a r t i c l e i n f o The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of filling materials (e.g., quartz sand and kaolin clay) in the interaction between a P-wave and a rock fracture. The specific fracture stiffness reflects the seismic response of a filled fracture, while the wave transmission coefficient describes P-wave transmission across the filled fracture. A series of experimental t...

The intense heat and pressure resulting from the detonation of the world’s first nuclear device in the New Mexico desert, July 16, 1945, severely altered the arkosic sand, producing the fused, glassy material referred to as Trinitite. The study of Trinitite is key to the development of nuclear forensic techniques that can provide crucial information about a nuclear event, such as device composi...

BACKGROUND Beach sand can harbor fecal indicator organisms and pathogens, but enteric illness risk associated with sand contact remains unclear. METHODS In 2007, visitors at 2 recreational marine beaches were asked on the day of their visit about sand contact. Ten to 12 days later, participants answered questions about health symptoms since the visit. F+ coliphage, Enterococcus, Bacteroidales...

Little is known about the forces that determine the assembly of diverse bacterial communities inhabiting drinking water treatment filters and how this affects drinking water quality. Two contrasting ecological theories can help to understand how natural microbial communities assemble; niche theory and neutral theory, where environmental deterministic factors or stochastic factors predominate re...

A serial enrichment culture has been grown in an alkaline Fe(III)-citrate-containing medium from an initial inoculum from a soil layer beneath a chromium ore processing residue (COPR) disposal site where Cr(III) is accumulating from Cr(VI) containing leachate. This culture is dominated by two bacterial genera in the order Clostridiales, Tissierella, and an unnamed Clostridium XI subgroup. This ...

A study was performed to investigate the efficiency of rhizobacteria on solubilization of rock phosphate and their assimilation by wheat plants in quartz sand potted experiments. Two phosphate solubilizing bacteria, P. fluorescens and Serratia sp. were encapsulated in sodium alginate and potato starch beads and selected to investigate the variation on pH values, the enzymatic activity of alkali...

abstract arsenic (as) contamination of soils is a global problem. legumes are often used in remediation of contaminated sites because of their capacity to fix nitrogen. in the present study, the effects of inoculation of bean (by rhizobium leguminosarum bv. phaseoli) on plant uptake and tolerance to arsenic were investigated. an experiment with a factorial arrangement, two levels of inoculation...

A series of column experiments was undertaken to explore the influence of colloid input concentration (2, 1, 0.5, and 0.25 times a reference concentration), colloid size (negatively charged 3.2 and 1.0 microm carboxyl latex), and sand grain size (360, 240, and 150 microm quartz sands) on transport and deposition. A similar mass of stable mono-dispersed colloids was added to each column. For a g...

Remote sensing data can provide valuable information about the surface expression of regional geomorphologic and geological features of arid regions. In the present study, several processing techniques were applied to reveal such in the Qatar Peninsula. Those included preprocessing for radiometric and geometric correction, various enhancement methods, classification, accuracy assessment, contra...

In the search for aqueous habitats on Mars direct proof of (ancient) flowing water is still lacking, although remote sensing has provided indications of young fluvial systems. To demonstrate that such proof can be given, we examined surface marks on recent terrestrial sand grains by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and applied a quantitative three-dimensional analysis that can numerically distingu...