Geostatistical analysis of arsenic concentration in the groundwater of Malda district of West Bengal, India

The problem of arsenic (As) poisoning in the upper deltaic plain of the Ganga-Bhagirathi river system in the Bengal Basin of West Bengal, India is an alarming issue. Four blocks (Kaliachak-1, 2, 3 and English Bazar) of Malda district, West Bengal were critically studied. Geomorphologically, the area exhibits three terraces: the present Youngest terrace (T₀-terrace), the Older Shaugaon Surface (T₁-terrace) and the Oldest Baikunthapur Surface (T₂-terrace). On the basis of numerous measurements, including As-content, pH, DO, specific conductivity and salinity, it was observed that maximum As-content beyond the permissible limit (0.05 mg/L, Indian standard) occurs within a depth range of 10–30 m with a non-linear distribution pattern. Variance test also found that a block effect was highly significant in an As-distribution pattern. Mean arsenic level of Kaliachak block-1 is 0.2253 mg/L, followed by Kaliachak-2 with arsenic level 0.1923, Kaliachak-3 with arsenic level 0.1755 and English Bazar with arsenic level 0.1324. The arsenious belt lies mainly within the Older terrace (T₁). The very recent flood plain deposits of silvery white, fine sands lying very close to the Ganga River margin do not contain significant amounts of As. Elevated As-concentration in the ground water was observed in alluvial sands, grayish white to brownish in color and occurring away from the Ganga margin. The Oldest terrace (T2) further away from the Ganga margin (e.g. English Bazar) and Barind surface contains less arsenic. Barind surface acts as a hard capping with ferruginous sands and lateritic concretions-chocolate, mottled and purple brown in color-occurring northeast of the studied area. Arsenic content of ground water in the same locality within a radius of ∼ 20 m varies within wide limits. Thus, it poses problem to delineate its distribution pattern. Such a patchy occurrence possibly could not be explained satisfactorily solely by geomorphology. Chemical analysis of aquifer clay samples of the cores shows a maximum Ascontent of up to 3 mg/kg, whereas the bulk samples (sandclay mixture) of the cores contain a maximum of 17 mg/kg As-value. Therefore, it is not always true that clay contains elevated As-value.     

Guided wave propagation in a moving magnetized plasma bounded by parallel perfectly conducting planes

The structure of the Saturnian rings is compared with the asteroidal belt and the relative importance of the resonance effects and the cosmogonic effects is evaluated. No visible correspondence to the Kirkwood gaps is expected theoretically, nor is there any observational evidence for such effects. The only possible resonance is the 1:1 resonance with Saturn's spin period.Cosmogonic shadow effects are responsible for the main features of the ring structure, including Cassini's division, the limit between the B and C ring, and possibly also Guérin's division.     

Clinoform nucleation and growth in coarse-grained deltas, Loreto basin, Baja California Sur, Mexico: a response to episodic accelerations in fault displacement

We investigate the controls on the architecture of coarse‐grained delta progradational units (PUs) in the Pliocene Loreto basin (Baja California Sur, Mexico), a half‐graben located on the western margin of the Gulf of California. Dorsey et al. (1997b) argued that delta progradation and transgression cycles in the basin were driven by episodic fault‐controlled subsidence along the basin‐bounding Loreto fault. Here we test this hypothesis by a detailed analysis of the sedimentary architecture of 11 exceptionally well‐exposed, vertically arranged fluvio‐deltaic PUs, each of which shows lateral facies transition from proximal alluvial facies palaeo‐seaward into distal pro‐delta facies. Of these 11 PUs, seven exhibit a lateral transition from a shoal water to Gilbert‐delta facies associations as they are traced palaeo‐seaward. This transition is characterised by down‐transport development of foresets, which grow in height up to 35 m. Foreset units thicken in a basinward direction, with initially an oblique topset–foreset geometry that becomes increasingly sigmoidal. Each delta is capped by a shell bed that records drowning of the delta top. This systematic transition in delta architecture records increasing water depth through time during individual episodes of progradation. A mechanism that explains this transition is an accelerating rate of fault‐controlled subsidence during each PU. During episodes of low slip rate, shoal‐water deltas prograde across the submerged topography of the underlying delta unit. As displacement rate accelerates, increasing bathymetry at the delta front leads to steepening of foresets and initiation of Gilbert deltas. Subsequent delta drowning results from sediment starvation at the shoreline at high slip rates because of sediment trapping upstream. The observed delta architecture suggests that the long‐term (>100 kyr) history of slip on the Loreto fault was characterised by repetitive episodes of accelerating displacement accumulation. Such episodic fault behaviour is most likely to be because of variations in temporal and spatial strain partitioning between the Loreto fault and other faults in the Gulf of California. A physical explanation for the acceleration phenomenon involves evolving frictional properties on the episodically active Loreto fault.     

