Characterization and low-cost treatment of an industrial arid soil polluted with lead sulfide in northern Chile

Lead (Pb) dust exposure can have detrimental environmental and human health effects. Improperly enclosed stockpiles of Pb concentrates can cause dust emissions, subsequent pollution of the soil and environmental risk. The aim of this work was to study Pb form, distribution and immobilization (by using eggshell and seashell) in an industrial arid soil near a storage area of Pb mineral concentrates in northern Chile. High amounts of sulfur (S; 9900 mg kg^?1) and Pb (6530 mg kg^?1) were found in the polluted soil. The energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis revealed a lead sulfide (PbS: galena). Metallic Pb particles, which were between 41 and 46 µm, were identified in the soil. After eggshell and seashell (20%) were applied, the soil pH increased from 6.0 to 7.84 and 8.07, respectively. In the studied soil, the leaching test showed a 59 mg L^?1 average Pb extractable concentration. After 240 days, extractable Pb by toxicity characteristics leaching procedure decreased to 4.79 mg L^?1 (93.3%) with the application of seashell at 20% compared with a decrease of 33.33 mg L^?1 (53.6%) using eggshell. Pb in the polluted soil was mainly found in the exchangeable fraction (66%), followed by the reducible (24%), residual (7%) and oxidizable (6%) fractions. According to the risk assessment code, the contaminated soil before treatment was classified as very high risk. Adding eggshell (20%) and seashell (20%) decreased the exchangeable fractions to 39 and 35%, respectively. Applying these liming materials achieved Pb immobilization in the soil, but the soil remained in the high environmental risk category. We conclude that the application of seashell waste, resulting from high aquaculture activity, opens an interesting window to the treatment of contaminated arid soils.     

Assessing the spatial probability of landslides using GIS and informative value model in the Bamenda highlands

Landslides are a major natural hazard in the Bamenda highlands of Cameroon, and their occurrence in this region has most often been studied using qualitative methods. The aim of this research is to quantitatively assess the spatial probability of landslides using GIS and the informative value model. Landslide inventory was done through literature review, aerial photo-interpretation, participatory GIS and field survey. Six geo-environmental factors including slope, curvature, aspect, land use, lithology and geomorphology were used as landslide conditioning (static) factors. The susceptibility of the area to future landslide events was assessed by making a correlation between past landslides and geo-environmental factors using the informative value model. The landslide inventory involving 110 landslides was divided into two equal groups using random division criterion and was used to train and validate the model. The analysis showed that slope and land use are the most important causal factors of landslides in the area. The susceptibility index map predicted most landslides to occur around the steep slopes of the Bamenda escarpment that is being used for multiple anthropic activities. The training model had a success rate of 87%, and the validation model had a prediction rate of 90%. The prediction rate curve shows that 44, 32, 18 and 6% of future landslides will occur on 3, 8, 21 and 68% of the study area. The model correctly classified 89% of unstable areas and 81% of the stable areas with an accuracy rate of 0.90. This quantitative result complement other qualitative assessment results that show the Bamenda escarpment zone as a high-risk area. However, the area susceptible to landslide in this study goes beyond what earlier studies had indicated as houses and other infrastructure were found on old landslide sites whose scars have been eroded by human activities. This new input thus improves the quality of information placed at the disposal of civil protection units and land use managers during decision making.     

Late quaternary sea‐level changes,crustal movements and coastal evolution in Northumberland,UK

Northumberland lies in the transition between Holocene emergence and submergence and is thus a critical zone for testing models of isostatic rebound. We have collected data from this area to reconstruct relative sea‐level changes and lateral coastline movements for the last 14000 y. These are deposits from tidal marsh, back‐barrier wetland and terrestrial environments producing 47 sea‐level index points from 12 sites. There is no unequivocal evidence for Late Devensian sea levels above present and the reliable sea‐level index points are restricted between −6 m and +2.5 m relative to present and 9.0–2.5 kyr cal. BP. Analysis of these quantifies differential responses to glacio‐ and hydroisostatic rebound, with the northern sites recording a mid‐Holocene sea‐level maximum ca. 2.5 m above present, whereas the southern sites show a maximum ca. 0.5 m above present. These observations show a reasonable fit with the predictions from quantitative models of glacio and hydroisostatic rebound, but there is currently no unique solution of Earth and ice model parameters that will explain all the sea‐level observations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Copper- and iron-induced injuries in roots and rhizomes of reed (Phragmites australis)

About 1 mg/g dw Cu²⁺ and 8 mg/g dw Fe²⁺ were found in roots of reed plants when fed with heavy metal concentrations of 100 μM Cu²⁺ and 10 mM Fe²⁺ under hypoxia. Roots seemed to act as a kind of filter since the amounts in rhizomes were only 0.06 mg Cu²⁺/g dw and 2 mg Fe²⁺/g dw. Increased contents of both ions reduced posthypoxic respiration capacity by 40–50% and also the sum of adenylates (ATP, ADP, AMP) by the same order of magnitude, although energy charge values remained above 0.85 in Cu²⁺ and 0.79 in Fe²⁺ treatments. Energy metabolism of rhizomes was not affected. Copper and iron contents of roots as well as of rhizomes were high enough to induce oxidative stress when roots were fed with 40 μM Cu²⁺ and 1 mM Fe²⁺, respectively.From our results we conclude that increased, but environmentally attainable, amounts of copper and reduced iron ions disturb root energy metabolism, and therefore root functioning and development. Latent injuries, based on oxidative stress, may be harmful for roots and rhizomes under long term exposure.     

