Organic carbon (OC) sequestration in degraded semi-arid environments by improved soil management is assumed to contribute substantially to climate change mitigation. However, information about the soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration potential in steppe soils and their current saturation status remains unknown. In this study, we estimated the OC storage capacity of semi-arid grassland soils ...

Hyperspectral remote-sensing techniques offer an efficient procedure for mineral mapping, with a unique hyperspectral remote-sensing fingerprint in the longwave infrared spectral region enabling identification of the most abundant minerals in the continental crust—quartz and feldspars. This ability was examined by acquiring airborne data with the AisaOWL sensor over the Makhtesh Ramon area in I...

-Selected Brazilian Oxisols were sampled and submitted to high-gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) to study the iron oxide-clay mineral associations. The soils, derived from four different parent materials, have mineralogy dominated mostly by hematite, goethite, and kaolinite. Gibbsite appears in most soil samples. The high-gradient magnetic separation showed good separation for some soils, as ...

Natural clays have been used to heal skin infections since the earliest recorded history. Recently our attention was drawn to a clinical use of French green clay (rich in Fe-smectite) for healing Buruli ulcer, a necrotizing fasciitis ('flesh-eating' infection) caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans. These clays and others like them are interesting as they may reveal an antibacterial mechanism that co...

introduction: playa is one of the most important landscapes in arid regions which covers about 1% of the world's total land area. study of playas is important from different points of view especially pedology, sedimentology, mineralogy, environmental geology, groundwater and surface water chemistry. more than 60 playas have been identified in iran. considering the fact that playas and surroundi...

Previous investigations of the salinity effects on the microbial community composition have largely been limited to dynamic estuaries and coastal solar salterns. In this study, the effects of salinity and mineralogy on microbial community composition was studied by using a 900-cm sediment core collected from a stable, inland hypersaline lake, Lake Chaka, on the Tibetan Plateau, north-western Ch...

[1] The Nili Fossae region located on the northwestern quadrant of the Isidis Basin, Mars, displays superb exposures of bedrock outcrops that reveal mineralogy and composition of the crust. Previous work has shown that this region exhibits the largest exposures of olivine-dominated rock units on Mars. Visible-infrared imaging spectrometer data acquired by OMEGA were calibrated to surface reflec...

The East Asian summer monsoon controls the climatic regime of an extended region through temperature and precipitation changes. As the East Asian summer monsoon is primarily driven by the northern hemisphere summer insolation, such meteorological variables are expected to significantly change on the orbital timescale, influencing the composition of terrestrial sediments in terms of both mineral...

The washout of fine materials from liners consisting clay–sand mixtures is expected to influence the hydraulic conductivity. Clay sand must be assessed for efficiency when initially subjected flood or standing water as wetting under a gradient can cause material move and migrate away mixture. During drying complex expansion shrinkage, changes take place. These affect conductivity are likely go ...

Studies on clayey soils developed in temperate areas have shown that their water retention properties are related to both the clay content and specific pore volume of clay, latter being hydric history soil, is drying/wetting cycles. Our objective was discuss validity these results for semi-arid areas. Samples were collected located Syria. Physico-chemical determined. Water measured at field cap...