Soil organic matter is a reservoir for plant nutrients, provides water-holding capacity, stabilizes soil structure against compaction and erosion, and thus determines soil productivity. All agriculture to some degree depends on soil organic matter. It has long been known that soil organic matter declines when land is taken into cultivation, and that the productivity of new agricultural land is governed by fertility contributions from decomposing natural organic matter. The expansion of agriculture to ever new and more fragile lands, particularly in tropical and developing regions, causes environmental degradation with local effects on soil quality, regional effects on landscape integrity and water quality, and global effects on carbon cycles and the atmosphere.

This book summarizes current knowledge of the properties and dynamics of soil organic matter in the tropics, its role in determining soil quality, its stability and turnover, and the options for management in the context of tropical landuse systems, for a readership of resource scientists, economists and advanced students. Maintenance of organic matter is critical for preventing land degradation. Case studies and practical applications are therefore an important part of the book, as are the exploration of future directions in research and management.

The Biogeochemistry of the Amazon Basin synthesizes more than a decade of process-level research into the flows of water, carbon, nutrients and other bioactive elements through Amazon terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Emphasis is placed on the unique combinations of physical and biogeochemical conditions that support sustainable development of the region.

This book represents the proceedings of the 9th written by a very active group of physicists at Kongsberg seminar, held at the Norwegian Mining the University of Oslo - physicists interested in Museum located in the city of Kongsberg about complex systems in general and geo-like systems 70 km Southwest of Oslo. The Kongsberg district in particular. is known for numerous Permian vein deposits of The content of the book is organized into three native silver, and mining activity in the area lasted major parts following the introductory chapter. for more than 300 years, finally ceasing in 1957. Chapters 2 to 7 primarily treat the role of fluids The previous eight Kongsberg seminars were in specific geological environments, ranging from focused on ore-forming processes and all of these sedimentary basins (Chapters 2-3) to contact were organized by Professor Arne Bj0rlykke, now metamorphic/hydrothermal scenarios (Chapters director of the Norwegian Geological Survey. 4-5) and regional metamorphic settings (Chapters Since process-orientated research tends to break 6-7). The following four chapters (8-11) focus down the traditional barriers between the different on various properties of fluid-rock systems that geological disciplines, this seminar has always are critical in controlling flow and transport been a meeting point for people with a variety through rocks. These include: mineral solubility of geological backgrounds.

This monograph presents an integrated perspective of the wide range of phenomena and processes applicable to the study of transport of species in porous materials. In order to formulate the entire range of porous media and their uses, this book gives the basics of continuum mechanics, thermodynamics, seepage and consolidation and diffusion, including multiscale homogenization methods. The particular structure of the book has been chosen because it is essential to be aware of the true properties of porous materials particularly in terms of nano, micro and macro mechanisms. This book is of pedagogical and practical importance to the fields covered by civil, environmental, nuclear and petroleum engineering and also in chemical physics and geophysics as it relates to radioactive waste disposal, geotechnical engineering, mining and petroleum engineering and chemical engineering.

This is the first book to cover actinide nano research. It is of interest both for fundamental research into the chemistry and physics of f-block elements as well as for applied researchers such as those studying the long-term safety of nuclear waste disposal and developing remediation strategies.

The authors cover important issues of the formation of actinide nano-particles, their properties and structure, environmental behavior of colloids and nanoparticles related to the safe disposal of nuclear wastes, modeling and advanced methods of characterization at the nano-scale.

Clay Minerals and Synthetic Analogous as Emulsifiers of Pickering Emulsions begins with basic concepts of Pickering emulsions, describes the thermodynamic, kinetic and gravitational stability, the methods of preparation, and the most common characterization techniques. Next, the book presents detailed structure, properties, and physical-chemical modifications of natural and synthetic layered minerals to optimize its properties. Figures and schemes are prepared for experts in the area as well as the undergraduate and graduate students from many different research areas where clay minerals, synthetic layered materials and Pickering emulsion have potential applications. Clay Minerals and Synthetic Analogous as Emulsifiers of Pickering Emulsions fills a gap in the literature, stimulates the aggregation of value of clay minerals, and shows the readers the methods of preparation, characterization, and applications of Pickering emulsions stabilized with layered materials, giving special attention to clay minerals.