Fault slip and identification of the second fault plane in the Varzeghan earthquake doublet

An intraplate earthquake doublet, with 11-min delay between the events, devastated the city of Varzeghan in northwestern Iran on August 11, 2012. The first Mw 6.5 strike-slip earthquake, which occurred after more than 200 years of low seismicity, was followed by an Mw 6.4 oblique thrust event at an epicentral separation of about 6 km. While the first event can be associated with a distinct surface rupture, the absence of a surface fault trace and no clear aftershock signature makes it challenging to identify the fault plane of the second event. We use teleseismic body wave inversion to deduce the slip distribution in the first event. Using both P and SH waves stabilize the inversion and we further constrain the result with the surface rupture extent and the aftershock distribution. The obtained slip pattern shows two distinct slip patches with dissimilar slip directions where aftershocks avoid high-slip areas. Using the estimated slip for the first event, we calculate the induced Coulomb stress change on the nodal planes of the second event and find a preference for higher Coulomb stress on the N-S nodal plane. Assuming a simple slip model for the second event, we estimate the combined Coulomb stress changes from the two events on the focal planes of the largest aftershocks. We find that 90% of the aftershocks show increased Coulomb stress on one of their nodal planes when the N-S plane of the second event is assumed to be the correct fault plane.     

Bayesian chemistry-assisted hydrograph separation (BACH) and nutrient load partitioning from monthly stream phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations

A Bayesian chemistry-assisted hydrograph separation (BACH) approach was developed, based on calibration of a three-component recursive digital filter, that requires monthly water quality data only. This enables BACH to be applied to the large number of rural catchments for which continuous flow records and monthly water chemistry time series exist from ‘state of environment’ monitoring programmes, but little supplementary data required for more sophisticated analysis techniques. As well as estimating fast, medium, and slow flow components, BACH also estimates for each flow component a time-invariant concentration of the chemical tracers chosen, allowing flow path-specific loads to be calculated. The method was demonstrated using 15 years of total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) data from eight mesoscale catchments in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island. Calibration was done separately for three 5-year data periods, and validated against data from the following 5-year period. Flow path separation and concentration predictions were consistent between data periods, indicating that the TP–TN combination contained sufficient information to reliably identify three flow paths in each catchment; an event-response near-surface flow path with high concentrations of both phosphorus and nitrogen, a seasonal shallow groundwater flow path with lower concentrations of TP but high concentrations of TN, and a deeper slower groundwater flow path characterised by generally low concentrations of both TP and TN. Based on this analysis, the catchments were able to be grouped in three hydro-types. This shows that commonly available water quality data can support robust, objective flow separation and nutrient load apportionment, even in the absence of other supporting data, provided appropriate modelling methods are used.     

Data requirements for a 5-mm quasi-geoid in the Netherlands

We assess the surface gravity data requirements for a 5-mm quasi-geoid model for the Netherlands mainland and continental shelf in terms of omission and commission errors. The omission error critically depends on the roughness of the topography and bathymetry. For the Netherlands continental shelf, Central and Northern Netherlands, the omission error is well described by the model 0.32d mm, where d is the data spacing in km. For the more hilly Southern Netherlands, the omission error model is 0.92d mm. The commission error depends on the kernel modification, the data spacing, and the data accuracy. When using the spheroidal Stokes kernel, it is well described by 0.277 d σ_Δg mm, where σ_Δg is the noise standard deviation of surface gravity data in mGal. An upper bound of the commission error of the state-of-the-art satellite-only gravity model GOCO05S over the Netherlands is e^{0.03676L–11.419} mm, where L is the maximum degree up to which this model is used. Only if this model is truncated at a sufficiently low degree, e.g., at degree 100, its contribution to the total commission error can be neglected. We determine the total error as the sum of commission and omission errors. Hence, to realize a 5-mm quasi-geoid model for the Netherlands mainland and continental shelf, a data spacing of 3.5 km is needed when assuming a noise standard deviation of 1.5 mGal for surface gravity data. The currently available land-based gravity data fulfill this requirement. This does not apply to the situation at sea, where the density of the shipboard gravity data and the accuracy of the radar altimeter-derived data do not allow the realization of a 5-mm quasi-geoid model.