Remediation and revegetation of abandoned mined sites is often complicated by the lack of knowledge on factors leading to soil development on anthropogenic mine waste materials. Natural soil development has been examined on 35-year-old sulphide-rich waste deposits of a former gold mine. The muddy waste materials were discharged into a small settling basin (9850 m 2 ) by successive floods during mining activity (1959-1964). The aim of the study was to identify factors explaining the actual uneven distribution of vegetation cover on the abandoned waste materials. These stratified anthropogenic deposits generated a young A-C Entisol at a relatively slow rate (0.25-0.7 cm year - 1 ). Oxidation of primary sulphides is recognised as the main pedological process involved. The spatial variations of the soil thickness and morphological features reflect those of vegetation cover density and diversity. Based on pedological, sedimentological, mineralogical and hydrochemical measurements, our results show that the rate of soil development was mainly governed by inherited factors of parental waste materials such as the initial sulphide and clay contents, the granulometry and the chemical composition. From the waste discharge pipe (Zone 1) to the basin boundaries (Zone 3), the porosity, granularity and content in potentially toxic elements decrease (Pb, As), whereas the pH and the clay content increase. In the upstream Zone 1, the oxidation of sulphide minerals produced waste acidification and release of toxic elements. As a result, the soil As and Pb concentrations reached levels hundred to thousand times higher than those of regulatory guidelines. In the downstream Zone 3, clay minerals buffered the waste acidification and contributed to the maintenance of tailings water saturation resulting in leaching of soluble arsenate. The heterogeneous mining area is, thus, likely to generate different mine soils over short distances (10 m). An acidic sulphate soil with a specific sulphuric or gypsic B horizon is expected in Zone 1, while a soil free of Fe oxides or As, Pb-enriched sulphate accumulation is expected in Zone 3.