Competitiveness and prospects for the African mining industry

Since the 1960s the Kédia mines have been the main source of iron ore for Mauritania. In the 1970s SN1M, the Mauritanian state enterprise responsible for the mining of the country's iron ore, concerned about the eventual depletion of its reserves at Kédia, and at the urging of its European customers, undertook to develop new iron-ore deposits at the Guelbs. The deposits at the Guelbs, however, were low-grade magnetite ore as opposed to the high-grade hematite ore at Kedia, and were much more costly to mine and process. The cost of the Guelbs project and its failure to meet production targets have strained the resources of SNIM to a financial and technical breaking point. The paper suggests that one solution to SNIM's difficulty may be to mothball the Guelbs project and to develop instead other deposits in the vicinity of the Guelbs.     

Desorption of chlorinated hydrocarbons from spiked and anthropogenically contaminated sediments

The desorption of 20 chlorinated organics from sediments has been studied using a nitrogen purge/Tenax trap system for separating the “dissolved” and “sorbed” fractions in sediment/water slurries. The desorption partition coefficient, K_D, was found to decrease with increasing temperature and suspended sediment concentration. While some differences in K_D and desorption rates were observed for the study chemicals, considering their wide range of physical/chemical properties such as K_OW, these changes were small. Desorption half-lives averaged about 60d at 4°C, 40d at 20°C and 10d at 40°C under continuous gaseous purging. Estimates of the loadings of chemicals via desorption from bottom sediments in Lake Ontario are compared to loadings of these chemicals to the lake from the Niagara River.     

Managing inland water for leisure and recreation — an example from Southern England

Summary The private enterprise development of a series of disused gravel pits, situated just 20 miles from the centre of London, into an attractive and commercially viable theme park for leisure and recreation is described.

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Application of KCl-denuder for measuring gas-phase mercuric species(Hg~(2+))in atmosphere

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Behavior of PAHs during cold storage of historically contaminated soil samples

The stability of historically polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-contaminated soils during cold storage was investigated. Samples from two former manufactured gas plants exhibited quantitative recoveries of PAHs over the whole period of sample holding at 4 °C in the dark (8–10 months), whereas significant losses of PAHs were observed for soils received from a former railroad sleeper preservation plant with low molecular weight compounds being notably more affected compared to heavier PAHs. Already after 2 weeks of holding time, 3-ring PAHs in one of theses samples were down to 29–73% of the initial concentration and significant losses were observed for up to 5-ring compounds. Dissipation of PAHs was found to be predominantly due to aerobic microbial metabolism since sodium azide poisoned samples showed quantitative recoveries for all PAHs over the entire storage time of 3 months. A similar stabilizing effect was observed for freezing at −20 °C as means of preservation. Except for acenaphthene, no significant loss for any of the PAHs was observed over 6 weeks of holding time. Eventually, selected chemical, physical, and biological parameters of two soils were investigated and identified as potential indicators for the stability of PAH-contaminated soil samples.     

Umweltrelevanz von Diphenylamin — Ein Stoff der 3. EU-Altstoffpriorit?tenliste

Zusammenfassung  Diphenylamin (DPA), das einfachste, rein aromatische sekund?re Amin, ist ein Stoff der dritten Altstoffpriorit?tenliste priorit?tenliste der Europ?ischen Union (EU). Es wurde der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zugewiesen, die von diesem Stoff ausgehenden Umweltrisiken zu erfassen und zu bewerten. DPA wird als Stabilisator in Nitrocellulose-haltigen Explosivstoffen und Treibladungspulvern eingeserzt, au?erdem als Stabilisator in der Parfümerie und als Antioxidationsmittel in der Gummi- und Elastomer-Industrie. DPA wird auch vielfach genutzt, um ?pfel und Birnen nach der Ernte vor vorzeitigem Altern bzw. Verfall zu bewahren. Ferner ist es Ausgangsverbindung zahlreicher Derivate, welche u.a. in der Produktion von Farben, Pharmazeutika und Fotografiechemikalien Anwendung finden. Anfang der 80er Jahre wurden weltweit sch?tzungsweise ca. 40.000 t DPA pro Jahr produziert (in Deutschland ca. 10% davon). Die Chemikalie wird noch heute weltweit von der chemischen Industrie hergestellt. Neuere Publikationen zeigen, da? DPA bereits im Boden und im Grundwasser (in ppb- bis ppm-Konzentrationen) nachgewiesen werden konnte. Einige ?kotoxikologische Ver?ffentlichungen demonstrierten die Gef?hrlichkeit verschiedener DPA-Derivate gegenüber der aquatischen Umwelt und auch gegenüber Bakterien und Tieren. Studien bezüglich der biologischen Abbaubarkeit von DPA und Derivaten sind sehr sp?rlich vorhanden. Aus diesem Grund sind weiterführende Forschungsarbeiten notwendig, um das volle Ausma\ der Umweltgef?hrdung für mit DPA und DPA-Derivaten kontaminierte Bereiche zu bestimmen, und um entsprechende (biologische) Sanierungsverfahren einzuleiten. Dieser übersichtsbeitrag fa\t die zug?ngliche Literatur zusammen, welche die Umweltrelevanz von DPA aufzeigt. Er kann m?glicherweise die deutschen Beh?rden bzw. Gutachter bei der Bewertung von Risiken dieses Altstoffes der EU-Priorit?tenliste unterstützen.      

Air-mediated pollen flow from genetically modified to conventional crops.

Tools for estimating pollen dispersal and the resulting gene flow are necessary to assess the risk of gene flow from genetically modified (GM) to conventional fields, and to quantify the effectiveness of measures that may prevent such gene flow. A mechanistic simulation model is presented and used to simulate pollen dispersal by wind in different agricultural scenarios over realistic pollination periods. The relative importance of landscape-related variables such as isolation distance, topography, spatial configuration of the fields, GM field size and barrier, and environmental variation are examined in order to find ways to minimize gene flow and to detect possible risk factors. The simulations demonstrated a large variation in pollen dispersal and in the predicted amount of contamination between different pollination periods. This was largely due to variation in vertical wind. As this variation in wind conditions is difficult to control through management measures, it should be carefully considered when estimating the risk of gene flow from GM crops. On average, the predicted level of gene flow decreased with increasing isolation distance and with increasing depth of the conventional field, and increased with increasing GM field size. Therefore, at a national scale and over the long term these landscape properties should be accounted for when setting regulations for controlling gene flow. However, at the level of an individual field the level of gene flow may be dominated by uncontrollable variation. Due to the sensitivity of pollen dispersal to the wind, we conclude that gene flow cannot be summarized only by the mean contamination; information about the frequency of extreme events should also be considered. The modeling approach described in this paper offers a way to predict and compare pollen dispersal and gene flow in varying environmental conditions, and to assess the effectiveness of different management measures.