Ammonium regeneration in intertidal sediments of the Yangtze estuary during air-exposure

The influences of exposure to the atmosphere on ammonium cycle in the intertidal surface sediments were in situ studied with a geochemical approach at a typical station in the Yangtze Estuary during three tidal cycles in September 2003. During an about 8-h emersion period of each diurnal tide, six high-resolution vertical profiles of adsorbed and dissolved ammonium were measured. It was observed that both adsorbed and dissolved ammonium generally had an increasing trend in sediment cores during the exposure. The rate of ammonium regeneration in sediments was estimated using the accumulation amount of ammonium including adsorbed and soluble fractions during the daytime emersion. The calculation result showed that there was relatively high ammonification rate (˜500 nmol N cm⁻³ day⁻¹), which reflected that organic nitrogen in sediments was quickly decomposed with a residence time of ˜52.7 days. Due to the dramatic temperature difference observed in sediment profiles, free convection was considered an important mechanism of regulating the efflux of produced ammonium into overlying waters. The total estimated amount of regenerated ammonium was ˜1.35×10⁵ t N year⁻¹ in the intertidal flat of the Yangtze Estuary, which occupied 7.6% of the total inorganic nitrogen annually transported to the estuarine ecosystem.     

海洋环境沉积物输运研究进展

海洋环境中沉积物的输运涉及复杂的过程和机制。20世纪后半叶发展起来的悬沙输运数学模型已经成为海洋沉积动力学的一个有力的研究工具。悬沙输运数学模型的有效运行需要正确的数值解法和模型中所含参数的确定,包括悬沙沉降速度、扩散系数、底床糙度和切应力,以及底边界上的沉降-再悬浮通量。由于复杂的水动力条件、屏蔽效应以及海底生物扰动等因素的作用,海洋环境推移质输运的经验、半经验公式具有一定的局限性。因此,充分考虑以上各种因素是正确预测海洋环境中推移质输运的关键。海洋环境沉积物输运理论的进一步发展需要着重进行各种过程和机制的研究,而这项工作依赖于高精度、高分辨率现场观测仪器的发展和更先进的颗粒态物质运动理论的建立。     

云南个旧—文山区地球化学异常

个旧—文山区可分为五个地球化学区,以此为基础分析各区成矿地质条件及水系沉积物元素含量特征,找出元素异常分布信息,进行科学有效评价。     

A GIS-based approach for detecting pollution sources and bioavailability of metals in coastal and marine sediments of Chabahar Bay,SE Iran

Chabahar Bay in SE of Iran is a shallow semi-enclosed environment affected by anthropogenic activities. In this paper, 19 sediment samples were collected and concentration of selected metals (Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Ni, Cr, Co, V and Fe) was determined using ICP-MS analytical method. Sediment samples from five stations were also selected for sequential extraction analysis and concentration of metals in each fraction was determined using ICP-OES. In order to investigate the environmental quality of Chabahar Bay, geographic information system (GIS) along with geochemical data, environmental indices and statistical analyses were used. Calculated contamination degree (C_d) revealed that most contaminated stations (Ch3, S1 and S3) are located SE of Chabahar Bay and contamination decreases in a NW direction. The S9 station, west of the bay, is also contaminated. High organic matter (OM) content in the sediments is most likely the result of fuel and sewage discharge from fishing vessels along with discharge of fishing leftovers. Significant correlation coefficient among OM, Fe, Cu, Pb, Zn and Cd seemingly reflects the importance of the role that OM and Fe oxy-hydroxides play in the metals mobility. The results of hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), computed correlation coefficient and sequential extraction analysis suggest that Cu, Pb, Zn and Cd probably come from antifouling and sea vessel paints, while Ni, Cr, Co, V and Fe are most likely contributed by ophiolitic formations located north of the bay and/or deep sea sediments. Average individual contamination factors (ICFs) indicated that the highest health hazard from the bay is posed by Cu, Pb and Zn.     

Upper Mississippi embayment shallow seismic velocities measured in situ

Vertical seismic compressional- and shear-wave (P-and S-wave) profiles were collected from three shallow boreholes in sediment of the upper Mississippi embayment. The site of the 60-m hole at Shelby Forest, Tennessee, is on bluffs forming the eastern edge of the Mississippi alluvial plain. The bluffs are composed of Pleistocene loess, Pliocene-Pleistocene alluvial clay and sand deposits, and Tertiary deltaic-marine sediment. The 36-m hole at Marked Tree, Arkansas, and the 27-m hole at Risco, Missouri, are in Holocene Mississippi river floodplain sand, silt, and gravel deposits. At each site, impulsive P- and S-waves were generated by man-made sources at the surface while a three-component geophone was locked downhole at 0.91-m intervals.

Consistent with their very similar geology, the two floodplain locations have nearly identical S-wave velocity (V_S) profiles. The lowest V_S values are about 130 m s⁻¹, and the highest values are about 300 m s⁻¹ at these sites. The shear-wave velocity profile at Shelby Forest is very similar within the Pleistocene loess (12 m thick); in deeper, older material, V_S exceeds 400 m s⁻¹.

