Total mercury in terrestrial systems (air-soil-plant-water) at the mining region of San Joaquín,Queretaro, Mexico     

Sergio Martínez-Trinidad  Gilberto Hernández Silva  Juventino Martínez Reyes  Gregorio Solorio Munguía  Sara Solís Valdez  Martha Elena Ramírez Islas  Rocío García Martínez 《Geofísica Internacional》2013,52(1):43-58

Deficient management of cinnabar mining left the San Joaquín region with high concentrations of mercury in its soils (2.4 – 4164 mg kg^-1). Numerous cinnabar mines have contributed to the dispersion of mercury into agricultural (0.5 –314 mg kg^-1) and forest (0.2 – 69 mg kg^-1) soils. Sediments are a natural means of transportation for mercury, causing its spreading, especially in areas near mine entrances (0.6 – 687 mg kg^-1). The nearness of maize crops to mines favors mercury accumulation in the different plant structures, such as roots, stems, leaves, and grain (0.04 – 8.2 mg kg^-1); these being related to mercury volatilization and accumulation in soils. Mercury vapor present in the settlements could indicate a constant volatilization from lands and soils (22 – 153 ng m^-3). The mercury levels found in the soils, in maize grain, and in the air resulted greater than the standards reported by the Official Mexican Norm (NOM) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Mercury in rainwater is due mainly to the presence of suspended atmospheric particles, later deposited on the surface (1.5 – 339 μg |^-1). Mercury dissolution was found in the drinking water (10 – 170 ng |^-1), with concentrations below those established by the NOM and the WHO. The contamination existing in the San Joaquín region does not reach the levels of the world’s greatest mercury producers: Almaden (Spain) and Idrija (Slovenia). It is, however, like that found in other important second degree world producers such as Guizhou (China). The population of San Joaquín, as well as its surrounding environment, are constantly exposed to mercury contamination, thus making a long term monitoring necessary to determine its effects, especially to people.  相似文献   

MEASURING CHANNEL PLANFORM OF MEANDERING RIVERS     

Robert Andrle 《自然地理学》2013,34(3):270-281

The traditional measure of river-channel sinuosity, P, is shown to vary with scale of measurement, the geometric character of the particular reach, and the starting point of the divider walk. Meander wavelength, L, suffers from non-reproducibility caused by the subjective identification of inflection points, a problem compounded by the irregularity of river meanders. Applicability of the angle measure technique (AMT) to the measurement of meander planform is demonstrated. The AMT considers variations in the complexity of meandering with scale, eliminating the dependence of results on scale of measurement. The AMT also samples the river at random points rather than sequentially, unlike the divider walk used to calculate P, avoiding the dependence of P on the starting position of the divider walk. The AMT also does not require subjective identification of inflection points as wavelength L does. Additionally, the traditional measures P and L are difficult to apply to manifestly underfit rivers. In this study, the AMT is applied to two underfit rivers and measures of meander size and sinuosity are calculated for each set of meanders. [Key words: sinuosity, meanders, wavelength, underfit river, fluvial geomorphology.]  相似文献