Transformation of Tobacco with ScMTII Gene‐Enhanced Cadmium and Zinc Accumulation

Genetic transformation is gaining importance for developing plant types suitable to metal accumulate and/or hyperaccumulate. In this study, the transgenic tobacco plant which transferred the ScMTII gene from Saccharomyces cerevisiae to wild type tobacco cultivar Petite Havana (SR1) was grown on soils with low and high cadmium (Cd) and zinc (Zn) concentrations in a growth chamber for 6 weeks and compared to wild type tobacco for Cd and Zn accumulation. Cadmium and Zn accumulations in the transgenic and wild type tobacco plants were increased with the increasing Cd and Zn concentrations. Unlike Zn, the transgenic plant accumulated significantly higher amount of Cd compared to the wild type control plants. Shoot Cd concentrations of transgenic tobacco in higher Cd dosages reached the above the hyperaccumulation threshold value of 100 mg Cd kg^?1 in the dry weight (DW). Transgenic tobacco accumulated 354, 400, 372, and 457 mg Cd kg^?1 DW, for 10, 20, 40, and 80 mg Cd kg^?1 soil treatments, respectively. These values are 3.5–4.5‐fold higher than that of Cd hyperaccumulation threshold value. With 10 mg kg^?1 Cd treatment, the bioconcentration factor (BCF) of transgenic tobacco plants for Cd reached up to 35 in which the threshold value for BCF should be at least 10. Our results showed that the transgenic tobacco may be used as a good Cd hyperaccumulator plant and for phytoextraction of Cd contaminated soils, but not for Zn.     

Return period and risk calculations for ocean wave energy applications

The statistical behavior of wave energy at a site strongly depends on the wave characteristics. Wave energy converters fail to produce energy when there are no sufficiently available wave heights. Hence, evaluation of return periods and risk values of the minimum wave height becomes important for wave energy studies. A time index representing the minimum wave height is proposed here for ocean wave applications. Persistence plays a significant role in the calculation of return period and risk. Although ignoring the serial independence makes calculations easy, it leads to overestimations of the real status. In this paper, return periods and risk values are compared with each other by taking into consideration independent and dependent situations. Application of the study is achieved for the stations located in the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.     

Adsorption Kinetics of Chloroform from Aqueous Solutions onto Activated Lignite

The lignite coal researched by this study was subjected to a two‐stage activation process performed in the scope of obtaining active carbon from domestic resources. “Activation” and “carbonization” stages were used in the experiments. The modified lignite was produced by impregnating lignite with KOH and washing the activation product with 15% HCl solution after thermal treatment. Increasing KOH dosage also increased the removal efficiency. The variables investigated in adsorption experiments were contact time, initial concentration, pH, and sorbent dosage. Adsorption kinetics was fitted by using the pseudo‐first‐order equation, pseudo‐second‐order equation, and intra‐particle diffusion. Isotherm modeling was carried out using Langmuir, Freundlich, and Dubinin–Radushkevich equations. Selected target compound in this work is common environmental pollutant in waters. A commonly known effect of chloroform is its carcinogenic effect. Therefore, removal of these compounds from water is considerably important. Chloroform removal of 97% for was achieved by the use of Konya region activated lignite.     

Sea level variability at Antalya and Mente? tide gauges in Turkey: atmospheric, steric and land motion contributions

Sea level trends and interannual variability at Antalya and Menteş tide gauges are investigated during the 1985–2001 period, quantifying the roles of atmospheric, steric and local land motion contributions. Tide gauge sea level measurements, temperature/salinity climatologies and GPS data are used in the analyses and the results are compared with the output of a barotropic model forced by atmospheric pressure and wind. The overall sea level trends at two tide gauges collocated with GPS are in the range of 5.5 to 7.9 mm/yr during the study period, but showing different behaviour in the sub-periods 1985–1993 and 1993–2001 due to variations in the contributing factors both in space and time. After the removal of the atmospheric forcing and steric contribution from sea level records, the resulting trends vary between 1.9 to 4.5 mm/yr in Antalya and −1.2 to −11.6 mm/yr in Menteş depending on the period considered. Vertical land movement estimated from GPS data seems to explain the high positive residual trend in Antalya during the whole period. On the other hand, the source of the highly negative sea level trend of about −14 mm/yr in Menteş during 1985–1993 could not be resolved with the available datasets. Interannual variability of wind and atmospheric pressure appear to dominate the sea level at both tide gauges during the study period. Atmospheric and steric contributions together account for ∼50% of the total sea level variance at interannual time scales. Mass induced sea level variations which were not considered in this study may help to close the sea level trend budgets as well as to better explain the interannual sea level variance.     

Eocene tonalite–granodiorite from the Havza (Samsun) area,northern Turkey: adakite-like melts of lithospheric mantle and crust generated in a post-collisional setting

