Environmental factors-especially soil properties-have been suggested as potentially important in the transmission of infectious prion diseases. Because binding to montmorillonite (an aluminosilicate clay mineral) or clay-enriched soils had been shown to enhance experimental prion transmissibility, we hypothesized that prion transmission among mule deer might also be enhanced in ranges with rela...

The field study was conducted in one district of Educational-Experimental forest at Tehran University (Kheirood-Kenar forest) in the North of Iran. Eighty-five soil profiles were dug in the site of study and several chemical and physical soil properties were considered. These factors included: soil pH, soil texture, bulk density, organic carbon, total nitrogen, extractable phosphorus and depth ...

BACKGROUND Patents have been granted for a number of techniques for petroleum biodegradation including use of micro-organisms for degradation of hydrocarbon-based substances and for hydrocarbon degradation in oil reservoirs, but there is a dearth of information on hydrocarbon degradation in different soil textures. OBJECTIVE Hence, this work investigated the effects of different soil textures...

Plants regularly experience suboptimal environments, but this can be particularly acute on highly-disturbed mine sites. Two North American willows—Salix discolor Muhl. (DIS) and S. eriocephala Michx. (ERI)—were established in common-garden field tests on two adjacent coal mine spoil sites: one with high clay content, the other with shale overburden. The high clay content site had 44% less produ...

introduction one concern in the disposal of municipal solid waste (msw) by landfill is the production of leachate. acidic water is capable of dissolving elements from the waste; and, as a result, the leachate can become quite contaminated. one of the heavy metals present in leachate, cadmium poses a great concern in terms of environmental contamination since it is toxic to nearly all living org...

This paper investigates the effect of moisture content on interface shear strength between offshore clay and steel plate. Although, sensitive and high plasticity offshore clay deposits are widely distributed in Malaysia and many other countries in the world, and steel is a vital construction material for many structures, research works on interaction between offshore clay and steel surface are ...