Simultaneous use of geochemical and geophysical methods to characterise abandoned landfills

. Groundwater sampling and geophysical methods determined a serious contamination problem associated with refilled exploitation sites at the Cal Dimoni area, Llobregat delta, Barcelona, Spain. To characterise this process, hydrogeochemical analyses were performed and showed the following modifications to groundwater chemical composition: increasing pH values, changing redox conditions, significant increases in total organic carbon (TOC) and certain trace elements, and high groundwater conductivity values. Major ion content accumulations were found under the refilled area. In contrast, elements involved in the oxidation–reduction processes, such as iron, manganese and nitrates, clearly diminished. Electromagnetic prospecting methods were also performed and delineated the contamination plume extent. These methods also showed separate sources of contamination, one clearly related to the groundwater–refilled zone leachate interaction, another as a consequence of the manure–accumulation surface site. Geochemical and geophysical methods have shown similar results for locating groundwater contamination sources, and for determining leachate generation mechanisms and flow paths.     

Denudation and cooling of the Lake Teletskoye Region in the Altai Mountains (South Siberia) as revealed by apatite fission-track thermochronology

Lake Teletskoye occupies a narrow graben located in the northwestern sector of the Altai fold belt in South Siberia. The lake basin is thought to have formed during the Pleistocene as a distant result of the Cenozoic collision of India and Eurasia that caused a tectonic reactivation of the Palaeozoic Gorny–Altai (GA) and West Sayan (WS) blocks.The present work reports of a pilot fission-track study performed on 13 apatite separates collected from rocks that were sampled along two profiles in close proximity of the lake. The age–length data and AFT thermochronological modelling reveal two important phases of cooling in the Altai Mountains, a first one during the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous and a second one that started in the Miocene–Pliocene and that persists until today. The first event is interpreted to result from uplift-induced denudation probably related to the closure of the Mongol–Okhotsk Ocean; the second event can be linked to the young Cenozoic movements that lie at the origin of the formation of the Lake Teletskoye basin.     

Internal deformation of Sikhote Alin volcanic belt, far eastern Russia: Paleocene paleomagnetic results

We present paleomagnetic results of Paleocene welded tuffs of the 53–50 Ma Bogopol Group from the northern region (46°N, 137°E) of the Sikhote Alin volcanic belt. Characteristic paleomagnetic directions with high unblocking temperature components above 560 °C were isolated from all the sites. A tilt-corrected mean paleomagnetic direction from the northern region is D=345.8°, I=49.9°, α₉₅=14.6° (N=9). The reliability of the magnetization is ascertained through the presence of normal and reversed polarities. The mean paleomagnetic direction from the northern region of the Sikhote Alin volcanic belt reflects a counterclockwise rotation of 29° from the Paleocene mean paleomagnetic direction expected from its southern region. The counterclockwise rotation of 25° is suggested from the paleomagnetic data of the Kisin Group that underlies the Bogopol Group. These results establish that internal tectonic deformation occurred within the Sikhote Alin volcanic belt over the past 50 Ma. The northern region from 44.6° to 46.0°N in the Sikhote Alin volcanic belt was subjected to counterclockwise rotational motion through 29±17° with respect to the southern region. The tectonic rotation of the northern region is ascribable to relative motion between the Zhuravlevka terrane and the Olginsk–Taukhinsk terranes that compose the basements of the Sikhote Alin volcanic belt.     

Al hematites prepared by homogeneous precipitation of oxinates: material characterization and determination of the Morin transition

A novel method for synthesis of aluminium hematites, based upon the homogeneous precipitation of Fe and Al oxinates in various proportions, is presented. The precursor precipitates are heated in air at 700?°C. X-ray diffraction, thermal analyses, BET, FTIR, optical reflection analysis, TEM and Mössbauer spectroscopy at room temperature and 80?K of the resulting products indicate that single-phase hematites are formed with structural Al substitution of up to 10 at%. Interestingly, the particle size (>100?nm) is not substantially reduced by the Al content. Although it remains difficult to obtain a homogeneously distributed Al substitution in the final hematite, this processing line offers a unique opportunity to separate the effects of grain size and Al substitution on the Morin transition temperature (T _M) of Al hematite. From the comparison between the present hematites and a series of Al-substituted hematites with lepidocrocite as precursor, it could be shown that the effect on T _M, associated with a change of a factor 10 in grain size, is about 1/3 of the effect caused by a change of 10 in the degree of substitution. Finally, it is suggested that proper thermal treatments under different conditions of the same precursors are likely to produce spinel phases.     

Origin of fine-scale sheeted granites by incremental injection of magma into active shear zones: examples from the Pilbara Craton, NW Australia

In the Archaean Pilbara Craton of Western Australia, three zones of heterogeneous centimetre- to metre-scale sheeted granites are interpreted to represent high-level, syn-magmatic shear zones. Evidence for the syn-magmatic nature of the shear zones include imbricated and asymmetrically rotated metre-scale orthogneiss xenoliths that are enveloped by leucogranite sheets that show no significant internal strain. At another locality, granite sheets have a strong shape-preferred alignment of K-feldspar, suggesting magmatic flow, while the asymmetric recrystallisation of the grain boundaries indicates that non-coaxial deformation continued acting upon the sheets under sub-solidus conditions. Elsewhere, randomly oriented centimetre-wide leucogranite dykes are realigned at a shear zone boundary to form semi-continuous, layer-parallel sheets within a magma-dominated, dextral shear zone.

It is proposed that the granite sheets formed by the incremental injection of magmas into active shear zones. Magma was sheared during laminar flow to produce the sheets that are aligned sub-parallel to the shear zone boundary. Individual sheets are fed by individual dykes, with up to 1000s of discrete injections in an individual shear zone. The sheets often lack microstructural evidence for magmatic flow, either because the crystal content of the magma was too low to record internal strain, or because of later recrystallisation.     

