This paper investigates distribution behaviour of the carcinogenic compound vinyl chloride (VC) under semi-natural conditions in a three-phase system (air, water, and aquifer material). A stainless steel column was fi lled with quaternary aquifer material (gritty sand) from a contaminated site (Bitterfeld, Germany). VCcontaminated water with a defi ned concentration was prepared and pumped in s...

The response of back-supported buffer plates comprising a solid face sheet and foam core backing impacted by a column of high velocity particles (sand slug) is investigated via a lumped parameter model and coupled discrete/continuum simulations. The buffer plate is either resting on (unattached) or attached to a rigid stationary foundation. The lumped parameter model is used to construct maps o...

A new species of abertellid sand dollar, Abertella miskellyi n. sp., is described from the Miocene Camarones Formation of Patagonia, southern Argentina. The new taxon corroborates the existence of the genus in South America, given that Abertella is most common in the southeastern USA and the eastern coast of Central America. It is characterized by a unique basicoronal circle, in which the inter...

Soil behavior during stress wave propagation was studied on a sand and two clays by making one-dimensional wave propagation tests on 5-meter long columns of the soils. Attempts were made to predict this behavior by determining soil properties in dynamic compression tests on small samples and by using these properties in a variety of mathematical models for soil. In all the wave propagation test...

[1] Seismic wave propagation in fluid-filled porous materials induces electromagnetic effects due to small relative pore-fluid motions. In order to detect the seismomagnetic couplings theoretically predicted by Pride (1994), we have designed a small-scale experiment in a low-noise underground laboratory which presents exceptional electromagnetic shielding conditions. Our experiment included acc...

Engineered aluminum oxide (Al2O3), titanium dioxide (TiO2), and silicon dioxide (SiO2) nanoparticles (NPs) are utilized in a broad range of applications; causing noticeable quantities of these materials to be released into the environment. Issues of how and where these particles are distributed into the subsurface aquatic environment remain as major challenges for those in environmental enginee...

ground water is the major source of drinking water in rural and semi-urban areas of assam. it contains an excessive amount of iron (1 to 10 mg/l). people living in rural and semi-urban areas of assam uses indigenous household iron filter units – developed using community prepared wooden charcoal (cpwc) and river sand (rs) as filter media. cpwc and rs processed and respectively termed as process...

The insect parasitic nematodes Heterorhabditis spp. are mutualistically associated with entomopathogenic bacteria, Photorhabdus spp. A novel association has been detected between H. megidis isolate EU17 and the endospore-forming bacterium Paenibacillus nematophilus. P. nematophilus sporangia adhere to infective juveniles (IJs) of H. megidis and develop in insect hosts along with the nematodes a...

Biofilms are a common constituent of the subsurface and are known to influence contaminant transport; however only a few studies to date have addressed microbial controls on nanoparticle mobility in porous media. The impact of a 3-day Pantoea agglomerans biofilm on the mobility of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles was studied in column experiments containing sand and glass beads at near-neutral pH...

Solute transport through homogeneous media has long been assumed to be scale-independent and can be quantified by the second-order advection-dispersion equation (ADE). This study, however, observed the opposite in the laboratory, where transport of CuSO4 through relatively homogeneous silica-sand columns exhibits sub-diffusion growing with the spatial scale. Only at a very small travel distance...