Natural and Laboratory-Simulated Thermal Geochemical Processes compares a series of thermal natural geochemical events with thermally laboratory-simulated processes. The emphasis is on the geothermal events occurring in nature compared with those simulated in the laboratory, thus furnishing important information at the molecular level for such processes. The book covers the following topics:

-Generation of petroleum and its thermal cracking;
-Pyrolysis of oil-shales;
-Formation of coal and its gasification and liquification;
-Thermal liquification of biomass;
-Geothermal energy;
-Thermal generation of fullerenes;
-Thermal formation of diamonds;
-Thermal analysis of organo-clay complexes;
-Geochemical conditions for life emergence.

The book presents isotope-geochemical investigations of the world's largest reserves of copper, nickel, and platinum-group elements in the Norilsk ore region. Ever since its discovery, generations of geologists have been fascinated by the geology of these deposits, described as a 250 Ma magmatic formation with mafic and ultramafic layered intrusions, disseminated ore and continuous copper-nickel ore bed. The book includes the results of more than 5,000 analyses of eleven isotopic systems, performed at the Russian Research Geological Institute's Center of Isotopic Research between 2005 and 2014. The book is intended for specialists in isotope geology, metallogeny, ore geology and students of geology.

This book focuses on the development of DGT (diffusive gradients in thin films) and the related techniques for measuring and investigating the geochemical process and P transfer across the sediment/water or sediment/root interface in lakes. A series of DGT techniques such as new types of probes, test methods in sediment or the rhizosphere, DIFS (DGT induced fluxes in sediments and soils) model for kinetic P exchange, CID (computer imaging densitometry) for S(-II), and microchelex gel/LA-ICP-MS (laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) have been developed. The corresponding chapters on the theory and methodology of DGT, the "internal P loading" or P transfer across sediment/root in two lakes, provide insights into the research method and conclusions, including the P release mechanism, the quantification of "internal P loading", kinetic P exchange in DGT/sediment interface, Fe- or S(-II)-microniches at submillimeter scales in sediments for the prediction of P release, and DGT as a surrogate for the prediction of P uptake by roots. It also offers new perspectives in the fields of P analysis and P process in micro-interfaces in lakes using DGT techniques. The P remobilization from Fe-bound P, the coupled Fe-S(-II)-P geochemical reaction and algae biomass breakdown causing P release, are elucidated using DGT methods in sediment layers. DGT parameters and curves for time or distance derived from DIFS can be used to assess kinetic P release in the sediment microzone. CID and LA-ICP-MS methods deliver Fe- and S(-II) images at submillimeter scales, which can be used for the quantification of flux related to microniche peaks and the prediction of P release from Fe-microniche or Fe-S(-II)-P geochemical reactions. DGT measurements in-situ in rhizosphere or rhizonbox can give CE (effective concentration) and CDGT values for the prediction of P accumulated in plant tissues. This book provides a valuable reference resource for senior graduate students, lecturers and researchers in the fields of the geochemical process of eutrophic elements in lakes, lake eutrophication mechanism and environmental analysis.

The Ebro is a typical Mediterranean river characterized by seasonal low flows and extreme flush effects, with important agricultural and industrial activity that has caused heavy contamination problems. This volume deals with soil-sediment-groundwater related issues in the Ebro river basin and summarizes the results generated within the European Union-funded project "AquaTerra." The following topics are highlighted: Hydrology and sediment transport and their alterations due to climate change, aquatic and riparian biodiversity in the Ebro watershed, occurrence and distribution of a wide range of priority and emerging contaminants, effects of chemical pollution on biota and integration of climate change scenarios with several aspects of the Ebro s hydrology and potential impacts of climate change on pollution.

