Biogeochemical Selectiveness of Cedars Over Metamorphic Rocks of the Escambray Complex, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba/Introduction

Regardless the abundance of vegetation in Cuba, there has not been any systematical application of biogeochemical sampling techniques, nor of biogeochemical studies, except for those done by the geological enterprises of Pinar del Río and Santa Clara (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Geological diagram of the studied sector, showing the position of the pyrite-copper outcrop.

Since 1986, geologist from Pinar del Río's enterprise, have been using the geochemical analysis of the ashes from ferns, to survey tungsten-tin outcrops, as an auxiliary method, with relatively good results.

In 1987, I conducted a geobotanic study at the Isabelita's quartz-gold mine, in Sancti Spíritus, with specialists in botany from the University of Santa Clara and the Agricultural Ministry of that Province. We discovered a clear deformation of the leaves of those mahoganies which grow in the area of the outcrop, and also realized that we always found large quantities of a little shrub named "piña de ratón" (mouse's pineapple), almost exactly over the arsenic-gold anomalies.

Another field investigation was conducted in 1988, in Cumanayagua, Sancti Spíritus, over a pyrite-copper outcrop. These experimental works were directed by chief-geologist Hector Nuñez Mantilla, and by Gilberto Brito Valdespino, a former member of the Centre of Geological Investigations from Havana. I was in charge of the interpretation of the geochemical data. The main objective of this note is to inform about the results of this study.