The concentrations of As and Zn in 100 georeferenced soils uniformly distributed throughout the area affected by the spill from the Aznalcóllar mine (April 1998) were analysed at three depths (0– 10, 10–30, and 30–50 cm) and on four dates (autumn–winter 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2004). For an estimate of the geochemical background, 30 unaffected soils near the edge of the spill were also analysed a...

What soils are best for grapes? The best grape soils are deep, well-drained loams, free from high concentrations of alkali, boron, or other toxic materials. Deeper soils produce the heaviest crops and are preferred for raisins, common wine grapes, and some varieties of table grapes. However, grapes are adapted to a wide variety of soil types and can be grown successfully on soils not suitable f...

Fifty-seven typical surface soils and 108 deeper soils were collected from five former industrial sites in Beijing and concentrations of total Hg (SigmaHg) as well as pH, total carbon (TC), total nitrogen (TN), total sulfur, and dissolved organic carbon concentrations determined. The mean concentration of SigmaHg in surface soils was significantly greater than background concentrations in the v...

Compound specific stable isotope analyses of managed soils using isotope ratio mass spectrometry have been undertaken as a means of determining early land use practices. delta (15)N amino acid signals demonstrate differences between manured grassland, unmanured grassland and continuous cereal cultivation under long-term experimental land use control conditions, with delta (15)N in hydrophobic a...

Thr red colour of many of the soils in the Mediterranean region was the main reason that in the past the broad term “Red Mediterranean soils”, occasionally “terra rossa”, became quite a common indication for all soils in the region (YAALON, 1997). BRESSON (1993) stated that Red Mediterranean soils resulted from a bisiallitic type of weathering with the release of high amounts of iron oxides clo...

Outsiders often oversimplify Amazon soil use by assuming that abundantly available natural soils are poorly suited to agriculture and that sporadic anthropogenic soils are agriculturally productive. Local perceptions about the potentials and limitations of soils probably differ, but information on these perceptions is scarce. We therefore examined how four indigenous communities in the Middle C...

With little precipitation (<10 cm water equivalent annually as snow), soils of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) have limited water available to support hydrological or biogeochemical processes. Active layer depths across most of this landscape are <1 m. Saturated sediments are obvious in wetted margins on the shorelines of lakes, extending for up to ~10 m into a zone where typically arid MDV soils...

Question: Are soil lichen communities structured by biotic interactions? Location: Gypsum outcrops located next to Belmonte del Tajo, central Spain. Methods: We sampled a total of 68 (50 cm × 50 cm) plots in gypsum outcrops from central Spain. Each plot was divided into 100 (5 cm × 5 cm) sampling quadrats, and the presence of all lichen species in every quadrat was recorded (6800 quadrats in to...

This investigation was performed to provide heavy metal signatures of urban soils, dusts, rainwater and to evaluate potential sources in Arak, Markazi Province. Thirty-one samples of urban soils, 29 dust and16 rainwater samples were collected in Arak city. Then, Pb, Cu, Zn, As and Ni concentrations were determined by using atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Application of discriminant analysi...

BACKGROUND Knowledge about silver nanoparticles in soils is limited even if soils are a critical pathway for their environmental fate. In this paper, speciation results have been acquired using a silver ion selective electrode in three different soils. RESULTS Soil organic matter and pH were the most important soil properties controlling the occurrence of silver ions in soils. In acidic soils...