RESUMO
The soil with 500 m distance from an aluminum plant in Baotou was studied. A total of 64 soil samples were taken from the 0-5 cm, 5-20 cm, 20-40 cm and 40-60 cm layers, and the contents of Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, Cd, Ni and Mn were tested, respectively. The correlation analysis and principal component analysis were used to identify the sources of these heavy metals in soils. The results suggested that the contents of Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, Cd, Ni and Mn in study area were 32.9, 50.35, 69.92, 43.78, 0.54, 554.42 and 36.65 mg · kg⻹ respectively. All seven heavy metals tested were overweight compared with the background values of soil in Inner Mongolia. The spatial distribution of heavy metals showed that the horizontal distribution of heavy metals was obviously enriched in the southwest, while in vertical distribution, the heavy metal content (0 to 5 cm) was highest in the surface soil, and the heavy metal content decreased with increasing depth and tended to be stabilized when the depth was over 20 cm. Source analysis showed that the source of Cu, Zn, Cr and Mn might be influenced by the aluminum plant and the surrounding industrial activity. The source of Pb and Cd might be mainly related to road transportation. The source of Ni may be affected by agricultural activities and soil parent material together.