Immobilization of As and Pb in contaminated sediments using waste resources

As and Pb-contaminated sediment obtained from the Nakdong Lake and Yeongsan River in the Republic of Korea was stabilized using a combination of calcined oyster shell (COS), waste cow bone (WCB) and coal mine drainage sludge (CMDS). The effectiveness of the stabilization treatment was evaluated using the Korean Standard Test (KST). The KST tests were performed using 1 N HCl extraction fluid for As and 0.1 N HCl extraction fluid for Pb. Scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDX) analyses were performed to investigate the mechanism responsible for As and Pb immobilization upon treatment. The treatment results showed that effective stabilization of As and Pb-contaminated sediment was obtained. Specifically, 10 wt% COS–5 wt% CMDS was the best treatment for As immobilization and 5 wt% COS–5 wt% WCB was the best treatment for Pb immobilization. The COS–WCB treatment outperformed the COS–CMDS treatment in immobilizing Pb in the contaminated sediment. SEM–EDX results indicated that Pb immobilization was strongly associated with Ca, Si, Al and P while As immobilization was strongly associated with Fe and O. Therefore, utilization of COS, WCB and CMDS is beneficial for the stabilization of contaminated sediment.     

Tidal Vorticity around a Coastal Promontory

The vorticity generation around a coastal promontory is examined using a transport vorticity equation. The complete vorticity balance analysis is made for the transient and residual vorticity generations around an idealized, symmetric promontory. The topographic vorticity tendency is found to be the dominant forcing term in the production of transient tidal vorticities. This result is different from the previous works which emphasized the effects of lateral and bottom frictions. The residual vorticity balance is between advection and topographic vorticity tendency. The model results are consistent with the observations off Gay Head, Massachusetts. Also, the stability of a promontory as well as the offshore sand bank formation are studied by examining the sand transport pattern around the promontory. Strong deposition occurs off the tip of the promontory while erosion occurs along the upstream slope of the promontory suggesting that an originally symmetric promontory tends to incline cyclonically from the axis normal to the tidal stream. Such tendency is indeed found among coastal promontories.     

Identification of changes in heavy rainfall events in Ontario,Canada

To assess whether changes in the frequency of heavy rainfall events are occurring over time, annual maximum records from 21 rainfall gauges in Ontario are examined using frequency analysis methods. Relative RMSE and related boxplots are used to characterize assessment for selecting distributions; the Gumbel distribution is verified as one of the most suitable distributions to provide accurate quantile estimates. Records were divided into two time periods, and tested using the Mann-Kendall test and lag-1 autocorrelations to ensure that data in each period are identically distributed. The confidence intervals of design rainfalls for each return period (2, 5, 10, and 25-year) are derived by using resampling method, and compared at 90 % confidence levels. The changes in heavy rainfall intensities are tested at gauges across the Province of Ontario. Several significant decreases in heavy rainfall intensities are identified in central and southern Ontario. Increases in heavy rainfall intensities are identified in gauges at Sioux Lookout and Belleville. The sensitivity analysis of changes identified with respect to the year of splitting indicates changes are occurring during the 1980s and 1990s.     

A TIN compression method using Delaunay triangulation

This study introduces a new Triangulated Irregular Network(TIN) compression method and a progressive visualization technique using Delaunay triangulation. The compression strategy is based on the assumption that most triangulated 2.5-dimensional terrains are very similar to their Delaunay triangulation. Therefore, the compression algorithm only needs to maintain a few edges that are not included in the Delaunay edges. An efficient encoding method is presented for the set of edges by using vertex reordering and a general bracketing method. In experiments, the compression method examined several sets of TIN data with various resolutions, which were generated by five typical terrain simplification algorithms. By exploiting the results, the connecting structures of common terrain data are compressed to 0.17 bits per vertex on average, which is superior to the results of previous methods. The results are shown by a progressive visualization method for web-based GIS.     

Wind erosion from military training lands in the Mojave Desert, California, U.S.A.

