The heat of high-level nuclear waste may be generated and released from a canister at final disposal sites. The waste heat may affect the engineering properties of waste canisters, buffers, and backfill material in the emplacement tunnel and the host rock. This study addresses the problem of the heat generated from the waste canister and analyzes the heat distribution between the buffer and the...

[1] The development of topography within and erosional removal of material from an orogen exerts a primary control on its structure. We develop a model that describes the temporal development of a frontally accreting, critically growing Coulomb wedge whose topography is largely limited by bedrock fluvial incision. We present general results for arbitrary initial critical wedge geometries and in...

A rapid and precise routine Pb isotope analytical technique for rock samples was developed using multiple collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS). The mass discrimination of the Pb isotope ratios was corrected with the 205Tl/203Tl ratio of a Tl isotope reference material (NIST SRM 997) added to samples. The optimization of the analytical parameters and the minimizatio...

Some writers, speakers, and students have problems with clear usage of stratigraphic terminology, a topic made more acute by the appearance of the complex 1983 North American Stratigraphic Code, its 2005 revision, and new editions of the International Stratigraphic Guide. The basic categories of stratigraphic units are: 1) material; 2) non-material; 3) hybrid. Examples are the well-known rock (...

Biofertilizers have been used as sources to improve plant nutrients in sustainable agriculture. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the potential of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) Bacillus megaterium var. phosphaticum and potassium solubilizing bacteria (KSB) Bacillus mucilaginosus inoculated in nutrient limited soil planted with pepper and cucumber. Results showed that rock P and K a...

A survey of sipunculan fauna associated with coral rocli and rubble along a transect across the coral reef at Carrie Bow Cay, Belize, revealed eight species, six of which inhabited burrows within rock samples and two of which occurred in crevices and crannies. Comprising 95 percent of the collection, the four most abundant species were, in order of abundance: Lithacrosiphon alticonus Ten Broeke...

A dam ant colony optimization (D-ACO) analysis of the overall stability of high arch dams on complicated foundations is presented in this paper. A modified ant colony optimization (ACO) model is proposed for obtaining dam concrete and rock mechanical parameters. A typical dam parameter feedback problem is proposed for nonlinear back-analysis numerical model based on field monitoring deformation...

Recycled glass is a mixture of different coloured glass particles with debris. It is the result of crushing the waste glass collected from residential and industrial areas. Construction and Demolition (C&D) materials such as concrete, excavation stone (basalt) and brick make up a significant proportion of the waste materials present in landfills in Australia. Substituting the quarry produced cr...

BACKGROUND In aerodynamic levitation, solids and liquids are floated in a vertical gas stream. In combination with CO2-laser heating, containerless melting at high temperature of oxides and silicates is possible. We apply aerodynamic levitation to bulk rocks in preparation for microchemical analyses, and for evaporation and reduction experiments. RESULTS Liquid silicate droplets (~2 mm) were ...

The seismic refraction technique provides a simplified characterization of relatively large volumes of the subsurface in 2-dimensional (distance and depth) profiles. Compression wave (p-wave) velocities, the typical measured geologic material parameter, are a function of the moduli of the various unsaturated material masses in the subsurface profile. In saturated media, p-wave velocities are in...