Are the Curative Properties of ‘Black Mud’ from the Dead Sea Due to the Presence of Bitumen (Asphalt) or Other Types of Organic Matter?

Deep black clayey sediments of the Dead Sea, previously covered with water at times of higher sea level, are being mined for therapeutic purposes and for the preparation of cosmetic products under the name Black Mud. It was claimed that the beneficial properties are due to the presence of bitumen (asphalt) as attested by the colour. Less commonly, the curative properties have been ascribed to humic acids or to organic matter derived from algae in the lake. Asphalt from the Dead Sea has been of major economic importance to the region and was used as a medication for 2000 years until the mid-20th century. Geochemical analysis of the Black Mud showed that it contains relatively little organic matter (ca. 0.6–0.8% organic carbon) and that the organic matter is mostly derived from the land masses surrounding the lake. Asphalt was totally absent and the concentration of humic acids very low. The black colour of the mud is rather due to the poorly crystallised iron sulphides. Based on this, the therapeutic properties of the mud are ascribed to its content of reduced sulphur species, its physical and chemical properties and possibly its brine content, but not to the presence of organic matter.     

Geochemical Distribution and Bioavailability of Heavy Metals and Oxalate in Street Sediments from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: A Preliminary Investigation

As urbanisation accelerates within less-economically developed countries, populations in cities such as Rio de Janeiro are subject to numerous health risks relating to “heavy metal”, sewage and vehicle pollution. These risks apply especially to children, through inhalation and dermal contact with pollutant-rich street sediments that reflect contamination from atmospheric deposition and act as effective sinks for heavy metals and oxalates. To assess the nature and extent of these risks street sediments were collected from industrial, commercial, residential and recreational areas with varying traffic densities within Rio de Janeiro. A modified selective extraction procedure was used to study the geochemical partitioning and bioavailability of Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb and C₂O ₄ ⁻ . Oxalate partitioning has not been studied by traditional sequential methods and results from this procedure highlight the potential bioavailability of both oxalates and “heavy metals”, especially Pb and C₂O ₄ ⁻ in industrial and recreational areas.     

成都市河流表层沉积物重金属污染及潜在生态风险评价

根据流经成都市内的三条河流（府河、南河、沙河）表层沉积物重金属数据，采用Hakanson潜在生态危害指数法对重金属的潜在生态风险进行了评价。结果表明（1）重金属潜在的生态危害因子（Er^i）说明大多属于轻微生态危害范畴，产牛生态危害的主要重金属是Hg、Cd，Cu、Pb次之，As影响最小；（2）多种重金属的生态系统的潜在生态风险指数（RI）表明河流重金属污染属于轻微生态危害和接近中等生态危害，其受危害程度由强至弱的次序为：府河，南河，沙河。     

The distribution of heavy metals in deposited urban dusts and sediments, Coventry, England

Samples of urban dusts and sediments have been collected and categorised into three compartment those which act mainly as sources, those undergoing transport and those which have been deposited. The sediments were fractionated into <63m to match similar sized lacustrine sediments and <2mm to represent natural and anthropogenic fluvially transported sediments. Preliminary results of total heavy metals analysis show that the <2mm fraction of the source group exhibits the greatest variabilty in metal concentrations. Overall, however, the <63m fraction dominates regardless of compartment. Some heavy metal concentrations decrease through the sourcetransportdeposit process, possibly due to selective onward transport of finer material or other anthropogenic processes unique to the urban environment (e.g. street cleansing). Sitespecificity is indicated in a comparison with other similar studies.     

Diatomic remains in sediments of Le An River flowing into Po Yang Lake

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Impact of Man’s Activities on a Closed Fishing-Lake,Lake Maryout in Egypt,as a Case Study

Lake Maryout is an important fishing lake lining Alexandria City, Egypt at its southern side. It has no direct connection with the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the landed fish come from its Main Basin (one of the lakes four sub-basins). This basin, area 6000 acres, since the sixties of the last century is suffering from pollution as it receives untreated sewage and industrial effluents from Alexandria City at four hot spots, distributed along the coasts of its eastern half. This has led to a noticeable decline with time in the quantity and quality of the fish catch and to subsequent social and economic problems to the fishermen. In a solution for these problems the government has erected two treatment plants in 1993 to primary treat these waste effluents before discharging into this Main Basin at only two sites. One at a (an old) site lies at its southeast side where one of the plants discharges is indirectly reaching the lake via an agricultural drain while the other plant discharge is directly flowing at a new site lies at the lake northwest side. Obviously the other three old hot spots are completely blocked. Water (on monthly basis) and sediment samples were collected from the Main Basin as well as from the other basins of the lake to study the state of the water quality and level of some priority metal pollutants in addition to organic carbon (org-C) in the sediments of the lake after the erection of the two treatment plants. The results reveal that the water at the (north) eastern side of the Main Basin gets improvement while that in front of the new site at its northwest side becomes polluted and its sediments become enriched with the studied metals (Ag, As, Sb, Cr, Hg, Ni, (Pb), Cd, Zn and Cu). The enrichment was more noticeable for the (spoiled) sediments in front of all the old hot spots in addition to those off the new source. Also, this basin as a whole still shows remarkable high levels of sewage indicating elements including nutrients, organic carbon, fecal coliform, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) simultaneously with noticeable low levels of total dissolved solids and dissolved oxygen relative to the other lake basins. The last basins are in healthy conditions as they only fed with agricultural drainage waters free from the treatment plants effluents. The elevated concentrations particularly for the last six studied metals in the sediments are found to be at levels comparable to their corresponding of the median effect-range of Long and Morgan recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that may have possible effect on bottom fauna and other organisms (including edible fish) live in this polluted basin. This situation makes this important lake basin as a dangerous source for health-hazard fish. Suggested solutions are presented here for rehabilitation of the lake and its sediments. The most accepted ones by the government include diversion of the sources simultaneously with dredging of the spoiled sediments and advanced treatments of the effluents to reuse them for irrigation of reclaimed neighboring desert lands.     

