The Precambrian rocks in western Ethiopia consist of highand low-grade terranes intruded by granitoids with a wide compositional spectrum. The formation ages of these granitoid rocks are, so far, poorly understood. Single-grain zircon Pb/Pb evaporation and conventional U/Pb dating conducted on four granitoids places time constraints on their emplacement and tectonothermal events. Three granitoi...

Reports of radiation from granite counter tops generated public interest in the potential exposures to external gamma radiation and internal exposure from radon decay products created by building materials. The gamma radiation, radionuclide content and surface dose rates were measured in 322 slabs of 254 named stone types (area ~50 ft per slab) and 14 smaller samples (area ~1 ft). Average surfa...

Within the framework of responsible mining, a SOLSA project (www.solsa-mining.eu) to develop an in-situ tool allowing a quick mineralogical identification of site drill cores has been recently launched. Its objective is to develop new or improved highly-efficient and cost-effective, sustainable exploration technologies. It combines and integrates nondestructive sensors: X-ray fluorescence, X-ra...

Contamination of kitchen surfaces due to bacteria present in foodstuffs is one of the main causes of foodborne outbreaks. Salmonella infections are an important cause of foodborne disease, and Salmonella Enteritidis is the most common isolate in the past few years. In this study, the adhesion ability of four Salmonella Enteritidis isolates to different materials (polyethylene, polypropylene, an...

Long-term exposure to radon increases the risk of developing lung cancer. There is considerable public concern about radon exhalation from building materials and the contribution to indoor radon levels. To address this concern, radon exhalation rates were determined for 53 different samples of drywall, tile and granite available on the Canadian market for interior home decoration. The radon exh...

The granite industry in Cornwall and Devon is briefly described, especially the production of dust in dressing the stone. In 1951, 210 granite masons were examined (about 84% of the total at that time) and 37 (17 6%) showed silicosis. These men were followed up for 10 years. No silicosis was seen in men with less than 15 years' exposure, but after this time the risk increased to 11 out of 14 in...

In this study, the researchers investigated the potential use of locally available waste materials from the lime stone quarry and the granite industry as a partial replacement of cement. Quarry sites and granite industry in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia produces tons of powder wastes in the form of quarry dust (QD) and granite sludge (GS), respectively, causing serious environmental prob...

The Piedade Granite (approximately 600 Ma) was emplaced shortly after the main phase of granite magmatism in the Agudos Grandes batholith, Apiaí-Guaxupé Terrane, SE Brazil. Its main units are: mafic mineral-rich porphyritic granites forming the border (peraluminous muscovite-biotite granodiorite-monzogranite MBmg unit) and core (metaluminous titanite-bearing biotite monzogranite BmgT unit) and ...

Chatter vibrations, occurring during cutting process, cause vibration between the cutting tool and workpiece, which deteriorates surface roughness and reduces tool life. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of cutting parameters and tool construction on surface roughness and vibration in turning of aluminum alloy AA2024. A new design of cutting tool is proposed, which is fi...

The determination of mechanical properties of granitic rocks has a great importance to solve many engineering problems. Tunnelling, mining and excavations are some examples of these problems. The purpose of this paper is to apply Data Mining (DM) techniques such as multiple regressions (MR), artificial neural networks (ANN) and support vector machines (SVM), to predict the uniaxial compressive ...