The primary objective of the book is to lay the foundation for a better understanding of the behavior of environmental pollutants and their fluxes with respect to climate and land use changes."

Shear waves and closely related interface waves (Rayleigh, Stoneley and Scholte) play an important role in many areas of engineering, geophysics and underwater acoustics. In some cases interest is focused on large-amplitude waves of low frequency such as those associ ated with earthquakes and nuclear explosions; in other cases low amplitude waves, which have often travelled great distances through the sediment, are of interest. Both low and high frequency shear and interface waves are often used for seafloor probing and sediment characterization. As a result of the wide spectrum of different interests, different disciplines have developed lines of research and a literature particularly suited to their own problems. For example water-column acousticians view the seafloor sediment as the lower boundary of their domain and are interested in shear and interface waves in the near bottom sediments mainly from the standpoint of how they influence absorption and reflection at this boundary. On the other hand, geophysicists seeking deep oil deposits are interested in the maximum penetration into the sediments and the tell-tale characteristics of the seismic waves that have encountered potential oil or gas bearing strata. In another area, geotechnical engineers use shear and interface waves to study soil properties necessary for the design and the siting of seafloor structures.

This book incorporates twenty contributions on diverse aspects of the environmental geochemistry in tropical and sub-tropical environments, drawing together extensive original research not readily available elsewhere. Coverage includes intercontinental comparisons drawn on paleoclimatology, environmental impacts of mining and geochemistry of continetal shelf sediments.

This volume of Advanced Mineralogy encompasses six different areas having two features in common: they are related to one of the largest enterprises of the second half of this century; and represent the ultimate and final extension of the concept of mineral matter. - Understanding mineral matter in Space is one of the principal purposes of cosmic exploration. This includes the results of compa rative planetology, lunar epopee, sophisticated meteorite studies (now more than 500 meteorite minerals), discovery of the interstellar mineral dust forming some 60 trillion of earth masses in the Galaxy, and terrestrial impact crater studies. It is possible now to speak of mineralogy of the Universum, and the mineralogical type of the states of matter in the Universe. Direct samples of mantle xenoliths and ultrahigh pressure-tem perature experiments make it possible to consider the mineral ogical composition of the Earth as a whole, including the upper an lower mantle and the Earth's core. Deep ocean drilling programs, a scientific fleet of hundreds of vessels and several submersibles have brought about great dis coveries in the geology, metalogeny, and mineralogy of the ocean floor the largest part of the Earth's surface, in particular revealing new genetic, crystallochemical, and ore types of min eral formation."

This book provides the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the applications of chemostratigraphy. The first chapter of the book offers an introduction to the technique. This is followed by a chapter detailing sample preparation and analytical techniques. Chapter 3 focuses on the techniques utilised to establish the mineralogical affinities of elements, while the general principles of how to build a chemostratigraphic scheme are covered in Chapter 4. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 provide information on the applications of chemostratigraphy to clastic, carbonate and unconventional reservoirs respectively, and various case studies are presented. Wellsite applications, a discussion and conclusion section form the latter part of the book. The book will appeal to graduate and post graduate students of geology and professionals working in the hydrocarbon sector as a key reference text in chemostratigraphy.

This book provides an up-to-date synthesis of the understanding of the interaction between the emission of nitrogen, its deposition and impact on the most important components of natural and semi-natural ecosystems. The work consists of contributions from internationally renowned research scientists. Individual chapters deal with the factors and processes related to nitrogen deposition and soils, non-forest vegetation communities, forest ecosystems, and surface waters. The assessment of these impacts is discussed in terms of setting critical loads. The book is aimed at researchers, advanced course students and policy makers/advisors involved with aspects of the impact of air pollution.

