Petroleum hydrocarbons´ mobility and remediation processes to which they are submitted are of great importance to the management of contaminated areas. The investigation of tropical residual soils is of valuable contribution to the scientific community, not only in Brazil but also across the world, once there is little research work concerning the behavior of organic contaminants in these soils. The main goal of the present thesis was to study the mobility of a mineral oil in sandy and tropical residual silty soils. Since the latter constitutes a microbiologically active soil, both the biodegradation processes of the contaminant and the influence of temperature on its mobility through the porous media and on the degrading activity of the microbial population inhabiting the soil have been evaluated. The experiments regarding the sandy idle soil, represented by perfect industrialized spheres, counted on a initial stage of tests, in order to develop the methodologies most adequate to a situation where the capillary fringe does not represent a considerable portion of the column´s height. The contamination itself only took place after the outline of the whole experiment. With the purpose of analyzing the contaminant´s mobility after 24 hours, every sample of soil from each different section of the column has been chemically and microbiologically analyzed. The results have shown that the mineral oil migrated easily through the porous media. The experiments making use of the tropical residual soil consisted on the contamination of soil columns through their top by the same mineral oil applied to the first experiment. However the experiment took place under two distinct conditions: Under an increase of temperature (represented by the influence of reflectors) and under natural conditions of temperature. The bioremediation of soils contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons is a multidisciplinary technology which involves sciences such as microbiology, engineering, geology and chemistry, and is based on the ability of microorganisms to utilize contaminants as an exclusive source of energy for the functioning of their metabolisms. Therefore, on the experiments in which the residual soil was the object of investigation, soil samples from the columns´ overture day have been subject to chemical (TPH and MNR) e microbiological (FDA) analysis in order to evaluate the influence of soil microorganisms on the biodegradation processes of the mineral oil throughout the 157 days of experiments. The results have shown that the tropical residual soil studied in the present work is susceptible to the biodegradation processes and is characterized by a direct relationship between the degradative activity and the loss of petroleum hydrocarbons.