot semi-arid areas. Science of the Total Environment 563-564, 329-339. (
A new open-access review paper, published within a special issue of Applied Geochemistry can also be downloaded from the website of our group: Ettler V. (2016): Soil contamination near non-ferrous metal smelters: A review. Applied Geochemistry 64, 56-74. (