Large-scale mineral mining, including critical minerals of oil, gas and coal, conditions withdrawal of vast land from the agricultural sector. The relevance of this problem is connected with prevention and elimination of disamenity of the subsoil use. It is necessary to determine a strategy of mining-disturbed land reclamation. The authors propose an integrated assessment of mining-disturbed land, which allows a comprehensive analysis of current condition of these man-made sites. The proposed procedure can serve as a framework for the development of recommendations on reclamation trend selection. It enables simultaneous sequential or parallel application of parameters and criteria from a compiled list. In the aggregate, these parameters and criteria describe features of man-made objects and their condition by quantitative and qualitative indicators determined during field study, field survey, lab-scale testing and office analysis. As a case study of the Novosibirsk Region, the necessity is demonstrated and a matrix is constructed for the mining-disturbed land assessment by the level and nature of the environmental impact, with the determination of boundaries and sizes of damage areas. The basis for ranking man-made objects was classification, typification and clustering of attributes which govern peculiarities of the external impacts on the environment (rocks, soil, artificial ground, surface water, groundwater, etc.). These attributes are characterized by parameters and quantitative indicators measured on various scales, which identify admissible and hyperadmissible environmental load. The proposed approach allows the integrated analysis of mining-disturbed land areas with a view to their further ranking by the environmental load, and for developing an expert system of the optimized selection of new application ranges for such land.

This study investigates unique weathering crust samples from the most altered sections (30-43 m) of the weathering profile within the Souktal Plutonic Complex, Northern Kazakhstan. The samples, obtained from two drill cores, consist of quartz, kaolinite, microcline, muscovite, and plagioclase, as identified through polarized light microscopy and confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis. Sequential extraction of rare earth elements (REE) was performed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) following a two-step leaching procedure with hydroxylamine hydrochloride (0.2 mol NH₂OH·HCl) and sodium hydroxide (1 mol NaOH) solutions. The extraction process effectively recovered REE, indicating their presence in an ion-exchangeable form, with total extraction rates (REE + Sc + Y) ranging from 4.1 to 7.8 ppm. The total light REE content varies from 3.5 to 5.9 ppm, while heavy REE content ranges from 0.2 to 0.7 ppm across all samples. Petrological and geochemical analyses suggest that the studied area represents an ion-adsorption-type REE weathered deposit. These findings enhance the understanding of ionic-adsorbed REE within weathering crusts and highlight the effectiveness of sequential extraction methods for REE determination. Moreover, the study suggests that this area holds promising potential as a future REE ion-adsorption site, contributing to the development of Kazakhstan’s national REE industry.