Optical ages for eolian sands from the Nebraska Sand Hills indicate periods of extensive eolian activity at ca 115725, 840770, 23007240, and 35607340 a. Activity was also noted at single sampling locations at ca 61807370, 84307510 and 131107800 a. Many of these ages are similar to those noted by earlier authors. Optical ages from samples collected within paleosols indicate shorter and possibly ...

Culturable enterococci and a suite of environmental variables were collected during a predominantly dry summer at a beach impacted by nonpoint source pollution. These data were used to evaluate sands as a source of enterococci to nearshore waters, and to assess the relationship between environmental factors and dry-weather enterococci abundance. Best-fit multiple linear regressions used environ...

We quantified the wholesale transformation of the boreal landscape by open-pit oil sands mining in Alberta, Canada to evaluate its effect on carbon storage and sequestration. Contrary to claims made in the media, peatland destroyed by open-pit mining will not be restored. Current plans dictate its replacement with upland forest and tailings storage lakes, amounting to the destruction of over 29...

The pore pressures of the S, R, Q and P sands follow the hydrostatic gradient and are in pressure communication across the entire Auger basin, Gulf of Mexico. At the structural crests of these sands the pore pressures exceed the least principle stress; directly above the sand crests, are a series of mud volcanoes. Using 3-D seismic and pressure data we map the distribution of subsurface pressur...

Detecting large lumps of oil sand is a critical step which protects exploitation facilities from jamming. This report presents a method that detects large lumps with edge detection and edge classification. The approach applies Gaussian based local scale control algorithm to detect edges in oil sands, then extracts intensity features as well as geometry features for edge classification. Trained ...

Fen plant growth in peat contaminated with groundwater discharges of oil sands process water (OSPW) was assessed in a greenhouse over two growing seasons. Three treatments (non-diluted OSPW, diluted OSPW and rainwater) were tested on five vascular plants and four mosses. All vascular plants tested can grow in salinity and naphthenic acids levels currently produced by oil sands activity in north...

In this paper, an elastoplastic constitutive model is presented for predicting sandy soil behavior under monotonic and cyclic loadings. The model is based on the CJS3 model that takes into account deviatoric and isotropic mechanisms of plasticity. The flow rule in deviatoric mechanism is non-associated and a kinematic hardening law controls the evolution of the yield surface. In the present s...

Techniques for the enumeration and the determination of the potential activity of disturbed sediment mixed populations at control sites and sites within the Athabasca oil sands formation were applied to August and December samples. These techniques included the determination of general heterotrophic potential for the assimilation and respiration of glutamate, which indicated no oil sand-related...

The systematic analysis of mortars from monuments or historic buildings and the simultaneous study of the construction environment show that it was common practice to use naturally occurring sand from local rivers or streams for the production of the mortars. There are cases though, mainly on islands, where sands of natural origin were limited, and marine or crushed sands were used possibly aft...

As oil and gas exploration moves into deeper offshore areas, Shallow Water Flow (SWF) from overpressured, unconsolidated/uncemented sands becomes a high profile drilling hazard. Laboratory measurements show that SWF sands have high seismic compressional to shear velocity (Vp/Vs) ratios. Thus, elastic seismic inversion for Vp/Vs provides a quantitative identification of SWF sands, and predrill p...