Zircon U–Pb ages and Sr–Nd isotope ratios for the Sirstan granitoid body,NE Iraq: Evidence of magmatic activity in the Middle Cretaceous Period

The Sirstan granitoid (SG), comprising diorite and granodiorite, is located in the Shalair Valley area, in the northeastern part of Iraq within the Sanandaj–Sirjan Zone (SSZ) of the Zagros Orogenic Belt. The U–Pb zircon dating of the SG rocks has revealed a concordia age of 110 Ma, which is interpreted as the age of crystallization of this granitoid body during the Middle Cretaceous. The whole-rock Rb–Sr isochron data shows an age of 52.4 ± 9.4 Ma (MSWD = 1.7), which implies the reactivation of the granitoid body in the Early Eocene due to the collision between the Arabian and Iranian plates. These rocks show metaluminous affinity with low values of Nb, Ta and Ti compared to chondrite, suggesting the generation of these rocks over the subduction zone in an active continental margin regime. The SG rocks are hornblende-bearing I-type granitoids with microgranular mafic enclaves. The positive values of ?_Nd (t = 110 Ma) (+0.1 to +2.7) and the low (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr)_i ratios (0.7044 to 0.7057) indicate that the magma source of the SG granitoids is a depleted subcontinental mantle. The chemical and isotope compositions show that the SG body originated from the metasomatic mantle without a major role for continental contamination. Our findings show that the granitoid bodies distributed in the SSZ were derived from the continuous Neo-Tethys subduction beneath the SSZ in Mesozoic times and that the SSZ was an active margin in the Middle Cretaceous.     

Enhancing somatic embryogenesis of Malaysian rice cultivar MR219 using adjuvant materials in a high-efficiency protocol

Enhancing of the efficient tissue culture protocol for somatic embryos would facilitate the engineered breeding plants program. In this report, we describe the reproducible protocol of Malaysian rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivar MR219 through somatic embryogenesis. Effect of a wide spectrum of exogenesis materials was assessed in three phases, namely callogenesis, proliferation and regeneration. Initially, rice seeds were subjected under various auxin treatments. Secondly, the effect of different concentrations of 2,4-D on callus induction was evaluated. In the next step, the efficiency of different explants was identified. Subsequently, the effects of different auxins, cytokinins, l-proline, casein hydrolysate and potassium metasilicate concentrations on the callus proliferation and regeneration were considered. For the callogenesis phase, 2 mg L^?1of 2,4-D and roots were chosen as the best auxin and explant. In the callus proliferation stage, the highest efficiency was observed at week eight in the MS media supplemented with 2 mg L^?1 of 2,4-D, 2 mg L^?1 of kinetin, 50 mg L^?1 of l-proline, 100 mg L^?1 of casein hydrolysate and 30 mg L^?1 of potassium metasilicate. In the last phase of the research, the MS media added with 3 mg L^?1 of kinetin, 30 mg L^?1of potassium metasilicate and 2 mg L^?1 of NAA were selected. Meanwhile, to promote the roots of regenerated explants, 0.4 mg L^?1 of IBA has shown potential as an appropriate activator.     

Spatial Analysis on Gold Mineralization in Southwest Saqqez Using Point Pattern,Fry and Fractal Analyses

Geotectonics - The Baneh- Saqqez zone is part of the Sanandaj‒Sirjan Zone, northwest of Iran. Generally, this zone is recognized as a gold bearing zone, and the mineralization in it is...     

Investigating the removal of ethylbenzene from aqueous solutions using modified graphene oxide: application of response surface methodology

This research focused on the application of response surface methodology (RSM) for the removal of ethylbenzene by the graphene oxide grafted with polymethyl vinyl ketone and aniline (GO-MVK-ANI) from wastewater. The adsorbent was prepared through polymerization of graphene oxide with methyl vinyl ketone using ammonium persulfate initiator and further modification by aniline. The synthesized material was characterized via Fourier transform infrared resonance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analysis. RSM was used to minimize the number of experiments and investigate the effect of three selected parameters (contact time, initial pH and adsorbent dose) on the removal efficiency of ethylbenzene. Additionally, the affecting parameters were optimized based on the selected target (ethylbenzene removal efficiency). The results show that 73% ethylbenzene could be adsorbed with initial ethylbenzene concentration of 20 mg/l under the optimum conditions (the contact time of 11 min, pH of 5.64 and adsorbent dose of 3.75 g/l). In this paper, high R ²-value (97.18%) for ethylbenzene removal and a good agreement with adjusted R ²-value (94.65%) indicated that the model was successful and the results demonstrated a reasonable proportion of the experimental and the predicted results.     

Fuzzy Logic System for Road Identification Using Ikonos Images

Research into both extraction of man-made objects and automatic change detection from aerial and satellite images has made significant progress in recent years. This paper presents an approach, based on a fuzzy logic system, for the identification of suburban roads in Ikonos images. The linguistic variables are the mean and standard deviation (SD) of different objects with Gaussian membership function. After the roads have been identified provisionally and their skeleton extracted, the skeleton can be vectorised and then used as direct input to a GIS for further analysis. The method was tested on an Ikonos "Geo" image covering Bilesavar in north-western Iran. For the suburban area of Bilesavar, the results showed that grey scale values ranged from 20 to 190 for non-roads and 226 to 228 for roads, the optimum width of the Gaussian kernel function was 3 and the SD was 0.4. It was also found that about 91% of main roads with a width of 6 to 12 pixels could be extracted from high resolution satellite imagery by the algorithm. The computer program for this study has been developed in visual C++ based on Windows 98