Trace element analysis plays a prominent role in various fields, from mineralogy and geology to semiconductor manufacture and foods. In geochemical exploration, the analysis of trace elements assumes high significance due to the multifaceted role played by them. The analyte is at the detection limit of many instrumental techniques. This makes their determination difficult This book covers a wide spectrum of destructive and non-destructive analytical techniques and recent developments in them used all over the world, including developing countries, for quantitation of trace elements. With revolutionary progress in the last three to four decades in analytical techniques, several ICP-based techniques like ICP-OES and ICP-MS and other nuclear analytical techniques have enabled determination of trace elements at the ppb level. However, these methods require expensive instrumentation and cannot be made available everywhere. The quality of analytical data is dependent on valid reference standards. The book contains detailed sample preparation in varying matrices and an important chapter on statistical treatment of analytical data for the purpose of quality control and quality assurance. Pulling together, the book, containing the work carried out by the author's group in India, will be useful to analysts involved in geochemical explorations.

The book is on methods of reconstruction of past climate, climate changes, oceanography of the South Atlantic (including the Southern Ocean) and the cycling of biochemical components in the ocean. Information about past ocean conditions is provided by so-called paleoceanographic proxies (parameters with approximate unobservable environmental variables, e.g. surface water temperature). Use of proxies and their development has been a major theme of the Collaborative Research Project at the University of Bremen for almost 10 years. In this volume we summarize our results in relation to these proxy studies. Each chapter gives an overview of a specific proxy, provides particular findings obtained in the South Atlantic and ends with an outlook on future perspectives with respect to the proxy described. Therefore it is suitable for lecturers, graduate students and scientists working in the field of climate reconstruction from ocean sediments.

Riverbank filtration is a low cost, yet efficient water treatment technology. It has most potential to provide safe drinking water to large cities located along rivers or lakes. In particular, it is ideal for large population centres in developing countries, where the cost of building extensive treatment facilities is prohibitive. Water filtration can be successfully implemented using naturally occurring sand and gravel along the river/lake banks. The cost of water produced by this means is much lower than that of water treated in conventional treatment plants. Authored by a multi-disciplinary team of experts, this volume addresses the scientific basis of the filtration process, and also numerous topics of importance for the planning, technical realization, and security of such plants. Their application for the removal of relevant chemical pollutants and a variety of pathogens is analysed in detail.

Oil shales are broadly dermed as petroleum source rocks containing sufficiently high contents of organic matter (above ca 10-15 wt. %) to make utilisation a possibility. Like coal, the world's reserves of oil shales are vast being many times larger than those proven for crude oil. Indeed, some of the largest deposits occur in the USA and Europe where Estonia and Turkey have large reserves. The first recorded interest in oil shale retorting was an English patent in 1694 (Eele, Hancock and Porter, No. 330) which refers to distilling noyle from some kind of stone." The oil shale retorting industry dates back to the middle of the last century, notably Scotland, Estonia, France and Sweden in Europe. Indeed, my own Department at the University of Strathclyde has a historical link with James "Paraffin" Young, the founder of the Scottish oil shale industry who endowed a chair in Applied Chemistry. The growth of the oil industry saw the demise of the oil shale industry in most countries with the notable exception of Estonia, where kukersite has continued to be used for power generation and retorting. However, oil shale utilisation has attracted renewed attention since the early 1970s as a source of transport fuels and chemical feedstocks due to the the long term uncertainties over crude oil supplies.

Cosmochemistry is a rapidly evolving field of planetary science and the second edition of this classic text reflects the exciting discoveries made over the past decade from new spacecraft missions. Topics covered include the synthesis of elements in stars, behaviour of elements and isotopes in the early solar nebula and planetary bodies, and compositions of extra-terrestrial materials. Radioisotope chronology of the early Solar System is also discussed, as well as geochemical exploration of planets by spacecraft, and cosmochemical constraints on the formation of solar systems. Thoroughly updated throughout, this new edition features significantly expanded coverage of chemical fractionation and isotopic analyses; focus boxes covering basic definitions and essential background material on mineralogy, organic chemistry and quantitative topics; and a comprehensive glossary. An appendix of analytical techniques and end-of-chapter review questions, with solutions available at www.cambridge.org/cosmochemistry2e, also contribute to making this the ideal teaching resource for courses on the Solar System's composition as well as a valuable reference for early career researchers.

