This study presents the experimental remediation studies of diesel contaminated soil with Sodium Deducible Sulfate (SDS) as surfactants using column tests. Sandy selected soil had the grain size distribution of # 40 meshes to the # 200 mesh range. The soil columns were contaminated with adequate diesel amount to achieve the concentration of 10000 and 20000 ppm in soil. 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 percen...

The long-term accumulation of Zn in soils provides the microbial community time to adapt to this heavy metal. To assess the effects of long-term exposure to Zn on the metabolic diversity and tolerance to Zn of soil microbial community, the pollution-induced community tolerance (PICT) method, based on the Biolog microtitre plate system, was used. It especially is useful to study gradients of pol...

Degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and survival of bacteria in soil was investigated by applying different inoculation protocols. The soil was inoculated with Sphingomonas paucimobilis BA 2 and strain BP 9, which are able to degrade anthracene and pyrene, respectively. CFU of soil bacteria and of the introduced bacteria were monitored in native and sterilized soil at differe...

Snow cover is projected to decline during the next century in many ecosystems that currently experience a seasonal snowpack. Because snow insulates soils from frigid winter air temperatures, soils are expected to become colder and experience more winter soil freeze-thaw cycles as snow cover continues to decline. Tree roots are adversely affected by snowpack reduction, but whether loss of snow w...

Soil liquefaction is a major cause of seismic damage in cohessionless soil during earthquakes. From past numerical and experimental research it has been observed that more excess pore water pressure (EPWP) is generated during earthquakes in a heterogeneous soil deposit than in the corresponding homogeneous soil with relative density equal to the average relative density of the heterogeneous soi...

The filamentous growth form is an important strategy for soil microbes to bridge air-filled pores in unsaturated soils. In particular, fungi perform better than bacteria in soils during drought, a property that has been ascribed to the hyphal growth form of fungi. However, it is unknown if, and to what extent, filamentous bacteria may also display similar advantages over non-filamentous bacteri...

Flow and transport processes in porous media depend on the geometric properties of their pores, where the diameters typically range from micrometers to millimeters. In this study, we mapped the pore structure of glass bead and sand columns using tomography with X-rays, thermal neutrons, and synchrotron radiation. Utilizing X-rays from tubes, we mapped two 2.5and 5.3-cm-diam. sand samples that c...

The parameters in Richards' equation are usually calculated from experimentally measured values of the soil-water characteristic curve and saturated hydraulic conductivity. The complex pore structures that often occur in porous media complicate such parametrization due to hysteresis between wetting and drying and the effects of tortuosity. Rather than estimate the parameters in Richards' equati...

Temperature sensitivity of soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralization (i.e., Q10) determines how strong the feedback from global warming may be on the atmospheric CO2 concentration; thus, understanding the factors influencing the interannual variation in Q10 is important for accurately estimating local soil carbon cycle. In situ SOC mineralization rate was measured using an automated CO2 flux sys...