At Marked Tree, and at Risco, the compressional-wave velocity (V_P) values above the water table are as low as about 230 m s⁻¹, and rise to about 1.9 km s⁻¹ below the water table. At Shelby Forest, V_P values in the unsaturated loess are as low as 302 m s⁻¹. V_P values below the water table are about 1.8 km s⁻¹. For the two floodplain sites, the V_P/V_S ratio increases rapidly across the water table depth. For the Shelby Forest site, the largest increase in the V_P/V_S ratio occurs at 20-m depth, the boundary between the Pliocene-Pleistocene clay and sand deposits and the Eocene shallow-marine clay and silt deposits.

Until recently, seismic velocity data for the embayment basin came from eartquake studies, crustal-scale seismic refraction and reflection profiles, sonic logs, and from analysis of dispersed earthquake surface waves. Since 1991, seismic data for shallow sediment obtained from reflection, refraction, crosshole and downhole techniques have been obtained for sites at the northern end of the embayment basin. The present borehole data, however, are measured from sites representative of large areas in the Mississippi embayment. Therefore, they fill a gap in information needed for modeling the response of the embayment to destructive seismic shaking.     

The influence of grain-size analysis methods and sediment mixing on curve shapes and textural parameters: Implications for sediment trend analysis

To this day, deterministic physical models capable of explaining the evolution of grain-size distributions in the course of transport are still lacking. For this reason, various attributes of particle frequency distributions, in particular curve shapes and textural parameters, have for many decades been investigated for potential information about transport behaviour and size-sorting processes of sediments in numerous environments. Such approaches are essentially conceptual and hence rely heavily on the validity of the assumptions on which they are based. A factor which has to date been largely ignored in this context, is the fact that different methods of grain-size analysis (e. g. sieving, laser absorption and diffraction, settling velocity measurements), when applied to the same sample material, produce variable curve shapes, and hence incongruous textural data. This is illustrated by selected examples showing the differences between sieving and settling results, conversion of settling velocities into equivalent settling diameters (psi-phi-transformations), and the influences of particle shape, particle density, and water temperature. It is demonstrated that particle-size distributions are not only method-dependent but also dependent on the adopted post-processing procedure. As a result, only frequency curves generated by the same method and subsequently processed by identical computational procedures can be meaningfully compared. Furthermore, the computation of textural parameters from bi- or multimodal size distributions produces spurious results which are unrelated to the processes leading to the mixing of different size populations frequently observed in nature. In such cases, only the decomposition of such distributions into individual populations and the spatial comparison of such populations makes any sense. Because a physical explanation for the generation of size distributions is lacking, a particular curve shape of a grain-size population has no meaning on its own. Only a systematic comparison of progressively changing curve shapes (and associated textural parameters) of sediments collected on a closely spaced grid can yield data suitable for sediment trend analysis.     

Web-based application for estimating water quality impacts due to environmental dredging

A Web-based dredge plume simulation software has been developed for estimating sediment transport and contaminant release from dredging operations. This application software comprises a near-field source model and far-field sediment transport model, combined with the settling analysis of flocculent particles. It is designed to run on all computing platforms with a standard Web browser and is accessible over the Internet. This paper describes its internal software structures and the major features of the application software. In addition, an example application of sediment transport in the Savannah River, GA, is included to illustrate typical input and output screens and to demonstrate the accuracy of the model. The water quality assessment software developed herein will greatly enhance the ability of the predictive tool for estimating sediment transport and resuspension during dredging operations.     

南宁市大气能见度变化特征及影响因子分析

对2000至2006年的南宁市能见度资料进行统计分析。分析表明,南宁市近7a能见度年均值在13～17km之间,总体呈下降趋势。一年之中,能见度最小值主要出现在1至3月,最大值出现在6至7月,汛期能见度明显好于非汛期。一日之中,能见度的日变化为：08时〈02时〈20时〈14时。能见度与气象因子的相关分析表明,能见度与温度、风速成正比,与压强、降水、湿度成反比。与污染物的相关分析表明,能见度与PM10浓度的相关性较强,达到-0.58。     

Settling and resuspended particles: A source or a sink of phosphate in two contrasting oligotrophic high mountain lakes?

This study focuses on two Mediterranean oligotrophic high mountain lakes located in the Sierra Nevada National Park (southern Spain): Río Seco (RS) and La Caldera (LC). A combination of field measurements and laboratory experiments is used: (i) to quantify in situ settling fluxes; (ii) to study the soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) release or uptake by settling and resuspended particles; and (iii) to discriminate between the biotic and abiotic contribution for such patterns. In general, all suspensions (lake water untreated and lake water enriched with settling and with resuspended matter) in both study lakes release significantly more SRP to the solution when biological activity was suppressed. Biological uptake from settling and resuspended matter is likely to be limited by the bacterial consumption of P. Despite of these similarities, this study has revealed notable differences in the effect of sediment resuspension on SRP dynamics in both study lakes, when simulating natural conditions (biotic and abiotic processes). While in LC, the enrichment of lake water with settling and with resuspended matter did not cause an increase in SRP concentrations in lake water, SRP concentrations in RS at the end of the experiment were significantly higher (probability P < 0.05) in lake water enriched with resuspended matter (3.2 μg/l) than in natural lake water (lower than the detection limit). Accordingly, it is reasonable to expect that sediment resuspension, which occurs more frequently in RS compared with LC, affects drastically the SRP availability in the water column in RS.