Heavy metals in a contaminated Australian estuary—Dispersion and accumulation trend

Very high concentrations of Zn, Pb, Cu and Cd occur in the muddy bottom sediments of Lake Macquarie, a saline coastal lagoon in southeastern Australia. The trace metals emanate from industrial sources, especially a lead-zinc smelter, at the northern end of the lake. Individual metal concentrations decrease progressively away from the source area but at differing rates; Zn is most mobile and Cd appears to be deposited first. They approach natural background levels in the southern part of the lake. Mn shows a reverse trend but Ni, Co, Ag and Fe rarely rise above background levels.Shallow cores in the lake bed penetrated a metal enriched surface zone 15–35 cm thick underlain by uncontaminated sediments with natural (background) metal concentrations. Sedimentation rates determined from radiocarbon ages on shells in the cores mainly range between 0·15 and 0·5 mm yr^?1. Over the 85 years since industrialization commenced, less than 5 cm of mud has accumulated on the lake bed. Bioturbation is invoked to account for the depth to which the sediment has been enriched in heavy metals.     

The impact of freshwater and wastewater irrigation on the chemistry of shallow groundwater: a case study from the Israeli Coastal Aquifer

Differences in the impact of irrigation with freshwater versus wastewater on the underlying shallow groundwater quality were investigated in the Coastal Aquifer of Israel. Seven research boreholes were drilled to the top-most 3–5 m of the saturated zone (the water table region-WTR) in the agricultural fields. The unsaturated zone and the WTR below the irrigated fields consist mainly of clayey sands, while the main aquifer comprises mainly of calcareous sandstones and sands. We show that the salinity and composition of the groundwater at the WTR are highly variable over a distance of less than 1 km and are controlled by the irrigating water and the processes in the overlying unsaturated zone. Tritium data in this groundwater (4.6 tritium units (TU)) support that these water are modern recharge. The water at the WTR is more saline and has a different chemical composition relative to the overlying irrigation water. High SAR values (sodium adsorption ratio) in wastewater irrigation lead to absorption of Na⁺ onto the clay and release of Ca²⁺ into the recharging water, resulting in low Na/Cl (0.4 compared to 1.2 in the wastewater) and high Ca/Cl ratios. In contrast, in the freshwater-irrigated field the irrigation water pumped from the aquifer (Na/Cl=0.9; SAR=0.6) is modified into Na-rich groundwater (Na/Cl=2.0) due to reverse base-exchange reactions. The high NO₃ concentration (>100 mg/l) in the WTR below both fields is derived from the agricultural activities. In the freshwater field, the source of NO₃ is fertilizer leachates, whereas in the wastewater field, where less fertilizers are applied, nitrate is probably derived from nitrification of the NH₄ in the wastewater. Some of the original inorganic nitrogen in the wastewater is consumed by the agricultural plants, resulting in a lower inorganic-N/Cl ratio in the WTR as compared to that in the wastewater. This study demonstrates the important role of the composition of irrigation water, combined with lithology and land use, in determining the quality of the water that recharge the aquifer below agricultural fields.     

构建地下水污染防护与修复管理中的综合决策系统(英文)

试图阐述如何对一个国家或地区在可持续发展国策下优化资金及人力配置,采取必要的防护和修复地下水污染的可行措施,从而最大限度减少由地下水污染对人类及生态可能产生的危害。提出了一个管理地下水污染防护与修复的综合决策系统框架。该系统框架的构筑是基于资金及人力的有限性、系统优化原理、地下水污染对人类及生态可能产生的危害,地下水防护与修复的难度或费用高低、地下水保护的效益与价值,以及同时考虑满足可持续发展要求。其中,由不同地下水污染防护与修复措施产生的地下水污染危害减少量构成了优化分析的目标函数。有限资金的最佳配置是通过使目标函数的最大化,并满足所有的管理、资源等限制条件加以确定的。还就执行该决策系统框架中所需完成的主要任务及步骤给予简述,并就几个相关的前沿性问题加以探讨。     

Rise and fall of road salt contamination of water-supply springs

A storage pile of de-icing agent consisting principally of sodium chloride was placed in the recharge area of two springs, and remained there for 2 years. Water flow is through fractures in rocks with low matrix permeability, along a hydraulic gradient developed along fracture zones. Salt contamination in the springs was noticed about 1 year after the salt was placed. When the salt was removed 1 year later, chloride concentrations in the springs exceeded 500 mg/L. Monitoring for the following 5 years showed salt contamination rising for the first year, but receding to normal background after 5 years. Chloride to sodium ratios of the spring waters indicated that some sodium was initially sequestered, probably by ion exchange on clay minerals, in the early part of the monitoring period, and released during the latter part; thereby extending the period of contamination.Richard S. diPretoro: deceased     

