Modeling Uranium Transport in Koongarra, Australia: The Effect of a Moving Weathering Zone

Natural analogues are an important source of long-term data and may be viewed as naturally occurring experiments that often include processes, phenomena, and scenarios that are important to nuclear waste disposal safety assessment studies. The Koongarra uranium deposit in the Alligator Rivers region of Australia is one of the best-studied natural analogue sites. The deposit has been subjected to chemical weathering over several million years, during which many climatological, hydrological, and geological changes have taken place, resulting in the mobilization and spreading of uranium. Secondary uranium mineralization and dispersed uranium are present from the surface down to the base of the weathering zone, some 25 m deep. In this work, a simple uranium transport model is presented and sensitivity analyses are conducted for key model parameters. Analyses of field and laboratory data show that three layers can be distinguished in the Koongarra area: (1) a top layer that is fully weathered, (2) an intermediate layer that is partially weathered (the weathering zone), and (3) a lower layer that is unweathered. The weathering zone has been moving downward as the weathering process proceeds. Groundwater velocities are found to be largest in the weathering zone. Transport of uranium is believed to take place primarily in this zone. It appears that changes in the direction of groundwater flow have not had a significant effect on the uranium dispersion pattern. The solid-phase uranium data show that the uranium concentration does not significantly change with depth within the fully weathered zone. This implies that uranium transport has stopped in these layers. A two-dimensional vertically integrated model for transport of uranium in the weathering zone has been developed. Simulations with a velocity field constant in time and space have been carried out, taking into account the downward movement of this zone and the dissolution of uranium in the orebody. The latter has been modelled by a nonequilibrium relationship. In these simulations, pseudo-steady state uranium distributions are computed. The main conclusion drawn from this study is that the movement of the weathering zone and the nonequilibrium dissolution of uranium in the orebody play an important role in the transport of uranium. Despite the fact that the model is a gross simplification of what has actually happened in the past two million years, a reasonable fit of calculated and observed uranium distributions was obtained with acceptable values for the model parameters.     

Heavy metal contamination in water and sediment of the Port Klang coastal area, Selangor, Malaysia

This investigation presents the temporal and spatial distribution of heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Hg, and Zn), in water and in sediments of Port Klang, Malaysia. Water and sediment samples were collected from 21 stations at 3-month intervals, and contamination factor $ (C_{\text{f}} ) $ and contamination degree $ (C_{\text{d}} ) $ were calculated to estimate the contamination status at the sampling stations. Cluster analysis was used to classify the stations based on the contamination sources. Results show that concentrations of As, Cd, Hg, and Pb in sediment and As, Cd, Hg, Pb, Cr, and Zn in water were significantly higher than the background values at which these metals are considered hazardous. The main sources of heavy metal contamination in Port Klang were industrial wastewater and port activities.     

Inverse modeling of variable-density groundwater flow in a semi-arid area in Iran using a genetic algorithm

Flow and mass transport parameter estimation was done by creating an inverse model of a seawater intrusion system using a genetic algorithm (GA) method as the optimization procedure. Firstly, the SEAWAT code was used for the forward solution part and then a program was written in MATLAB for coupling the forward and inverse processes. The auto-calibration objective function was defined with the root mean square errors (RMSE) between the observed and the simulated values. A simple GA was used to minimize the RMSE criterion. The methodology was applied to a coastal aquifer with heterogeneous formations in a semi-arid area near salty Tashk Lake (electrical conductivity 61,420 µS/cm), Fars province, Iran. In the last two decades, the overexploitation of groundwater has caused a major water level drawdown and, consequently, salt-water intrusion. Firstly, flow and transport parameters (hydraulic conductivity, porosity, specific storage coefficient and longitudinal dispersivity) were estimated simultaneously in steady-state and, secondly, in the developed code, these results were used as initial values of the parameters in transient-state. Results show a good match for observed and simulated data. It can be concluded that GA is a helpful tool for automatic calibration of variable density fluid systems such as seawater intrusion cases.     

Applications of innovative polygonal trend analyses to precipitation series of Eastern Black Sea Basin,Turkey

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Examining historical variations of hydroclimatic variables can provide crucial information about changes of water resources in a water cycle. In this study,...     

A numerical study of geostrophic adjustment and frontogenesis

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Modeling and Prediction of Habitat Suitability for Ferula gummosa Medicinal Plant in a Mountainous Area

Natural Resources Research - Habitat suitability modeling and mapping are important aspects of long-term strategies for sustaining plant ecosystems. In this study, seven state-of-the-art machine...     

The Response of Macrobenthic Communities to Environmental Variability in Tropical Coastal Waters

The relative contributions of spatial and temporal fluctuations are different in shaping natural communities in a tropical coastal/estuarine system. Understanding how coastal communities respond to these fluctuations is still equivocal, and thus, available data are rare. Here, multiple analytical approaches were used to identify key spatial and temporal factors, and to quantify their relative roles in shaping a macrobenthic community through space (contamination degree, physical parameters, and sediment characteristics) and time (climatic factors, season, and year). A dataset of eight sampling times was analyzed over a period of 2 years, in which macrobenthic species abundances were sampled. A total of 33 species were identified, including 18 bivalves, 5 gastropods, and 4 crustaceans. The other taxa were less diverse. The results show that there were no significant temporal changes of macrobenthic community structure, but spatial changes were significant and synchronized with environmental factors (i.e., sediment characteristics, water depth, and the distance from anthropogenic sources). This study demonstrates that spatial factors played a primary role in structuring of macrobenthic assemblages, whereas the influence of temporal factors appeared less across geographically distinct sites. Thus, temporal variation of a coastal macrobenthic community appears to be controlled by partly different processes at different scales.