The comprehensive research activity around the World in the fields of Underwater Acoustics and Signal Processing being strongly supported by new experimental technique and equipment and by the parallel fast developments in computer technology and solid state devices, which has led to a rapidly reducing cost of digital processing thus enabling more complex processing to be carried out economically, emphasize how necessary it is at intervals of a few years through a NATO Advanced Study Institute (NATO ASI) and guided by leading experts to study the conquests in the fields of Underwater Acoustics and Signal Processing. This need of study is moreover stressed by the interdisciplina rity of Underwater Acoustics and Signal Processing, where a strong impact from other branches of science, - Geophysics, Radioastronomy, Bioengineering, Telecommunication, Seismology, Space Research etc. - is taking place, which makes it an extre mely difficult task for scientists to follow-up the development in all its phases and to preserve the general view of its rapid ly increasing number of possibilities. The present Proceedings of the NATO ASI held in Copenhagen during August 1980 join the series of proceedings of NATO summer schools on Underwater Acoustics and Signal Processing held during the past 20 years. The equality and the fusion of the individual research fields of Underwater Acoustics and Signal Processing and the separate introduction of advanced research results from other scientific areas related to underwater acoustics such as transducers characterize the subject matter of this NATO ASI."

From a new perspective, namely focusing on the interaction of selenium and mercury, this thesis provides new insights into traditional research on biogeochemical cycles of mercury in soil-plant interaction and associated human exposure and risks. The subject of this thesis is both valuable and timely, providing essential information not only on selenium-mercury interaction in the soil-plant system but also on how to assess the combined benefits and risk of co-exposure to mercury and selenium. This work also sheds light on future aspects regarding prevention, remediation and risk management for environmental mercury contamination. Presenting high-quality papers published in leading international SCI journals such as Environmental Health Perspectives and Environmental Science & Technology and having been recognized with the Special Award of Presidential Scholarship Award and Excellent Doctoral Dissertations Prize of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), this thesis offers a valuable resource for scientific communities, policy-makers and non-experts who are interested in this field.

Dr. Hua Zhang works at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Oslo, Norway.

This book focuses on environmental aspects of Boka Kotorska Bay in Montenegro (South Adriatic Sea), an area that has been shaped by seasonal tourism, and explores the use and limitations of its natural resources. The individual chapters highlight its geographic and oceanographic characteristics, climate, history and development, biology, fisheries, agriculture, coastal zones, shipping, marine tourism and pollution. Above all, the environmental impact of tourism on marine, coastal and shoreline areas and the resulting conflicts are discussed in detail. The volume is intended for specialists working in various fields of environmental sciences and ecology, water resources and management, land reclamation and agriculture, and regional climate change.

Dating the Quaternary, which covers approximately the last 2 million years, has experienced considerable progress over the past few decades. On the one hand, this resulted from the necessity to obtain a valid age concept for this period which had seen tremendous environmental changes and the advent of the genus Homo. On the other hand, instrumental improvements, such as the introduction of highly sensitive analytical techniques, gave rise to physical and chemical innovations in the field of dating. This rapid methodological development is still in full progress. The broad spectrum of chronometric methods applicable to young rocks and artifacts also becomes increasingly intricate to the specialist. Hence, it is my goal to present a comprehensive, state-of-the-art sum mary of these methods. This book is essentially designed as an aid for scientists who feel a demand for dating tasks falling into this period, i. e., Quaternary geologists and archaeologists in the broadest sense. Since it has been developed from a course of lectures for students of geological and archaeological sciences, held at the University of Heidelberg, it certainly shall serve as an introduction for students of these disciplines."