Military training activities reduce vegetation cover, disturb crusts, and degrade soil aggregates, making the land more vulnerable to wind erosion. The objective of this study was to quantify wind erosion rates for typical conditions at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, CA, U.S.A. Five Big Spring Number Eight (BSNE) sampler stations were installed at each of five sites. Each BSNE station consisted of five BSNE samplers with the lowest sampler at 0·05 m and the highest sampler at 1·0 m above the soil surface. Once a month, sediment was collected from the samplers for analysis. Occurrence of saltating soil aggregates was recorded every hour using Sensits, one at each site. The site with the most erosion had a sediment discharge of 311 kg m⁻¹ over a period of 17 months. Other sites eroded much less because of significant rock cover or the presence of a crust. Hourly sediment discharge was estimated combining hourly Sensit count and monthly sediment discharge measured using BSNE samplers. More simultaneously measured data are needed to better characterize the relationship between these two and reconstruct a detailed time-series of wind erosion. This measured time-series can then be used for comparison with simulation results from process-based wind erosion models such as the Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS), once it has been adapted to the unique aspects of military lands.     

Mbosi: An anomalous iron with unique silicate inclusions

Abstract— The Mbosi iron meteorite contains millimeter size silicate inclusions. Mbosi is an ungrouped iron meteorite with a Ge/Ga ratio >10, which is an anomalous property shared with the five-member IIF iron group, the Eagle Station pallasites and four other ungrouped irons. Neither the IIF group nor the four other ungrouped irons are known to have silicate inclusions. Chips from three Mbosi inclusions were studied, but most of the work concentrated on a whole 3.1 mm circular inclusion. This inclusion consists of a mantle and a central core of different mineralogies. The mantle is partially devitrified quartz-normative glass, consisting of microscopic crystallites of two pyroxenes and plagioclase, which are crystalline enough to give an x-ray powder diffraction pattern but not coarse enough to permit analyses of individual minerals. The core consists of silica. The bulk composition does not match any known meteorite type, although there is a similarity in mode of occurrence to quartz-normative silicate inclusions in some HE irons. Mbosi silicate appears to be unique. The bulk rare earth element (REE) pattern of the mantle is flat at ? 7×C1; the core is depleted in REE but shows a small positive Eu anomaly. The O-isotope composition of bulk silicate lies on a unit slope mixing line (parallel and close to the C3 mixing line) that includes the Eagle Station pallasites and the iron Bocaiuva (related to the IIF irons); all of these share the property of having Ge/Ga ratios >10. It is concluded that Mbosi silicate represents a silica-bearing source rock that was melted and injected into metal. Melting occurred early in the history of the parent body because the metal now shows a normal Widmanstätten structure with only minor distortion that was caused when the parent body broke up and released meteorites into interplanetary space. The cause of Ge/Ga ratios being >10 in these irons is unknown. The fact that silicates in Mbosi, Bocaiuva (related to IIF irons) and the Eagle Station trio of pallasites, all characterized by a Ge/Ga ratio >10, lie on a unit slope mixing line in the O-isotope diagram suggests that their origins are closely related. The C3 chondrites appear to be likely precursors for silicates in Mbosi, Bocaiuva and the Eagle Station pallasites.     

New insights into the P- and S-wave velocity structure of the D" discontinuity beneath the Cocos plate

Broad-band P - and S -waves from earthquakes in South America recorded at Californian network stations are analysed to image lateral variations of the D"-discontinuity beneath the Cocos plate. We apply two array processing methods to the data set: a simplified migration method to the P -wave data set and a double-array method to both the P - and S -wave data sets, allowing us to compare results from the two methods. The double-array method images a dipping reflector at a depth range from 2650 to 2700 km in the southern part of the study area. We observe a step-like topography of 100 km to a shallower reflector at about 2600 km depth to the north, as well as evidence for a second (deeper) reflector at a depth range from 2700 to 2750 km in the north. Results from the simplified migration agree well with those from the double-array method, similarly locating a large step in reflector depth in a similar location (about 2650 km depth in the south and about 2550 km in the north) as well as the additional deeper reflector at the depth of about 2750 km in the north. Waveform modelling of the reflected waves from both methods suggests a positive velocity contrast for S waves, but a negative velocity contrast for P waves for the upper reflector in agreement with predictions from mineral physical calculations for a post-perovskite phase transition. The data also show some evidence for the existence of another deeper reflector that could indicate a double intersection of the geotherm with the post-perovskite stability field, that is, the back-transformation of post-perovskite to perovskite close to the core–mantle boundary.