Investigation of dominant modes of monsoon ISO in the northwest and eastern Himalayan region

This study investigates the altitudinal variation of dominant modes of summer monsoon intra-seasonal oscillation (ISO) over the Northwest (NWH) and Eastern Himalayan (EH) region using (i) spatially scattered 133 number of station rainfall observations and (ii) latitudinal transect-wise (LT) rainfall variation, obtained from an observed interpolated gridded rainfall data for the period 1995–2004. The altitudinal variation of dominant modes of monsoon ISO were investigated by exploring the strong and weak phases of the principal components of 10–90 days bandpass rainfall data of June to September with respect to location specific station height. Investigation of frequency of days for light and moderate rainfall along with the occurrence of total seasonal rainy days has revealed existence of a rainfall maximum around 2100 m height for the NWH region. Similarly, the total seasonal rainy days of EH region was found to have maxima between 1100 and 1400 m height. Analyses of the spatially scattered station rainfall observation for the NWH region showed that the strong periods of ISO modes exist around 747.9 (±131.7) m and 2227.2 (±100.2) m heights. Over the EH region, the dominant modes of the monsoon ISO were found to be centred around 1200 m. Significant alterations of strong and weak phases of monsoon ISO as a response to altitudinal variation in the mountain surface were observed when latitudinal transect-wise variation of monsoon ISO modes were investigated.     

The Air-Coastal Sea Chemical Exchange: A Case Study on the New Jersey Coast

The coastal marine atmosphere adjacent to large urban and industrial centers is in general strongly impacted by pollution emissions, resulting in high loading of pollutants in the ambient air. Among the airborne substances are certain trace elements from a variety of emission sources that can serve as micronutrients to marine organisms in coastal waters. High concentrations of such elements in coastal air can result in enhanced air-to-sea deposition fluxes to coastal waters. They could also be transported over the open ocean, affecting the composition of the remote marine atmosphere and then ocean ecosystems. To provide better understanding of the extent of air-to-sea deposition processes on the New Jersey coast, a heavily polluted coastal region on the US East Coast, a synthesis of observation data was carried out for selected trace elements, including Fe, Cd, Cr and Cu, derived from measurements of both size-segregated and bulk aerosol particles, as well as precipitation around the New Jersey coast. The atmospheric input of Hg was also estimated based on measurement data. Results indicated that the total deposition fluxes of most trace elements were higher in Northern coastal NJ compared to Southern coastal NJ, reflecting the differences in the source strengths of these element emissions between the two coastal regions. Dry deposition processes were more significant for common dust-derived elements, particularly Fe and Al, compared with their wet deposition fluxes. However, the processes of precipitation scavenging appeared to be more important for the elements that were often enriched in fine particles including Zn, Cu, Pb and Ni. The removal of Hg from the ambient air was overwhelmingly dominated by atmospheric wet deposition. In the future, atmospheric measurements at more sites on the NJ coast should be performed simultaneously to reduce the spatial and temporal uncertainties associated with atmospheric deposition fluxes estimated in this study.     

An Improvized Core-Drilling Technique and a New Device for Osteohistology of Fossil Bones: Implementation on a Jurassic Sauropod Dinosaur from India

An improvized version of the conventional core drilling technique, based on a new device is introduced in the current work for extracting cores from fossil bones to understand their microanatomy. A powerful, low-speed electric drill with an autolubrication facility is used as the new device, and the bone specimen is placed on a permanently fixed platform beneath the drill bit. It avoids the vibration-induced wobbling of the conventional handheld drill machine and helps in precision sampling. Long drill bits of the new device result in extraction of long cores, reduce premature breakages of cores, and recovery of the entire bone microstructure for high resolution deduction of palaeobiological information. As this version of drilling technique is less destructive, it has better sampling coverage, where fossil bones can be restored to their original shapes and preserved with almost no loss in gross morphology. This is first time such a device for extraction of fossil drill cores has been installed. After test run on dummy samples, the new device has been successfully implemented for extraction of eleven cores from various long bones of the early Jurassic sauropod dinosaur Barapasaurus tagorei. The fossil bones are restored to their pre-coring shapes, the detail protocols of which are discussed here for the first time.     

Geochemical Characterization and Controlling Factors of Chemical Composition of Spring Water in a Part of Eastern Himalaya

This paper focuses on the suitability of spring water for drinking and irrigation purposes in a part of eastern Himalaya, south Sikkim. There are many anthropogenic and geogenic factors contributing as a source of major cations and anions in the spring water. The spring water chemistry show a variation in EC, pH, TDS, Temperature, Na⁺, K⁺, Mg²⁺, Ca²⁺, Fe²⁺, Pb, Mn, Cu, HCO₃^-, Cl^-, PO₄^3-, NO₃^-, F^- and SO₄^2-. Mainly two types of water quality indexing has been used, one for suitability of spring water for drinking purposes and the other for irrigation purposes. For drinking purposes, Piper diagram used for determination of water type, water quality index (WQI) for quality monitoring and saturation index for mineral dissolution in water. % Na, RSC (Residual Sodium Carbon) and SAR (sodium absorption ratio) have been used for irrigation suitability. Piper diagram shows that CaHCO₃ type of water was dominant in the study area. The WQI depicted excellent category and SAR, percent sodium and RSC (Residual Sodium Carbon) depict excellent, good and permissible category for irrigation purposes. Principle component analysis (PCA) was used to determine the major influencing factor responsible for the variability in the parameters analysed of spring water.