Effects of nature organic matters and hydrated metal oxides on the anaerobic degradation of lindane, p, p '-DDT and HCB in sediments

Effects of natural organic matters(NOM) and hydrated metal oxides(HMO) in sediments on the anaerobic degradation of γ-666,p, p‘-DDT and HCB were investigated by means of removing NOM and HMO in Liaohe River sediments sequentially. The results showed that the anaerobic degradation of γ-666, p, p‘ -DDT and HCB followed pseudo-first-order kinetics in different sediments. But, the extents and rates of degradation were different, even the other conditions remained the same. Anaerobic degradation rates of γ-666, p, p ‘-DDT and HCB were 0.020 d^-1, 0.009 d^-1 and 0.035 month^-1 respectively for the sediments without additional carbon resources. However, with addition ofcarbon resources, the anaerobic degradation rates of γ-666, p, p‘-DDT and HCB were 0.071 d^1, 0.054 d^-1 and 0.088 month^-1 in the original sediments respectively. After removing NOM, the rates were decreased to 0.047 d^-, 0.037 d^-1 and 0.066 month^-1 ; in thesediments removed NOM and HMO, the rates were increased to 0.067 d^-1 , 0.059 d^-1 and 0.086 month^-1 . These results indicated that NOMin the sediments accelerated the anaerobic degradation of γ-666, p, p‘-DDT and HCB ; the HMO inhibited the anaerobic degradation of γ-666,p, p ‘-DDT and HCB.     

Topics of water sciences and technology

In the preceding series of contributions to ESPR typical examples from actual fields of water chemistry were presented on various topics: integrated water quality management, diagnosis of water bodies, therapy of aquatic systems, and fitness for aquatic systems. These contributions clearly showed the need and importance of more intensive research. In the principle committee III 'Basic Research' of the Water Chemical Society, various expert groups work on scientific backgrounds in these fields. Some relevant topics are selected in this outlook, mainly on interactions of solids with water, the role of environmental colloids, the development of modern biochemical methods for diagnosis, the impact of chemical speciation on bioavailability and water technology, and the development of advanced methods in water treatment technology. Innovative approaches to understand the interactions between pollutants, water and solids are crucial for assessment of contaminants with biochemical and analytical methods, for the development of new efficient technologies and for application of treatment methods with little or no waste and by-product formation.     

自然粒度下渤海沉积物中有机碳的地球化学特征

对渤海三个典型海域6个站位柱状沉积物自然粒度下的有机碳（OC）进行了研究，探讨了有机碳的垂直分布特征及其氧化还原环境（Eh^0,Es^0,Fe^3 /Fe^2 比值）因素对渤海沉积物中有机碳的影响，渤海自然粒度沉积物中的有机碳含量在0.39-0.86%之间，一般在表层-次表层含量变化较剧烈，在下层变化较缓，相关分析说明，在中层，一般沉积物的还原性相比表层有增强，氧化环境与还原环境共存，有机质被氧化，OC浓度变得趋于减小，Fe^3 /Fe^2 也趋于减小，二者有明显的正相关；在下层，还原环境占据了主导地位，导致大量OC不能被氧化，就被保存了下来，而Fe^3 /Fe^2 却明显减小，所以在下层OC-Fe^3 /Fe^2 呈较强的负相关；在表层又掺杂了生物化学与物理扰动等因素，使OC-Fe^3 /Fe^2 的相关性变得复杂，且不规律，表层-次表层OC主要取决于物质来源和物理搅动，变化较复杂；中，下层主要受氧化还原环境影响，矿化作用明显，有机碳含量逐渐降低；下层除C3区和A区外，有机碳含量也逐步降低。有机碳含量不同层次受不同的物质来源，沉积环境，氧化还原进程与不同的生物化学过程共同影响，从C区的断面分布看，表层-次表层呈垂直叠层分布，主要是逐步垂直沉降沉积的结果。25cm以下呈水平推进式梯度分布，可能由于特殊的沉积事件如大洪水冲刷沉积而致。     

河口潮滩沉积物对氨氮的等温吸附特性

以长江河口滨岸潮滩为研究对象 ,运用模拟实验的方法 ,研究了潮滩沉积物对氨氮的等温吸附特征 .结果表明 ,在模拟实验上覆水中氨氮的浓度 ( <1 40 μg·ml- 1 )范围内 ,沉积物对氨氮的吸附呈线性特征 .长江河口潮滩沉积物对氨氮的吸附系数在 3 81— 9 0 0之间 ,且与沉积物中有机碳 (TOC)的含量有良好的相关关系 (相关系数r =0 779,α =0 0 5 /) ,揭示了有机质控制着长江河口潮滩沉积物中氨氮的吸附行为 .模拟实验结果还发现 ,在淡水控制区域内 ,潮滩沉积物中固定态氨氮的含量处在 1 6 68— 33 73μg·g- 1 (dw)之间 ,而在海水所控制的潮滩沉积物中固定态氨氮的含量在 0 5 7— 6 36μg·g- 1 (dw)之间 ,这可能反映了研究区域内潮滩沉积物中固定态氨氮的含量主要受盐度控制