Chasing rainbows： The elusive normal and lognormal distribution in geochemistry

For decades geochemists have debated the nature of the distribution of geochemical dements. The general observation is that major elements tend to approach normal distribution, whereas trace elements tend towards lognormal distribution. In order to establish geochemical baselines and anomalies, the distr/bution of geochemical （typically univariate） data is often compared to normal or lognormal distribution. Geochemical data--particularly when the data set is large-usually fails to fit either distribution. Departures from these distributions are commonly attributed to outliers or mixtures of different geochemical populations. This approach fails for two reasons. First, formal tests for normality are a function of power and effect size. For large data sets, even small departures from normality can result in statistical significance, but not necessarily in practical significance. Second, and more importantly, distr/bution tests on ＂raw＂ or log-transformed data fail to recognize the nature of compositional data. Such data are by definition constrained to positive values whose components （variables） are closed to sum to 100%. Components are not independent, i.e., any variation in any component must be compensated by changes in other components. Log-ratio transformations, developed by John Aitchison to deal with these constraints, have existed for over 25 years, but geochemists continue largely to ignore or dismiss the problem of closure. Log-ratio techniques rid compositional data of their component dependence and the constraint of closure by allowing data to assume any value in Euclidean space. We examined the issue of geochemical data distribution with a large set of stream sediments. The logratio transformation not only reconciles the apparent differences between major and trace element distributions, but also more readily enables the recognition of potentially contaminating populations. Moreover, observations below detection limits, which usually cause pronounced skew in ＂raw＂ or log-transformed data, are readily accommodated with a substitution method, typically decreasing skewness.     

Moessbauer and XRD characterization of contaminated sediments by coal mining drainage in Neath Canal, South Wales, UK

Sediment cores were collected from the upstream of the Neath Canal in South Wales and characterized for their mineral compositions and iron speciation in order to understand the influence of sedimentary properties on the contaminants of heavy metals. The sediments in the canal have been polluted by ocherous precipitate with heavy metals such as arsenic since a major mine water discharge in spring 1993. The sediment core was obtained just from the discharge point in the canal and distinguished into three layers in the field regarding to their physical properties including visible color, sediment particle composition and dryness. X-ray diffraction （XRD） and M6ssbauer spectroscopy revealed vertical variations of minerals and iron species in depth of the sediment profile. The upper layer, reddish-brown, is wet muddy precipitant and is very fine in particle size, consisting mainly of iron oxide and hydroxide. Arsenic is rich in this layer; probably the sorption on iron oxide surface is the main mechanism. The middle layer, 22.0-27.0 cm, is soft deposit in a yellow color and contains sheet silicate, calcite and goethite. The lower part below 27.0 cm is gray to dark gray in color and contains quartz, pyrite, coal particles that are much more similar to normal aquatic sediment. The upper two layers in brown and yellow colors as newly precipitated mud from AMD contain high concentrations of As, Ni under oxic conditions. The lower part as the old canal sediments under reducing conditions contains high Cu and Zn. Chromium is enriched in the limited part of the low layer, just beneath the boundary between the middle and low parts of the sedimentary column, where the redox conditions shifted from oxic to anoxic. It is clear that the distribution of these heavy metals is closely associated with the redox condition reflected in the iron speciation. Thus different treatments are necessary for each layer of the sediment since different mineral and geochemical properties of the sediment will give different impacts on the heavy metals.     

Ion Microprobe Determination of Hydrogen Concentration and Isotopic ratio in Extraterrestrial Metallic Alloys

The isotopic ratio of hydrogen was measured in an iron meteorite and terrestrial native iron using an IMS 3f ion microprobe. The extraterrestrial D/H ratio (93 ± 9 × 10^?6) was close to the terrestrial value (105 ± 6 × 10^?6), and both samples had low H concentrations (7 ± 4 and 33 ± 11 ng g^?1 for the iron meteorite and the terrestrial sample, respectively). Experiments on artificially D‐enriched samples showed that the measured hydrogen signal is a combination of indigenous H and terrestrial atmospheric contamination. This contamination comes from the isotope exchange reaction between water adsorbed on the sample surface and atmospheric water, and would be continuously added to the indigenous H in the ion crater by the adsorbed water sinking into the crater during sputtering. Experiments showed that this contamination represents up to 20% of the signal but was within the uncertainty of the measured D/H ratio.     

辽宁瓦房店金刚石矿田金伯利岩地质特征

辽宁瓦房店金刚石矿田位于华北陆块辽东新元古代—古生代坳陷带.矿田内金刚石矿均为金伯利岩型,目前已发现100多个金伯利岩体,提交了4个大型原生金刚石矿床和3个近源小型金刚石砂矿床,资源量占全国的一半以上.矿田内金伯利岩体成群、成带分布,有岩管也有岩脉,大小不等、形态各异.由于金伯利岩既是金刚石矿的载体,也是研究地球深部信息的重要对象,在金刚石矿勘查过程中对岩体地质特征进行了研究.本文认为,矿田内不同区域金伯利岩体受围岩成分混染的程度不同,西南部的岩群区金伯利岩体更适合用于研究深部信息;本区影响岩体形态的主要因素是断裂构造,其提供了岩浆上侵通道和就位空间,成岩后的逆冲推覆构造改造了岩体的形态.同时认为,区内控制金伯利岩浆上侵的深大断裂为古郯庐断裂.     

A new MODIS daily cloud free snow cover mapping algorithm on the Tibetan Plateau

Because of similar reflective characteristics of snow and cloud, the weather status seriously affects snow monitoring using optical remote sensing data. Cloud amount analysis during 2010 to 2011 snow seasons shows that cloud cover is the major limitation for snow cover monitoring using MOD10A1 and MYD10A1. By use of MODIS daily snow cover products and AMSR-E snow water equivalent products (SWE), several cloud elimination methods were integrated to produce a new daily cloud free snow cover product, and information of snow depth from 85 climate stations in Tibetan Plateau area (TP) were used to validate the accuracy of the new composite snow cover product. The results indicate that snow classification accuracy of the new daily snow cover product reaches 91.7% when snow depth is over 3 cm. This suggests that the new daily snow cover mapping algorithm is suitable for monitoring snow cover dynamic changes in TP.