Journal of Environment and Earth Science www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3216 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0948 (Online) Vol. 3, No.2, 2013 34 Monitoring and Assessment of Soil Quality near Kashlog Limestone mine at Darlaghat District Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India Ranjna Sharma, Madhuri S. Rishi and Renu Lata Department of Environment Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh-160014 gargranjana@ymail.com, madhuririshi@gmail.com * Abstract Limestone mining for an area is an economic activity but may lead to degradation of soil quality. Opencast mining operations involved displacement of large amount of overburden/rock mass materials to excavate the limestone for many purposes. In mining areas the soils are affected by various mining operations i.e blasting, drilling and storage of overburden dump materials, clearing of land, construction of ancillary facilities and movement of vehicles. It is essential to determine the potential of soil in the area and identify the impacts of urbanization, industrialization and mining on soil quality. Present study is carried out to determine the soil characteristics, Impact of mining, industrialization and more importantly from agricultural point of view. Soil samples collected from ten locations were analyzed for physic- chemical characteristics. From the data it is observed that the concentration of total iron in 2 samples were above the permissible limit of 5.77%. Potassium levels were under the category very high whereas the levels of Phosphorus were reported to be in the category of less to medium. Higher potassium content of all the samples may be due to using fertilizers containing potassium. Cacium and magnesium levels are also higher than the prescribed safe limit in few samples. Key Words: Pollution, urbanization, industrialization, mining and fertilizers Introduction Land is the most important basic natural resource. It is complex and dynamic combination of geology, topography, and hydrology, soil and flora fauna and influences every sphere of human activity. Mining activity exerts a long lasting impact on landscape, eco-system and socio-cultural-economic considerations. Impact of mining on land environment gets reflected in land-use pattern of the respective area because the more the land gets exposed to erosion by