Background: Land and water pollution by heavy metals is a universal issue. Although the pollution affects all countries, but its range and severity vary hugely. The pollution of the marine environment by heavy metals is a worldwide problem. Marine sediments can be sensitive indicators for monitoring contaminants in aquatic environments. Methods: The concentration of 10 elements (As, Cd, Cr, Cu...

The Valley of Lakes is approximately a 500-km elongate depression in Central Mongolia, where Eocene to Miocene continental sediments are long known for their outstanding fossil richness. The palaeontological record of this region is an exceptional witness for the evolution of mammalian communities during the Cenozoic global cooling and regional aridification. In order to precisely elucidate the...

We studied the toxicity of sediments downstream of lead-zinc mining areas in southeast Missouri, using chronic sediment toxicity tests with the amphipod, Hyalella azteca, and pore-water toxicity tests with the daphnid, Ceriodaphnia dubia. Tests conducted in 2002 documented reduced survival of amphipods in stream sediments collected near mining areas and reduced survival and reproduction of daph...

In recent years, the Coastal Water Research Project has conducted surveys of the distribution of certain trace substances in sediments around the major municipal wastewater outfalls off southern California. Because of high levels of heavy metals found in sediments near Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts outfall system off Whites Point in 1970, detailed surveys of the Palos Verdes shelf wer...

Extracellular enzymatic activities initiate microbially-driven heterotrophic carbon cycling in subsurface sediments. While measurement of hydrolytic activities in sediments is fundamental to our understanding of carbon cycling, these measurements are often technically difficult due to sorption of organic substrates to the sediment matrix. Most methods that measure hydrolysis of organic substrat...

This study evaluated the bacterial distribution and the survivability of bacteria associated with different particle size ranges in the sump water and sediments within two structural Best Management Practices (BMPs), called Vortechs, installed at two different sites in Providence, Rhode Island. Ten rain storms were sampled in year 2004. Five pathogenic indicator bacteria, E. coli, enterococci, ...

We investigated the particle size distribution of radiocesium in riverbed sediments after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. Riverbed sediments were collected in the Abukuma River system in Fukushima and Miyagi Prefectures. The collected sediments were separated into 11 fractions, ranging from granular size (>2000 μm) to clay size (<2 μm) fractions. Cesium-137 concentrations we...

We report measurements of oceanic black carbon (BC) to determine the sources of BC to abyssal marine sediments in the northeast Pacific Ocean. We find that the average C age of BC is older (by 6200±2200 C years) than that of the concurrently deposited non-BC sedimentary organic carbon. We investigate sources of aged BC to sediments by measuring a sample of sinking particulate organic carbon (PO...

Ongoing eutrophication increases phosphorus storage in surficial sediments of the Baltic Sea which can then be released during hypoxic/anoxic events. Such sediments are suitable habitats for sulfide-oxidizing bacteria, Beggiatoa spp. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of these bacteria on the P retention processes in hypoxic sediments using a diagenetic model. This model ...