Anhydrite-bearing rocks from the Rožná district (Moldanubian zone,Czech Republic): high-grade metamorphosed exhalites?

Several types of anhydrite-bearing rocks have been found in the amphibolite-facies metamorphosed rocks at the north-eastern margin of the Moldanubian Zone. Anhydrite either forms monomineralic bands up to 40 cm thick, or occurs in the form of disseminated grains in surrounding calc-silicate gneiss together with feldspar, scapolite, amphibole, pyroxene, epidote and pyrite. The isotopic composition of sulphur ('³⁴S=30.6 to 32.3‰) and strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr=0.70797 to 0.70781) in anhydrite may indicate a marine source of sulphate. The isotopic ratio of strontium is in the same range as that of metamorphosed strata-bound barite-sulphide ores, which have been previously described in the same area. The '³⁴S values of coexisting pyrite range from 21.4 to 22.5‰, the (³⁴S_{anhydrite-pyrite} corresponding to the metamorphic temperature of 600 to 660 °C. In contrast to many submarine-exhalative deposits, the oxygen isotopic compositions of anhydrite ('¹⁸O=9.3 to 10.2‰) are lighter than that of barite ('¹⁸O=10.4 to 13.8‰). This indicates that the both minerals are not in isotopic equilibrium. Therefore, it is probable that anhydrite and barite from the Ro—ná district were deposited from fluids that contained different proportions of seawater and hydrothermal fluids or from hydrothermal fluids that underwent variable extent of oxygen isotope exchange with seafloor rocks. The '¹³C values in calcite ('¹³C=-17.2 to -18.7‰) from anhydrite-bearing rock are lower than those in distant marbles. As graphite is absent in anhydrite- and calcite-bearing rocks, impoverishment in the ¹³C isotope cannot be attributed to the graphite-carbonate isotopic exchange during metamorphism. It is proposed that low '¹³C values in carbonates are caused by pre-metamorphic oxidation of organic matter in course of hydrothermal processes. Anhydrite and anhydrite-bearing calc-silicate gneiss from the north-eastern part of the Moldanubian Zone are interpreted to be the high-grade metamorphosed analogue of anhydrite-rich exhalites commonly found in submarine-exhalative hydrothermal deposits.     

Impact of suboxia on sinking particulate organic carbon: Enhanced carbon flux and preferential degradation of amino acids via denitrification

Fluxes of particulate organic carbon (POC) through the oxygen deficient waters in the eastern tropical North Pacific were found to be relatively less attenuated with depth than elsewhere in the eastern North Pacific. The attenuation coefficient (b) for the flux was found to be 0.40 versus the composite value of 0.86 determined by Martin et al. (1987). To examine this further, sinking POC was collected using sediment traps and allowed to degrade in oxic and suboxic experiments. Using a kinetic model, it was found that degradation proceeded at similar rates (roughly 0.8 day⁻¹) under oxic and suboxic conditions, but a greater fraction of bulk POC was resistant to degradation in the suboxic experiments (61% vs. 23%). Amino acids accounted for 37% of POC collected at 75m, but following degradation the value dropped to 17% and 16% in the oxic and suboxic experiments respectively. POC collected from 500m was 10% amino acids. The non-AA component of POC collected at 75m was not degraded under suboxic conditions, while under oxic conditions it was. These results suggest that microbes degrading OC under suboxic conditions via denitrification preferentially utilize nitrogen-rich amino acids. This preferential degradation of amino acids suggests that 9% more nitrogen may be lost via water column denitrification than is accounted for when a more “Redfieldian” stoichiometry for POC is assumed.     

Spatial and temporal variation of the nekton and hyperbenthos from a temperate European estuary with regulated freshwater inflow

The aquatic macrofauna of the Guadalquivir estuary were sampled (1 mm mesh persiana net) at 5 sampling sites located along the entire (except the tidal freshwater region) estuarine gradient of salinity (outer 50 km). A total of 134 fish and macroinvertebrate species was collected but only 62 were considered common or regularly present in the estuary. Univariate measures of the community structure showed statistically significant differences among sampling sites: species richness, abundance, and biomass decreased in the upstream direction, being positively correlated with the salinity. Temporal differences of these three variables were also statistically significant. While a clear seasonal pattern (minimum densities in winter and maximum in spring-summer) was observed for abundance and biomass, no such pattern existed for the number of species. Mysids was the most dominant group throughout the estuary (96% to 99% of abundance; 49% to 85% of biomass), although fish biomass was also important at the outer estuary (36% to 38%). Multivariate analyses indicated highly significant spatial variation in the macrofaunal communities observed along the salinity gradient. These analyses suggest that the underlying structure was a continuum with more or less overlapping distributions of the species dependent on their ability to tolerate different physicochemical conditions. There were also significant temporal (intermonthly + interannual) variation of the estuarine community; the relative multivariate dispersion indicated that monthly variation was more considerable (relative multivariate dispersion >1) at the outer part of the estuary during the wet year (last 20 km) and was higher in the inner stations during the dry year (32 to 50 km from the river mouth). Since a clear negative exponential relationship was observed between the freshwater input (from a dam located 110 km upstream) and water salinity at all sampling stations, it is concluded that the human freshwater management is probably affecting the studied estuarine communities. While the higher seasonal (long-term) stability of the salinity gradient, due to the human control of the freshwater input, may facilitate the recruitment of marine species juveniles during the meteorologically unstable early-spring, the additional (short-term) salinity fluctuations during the warm period may negatively affect species that complete their lifecycle within the estuary.