ABSTRACT

Eocene intermediate to felsic plutons of different sizes and compositions are widespread in the Eastern Pontides Orogenic Belt in northern Turkey. Of these, the Ta?l?k Tepe pluton in the Havza (Samsun) area is fine-to-medium-grained, with granular, porphyritic, and micrographic textures, and include mafic microgranular enclaves (MMEs). LA-ICP-MS U-Pb zircon dating yielded emplacement ages of 42.9 (± 1.4) and 40.5 (± 1.3) Ma for the host granodioritic pluton and the dioritic MMEs, respectively. Petrochemically, the host pluton has I-type, high-K calc-alkaline, and metaluminous-to-slightly peraluminous features (A/CNK = 0.95–1.06). The host pluton also shows geochemical features of adakite-like rocks with high SiO₂ (67–68 wt%) and Al₂O₃ (15.5–16.0 wt%) content and Ba/La (17–23), Sr/Y (40.7–61.6), and La_N/Yb_N (14.4–23.7) ratios and low Y (8.2–9.9 ppm) and Yb_N (3.1–4.4) contents. Whole-rock major and trace element variations suggest that fractional crystallisation played a significant role in the pluton evolution. The N-MORB normalised trace element patterns of the pluton are similar to those of MMEs with enrichment in large-ion lithophile elements, Th and Ce, and negative Nb and Ti anomalies. Chondrite-normalised rare earth element plots show moderate-to-highly enriched concave patterns (La_N/Lu_N = 14.2–21.6) with insignificant negative Eu anomalies (Eu_N/Eu* = 0.86–1.14), all of which imply hornblende fractionation during magmatic evolution. The pluton samples have ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios of 0.704767 to 0.704927, ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd ratios of 0.512767–0.512774, εNd values of (+2.52) – (+2.65), and δ¹⁸O values of 7.9–9.7‰. The isotopic compositions of the host pluton and MMEs are similar to I-type granitoids derived from mantle sources. The MMEs show incomplete magma mixing/mingling, representing small bodies of mafic parental magma. Combined with regional studies, these new data suggest that the parental magma of the studied adakite-like pluton was generated from the lithospheric mantle and then modified by fractional crystallisation and assimilation in a post-collisional setting.     

Applications of Engineering Seismology for Site Characterization

We determined the seismic model of the soil column within a residential project site in Istanbul, Turkey. Specifically, we conducted a refraction seismic survey at 20 locations using a receiver spread with 484.5-Hz vertical geophones at 2-m intervals. We applied nonlinear tomography to first-arrival times to estimate the P-wave velocity-depth profiles and performed Rayleigh-wave inversion to estimate the S-wave velocity-depth profiles down to a depth of 30 m at each of the locations. We then combined the seismic velocities with the geotechnical borehole information regarding the lithology of the soil column and determined the site-specific geotechnical earthquake engineering parameters for the site. Specifically, we computed the maximum soil amplification ratio, maximum surface-bedrock acceleration ratio, depth interval of significant acceleration, maximum soil-rock response ratio, and design spectrum periods TA-TB. We conducted reflection seismic surveys along five line traverses with lengths between 150 and 300 m and delineated landslide failure surfaces within the site. We recorded shot gathers at 2-m intervals along each of the seismic line traverses using a receiver spread with 4 840-Hz vertical geophones at 2-m intervals. We applied nonlinear tomograpby to first-arrival times to estimate a P-wave velocity-depth model and analyzed the reflected waves to obtain a seismic image of the deep near-surface along each of the line traverses.     

Modeling the Removal of Reactive Red 120 on Pistachio Husk

In this study, the adsorption of reactive red 120 (RR 120) on pistachio husk, and the modeling of the adsorption was investigated. Characterization of the pistachio husk was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The pH_zpc of pistachio husk was found to be pH 8.5. Increasing the initial pH value decreased (p < 0.01) the amount of dye adsorbed. However, increasing the initial dye concentration from 50 to 900 mg/L at pH 1 increased (p < 0.01) the equilibrium dye uptake from 20.83 to 182.10 mg/g. Results indicated that this adsorbent had great potential for the removal of RR 120 dye. The logistic model was found to be the most suitable of the kinetic and equilibrium models tested to describe the adsorption of the dye. The parameters determined from the logistic model were well correlated with the initial dye concentration, and were seen to increase with the increasing initial dye concentration, but this was not observed from pseudo‐second order kinetics.     

Environmental impacts of bench blasting at Hisarcik Boron open pit mine in Turkey

This paper presents the results of ground vibration measurements carried out in Hisarcik Boron open pit mine located on the west side of central Anatolia near Kütahya province in Turkey. Within the scope of this study to predict peak particle velocity (PPV) level for this site, ground vibration components were measured for 304 shots during bench blasting. In blasting operations, ANFO (blasting agent), gelatin dynamite (priming), and delay electric detonators (firing) were used as explosives. Parameters of scaled distance (charge quantity per delay and the distance between the source and the station) were recorded carefully and the ground vibration components were measured for all blast events using two different types of vibration monitors (one White Mini-Seis and one Instantel Minimate Plus Model). The absolute distances between shot points and monitor stations were determined using GPS. The equation of square root scaled distance extensively used in the literature was taken into consideration for the prediction of PPV. Then, the data pairs of scaled distance and particle velocity obtained from the 565 event records were analyzed statistically. At the end of statistical evaluation of the data pairs, an empirical relation which gives 50% prediction line with a reasonable correlation coefficient was established between PPV and scaled distance.     

Associations of organic matter with minerals in Tagish Lake meteorite via high spatial resolution synchrotron‐based FTIR microspectroscopy

We have investigated spatial and spectral associations between mineral species and organic matter in the Tagish Lake meteorite. Synchrotron‐based infrared microspectroscopy allowed us to spatially locate specific organic and inorganic compounds within multiple Tagish Lake grains with high spatial resolution. Generated two‐dimensional infrared maps present strong spatial association between aliphatic C‐H and OH in phyllosilicates in Tagish Lake grains. These observations indicate possible roles of phyllosilicates for the formation, evolution, and preservation of organic matter. Infared spectra of all studied Tagish Lake grains show a strong carbonate band, which also shows a weak but positive correlation with organic matter in some grains. However, intergrain correlation was not observed between carbonates and organics, which is likely due to the difference of carbonate occurrence, e.g., presence of larger grains or intergrowth of carbonates on phyllosilicates. Possible scenarios further explaining the observed associations of organics with phyllosilicates and carbonates are presented.