Geochemical characteristics of deep groundwater from sandstone aquifer in Qianyingzi mine, northern Anhui province, China

Major ions, trace elements and isotope concentrations for eight groundwater samples were tested, which collected from sandstone aquifer in Qianyingzi mine, northern Anhui province, China. The Geochemical characteristic of groundwater samples were studied based on the conventional graphical and multivariate statistical approach, and the resulted showed: two types of groundwater could be identified through the Piper diagram, which have high concentrations total dissolved solids (1,164–5,165 mg/L), with alkaline environment (pH = 8.02–8.90) in nature; the rare earth element of groundwater samples are characterized by enrichment of HREEs compared to LREEs when normalized to PAAS, which presented from the Nd_SN/Yb_SN ratios ranging from 0.042 to 0.121, with an average 0.075; groundwater characterized by negative Ce anomalies and positive Eu anomalies, what could be caused by the Ph conditions and exchange reaction between Eu²⁺ and Sr²⁺, respectively; δ¹⁸O and δ²H of groundwater varied from −8.78 to −8.36‰ and −68.5 to −59.5‰, respectively. The detritus and the exchange reaction between groundwater and alkyl could be the reason of obviously drift of δ²H.