Pilot plant studies were carried out to evaluate the feasibility of remediation of coal tarcontaminated soil and oil-contaminated gravel by incineration with environmentally acceptable performance. In addition to adequate decontamination and emission control, effort was devoted to treating the special feedstocks with difficult handling properties by use of conventional combustion and feeding sy...

Conventional visual evaluation techniques (i.e., microscopy) of geomaterials are limited to the inspection of two dimensional surfaces, leaving internal three-dimensional characteristics ambiguous or resulting in costly slice-by-slice assembly to generate three-dimensional representations. Improved X-ray–computed tomography (X-ray CT) technology now allows a sample to be analyzed nondestructive...

Distinct surface patterns are ubiquitous and diverse in soils of polar and alpine regions, where the ground temperature oscillates about 0 degrees C. They constitute some of the most striking examples of clearly visible, abiotic self-organization in nature. This paper outlines the interplay of frost-related physical processes that produce these patterns spontaneously and presents unique data do...

Suffusion erosion may occur in sandy gravel dam foundations that use suspended cutoff walls. This erosion causes a loss of fine particles, degrades the soil strength and deformation moduli, and adversely impacts the cutoff walls of the dam foundation, as well as the overlying dam body. A comprehensive evaluation of these effects requires models that quantitatively describe the effects of fine p...

Soil-water characteristic curves were determined for Krome calcareous very gravelly loam soil in the laboratory and in situ in an orchard. In the laboratory, soil-water retention was determined with a pressure plate and pressure Tempe cells for soil collected from vegetable fields. In the orchard, soil-water suction measured with tensiometers was compared to volumetric soil-water content (E) de...

North American prairie vegetation has been a role model for designing highly attractive plantings for German urban green spaces for the past decade. In combination with gravel mulch top layers on planting sites and non-selective maintenance techniques like mowing or burning, prairie plantings are considered to be cost-effective and low-maintenance. This study was undertaken to assess the impact...

This paper presents the results of laboratory experiments that investigate the removal of volatile organic compounds from saturated soils through the use of air sparging. Three series of experiments were performed in a column test apparatus using two different soils to represent actual field conditions, namely, a fine gravel and a medium to fine Ottawa sand (both obtained from sources near Chic...

The use of gravels as syntectonic indicators of thrusting has recently been questioned by foreland-basin models that assign gravels to a post-thrusting interval of progradation, except in very proximal areas. On the basis of precise temporal control provided by magnetostratigraphically dated sections, the history of gravel progradation after a major thrusting and uplift event in the northwester...