HG 198.20-198.35 Thin Section

Coarse grained brown sediment with angular-sub-angular grains. Contains mainly medium sized clasts with a few smaller aggregates. A dark organic rich domain can be seen within this sample. Grain crushing (edge-to-edge and into one another) can be seen alongside with grain stacks, and silt caps.

HG 206.85-206.95 Thin Section

Coarse grained sample with sub-angular to sub-rounded clasts. Clasts range from small to medium sized. Major grain crushing seen throughout the sample. Grain stacking and lineations are also present. A dark organic rich domain can be seen within the sample.

HG 226.50-226.60 Thin Section

Dark brown sediment with manly small sized clasts. Some medium and large clasts also present. Clasts range from sub-angular to sub-rounded. Lineations can be seen throughout the sample. Minor patches of clay/organic rich domains can also be seen as well as minor grain stacking.

HG 244.40-244.50-A Thin Section

Dark brown sediment with sub-angular to sub-rounded clasts. Rotation structures and lineations are common. Clasts ranging from small to large in size. Many large grains are fractured. Minor amounts of grain stacking and crushing can be seen. A few clay and organic rich domains can be seen.

251.8-251.9 D.E #5

Sample contains well dispersed clasts ranging from small to medium in size. They are sub-angular to sub-rounded in shape. Organic rich domains can be seen throughout the sample with clear boundaries. It also contains water escape structures, seen mainly through clay. Lineations are also present.

HG 257.55-257.75 Thin Section

Dark brown sediment with clasts that range from small to large. The clast shape ranges from sub-angular to sub-rounded. Lineations are abundant in this sample. Edge-to-edge grain crushing can also be seen. Darker organic rich domains are also present throughout the sample.

HG 297.25-297.35a Thin Section

Brown sediment with well dispersed clasts. Clasts range from small to medium in size and sub-angular to sub-rounded in shape. Alternating domains can be seen (light and dark). Darker domains appear organic rich. Lineations can also be seen throughout the sample.

WTS-5-KO

Brown sediment with clasts ranging from small to medium in size. Clast shape ranges from angular to sub-rounded. Lineations are the most common micro-structure in this sample. Grain crushing/stacking can also be observed in multiple areas of the sample. There are also a few darker organic rich areas present. Comet structures are present in minor amounts.

AI-2

Brown sediment with clasts ranging from small to large in size. Clast shape ranged from angular to rounded. Lineations and rotation structures can be seen throughout the sample. Rotation structures are common around medium and large sized clasts. Some comet structures , grain stacking, and crushed grains can also be seen in minor amounts. This sample also contains areas with clay and dark organic rich material.

AI-5

Brown sediment with clasts ranging from small to large in size. Grain shape ranges from angular to rounded. Edge-to-edge grain crushing and crushed grains are abundant throughout the sample. There are also many lineations and rotation structures present in this sample. It also contains many small patches of dark organic rich material.

Mo02

Dark brown sediment with patches of darker organic rich material throughout. Clasts range from small to medium in size and sub-angular to rounded in shape. Lineations and grain stacking appear to be abundant throughout the sample. Minor amounts of edge-to-edge grain crushing and crushed grains are also apparent. Rotation structures and comet structures can also be seen in certain parts of the sample.

Influence of time on the plant availability of Cd, Ni and Zn after sewage sludge has been applied to soils

A pot experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that decomposition of organic matter in sewage sludge and the consequent formation of dissolved organic compounds (DOC) would lead to an increase in the bioavailability of the heavy metals. Two Brown Earth soils, one with clayey loam texture (CL) and the other a loamy sand (LS) were mixed with sewage sludge at rates equivalent to 0, 10 and 50 1 dry sludge ha(-1) and the pots were sown with ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.). The organic matter content and heavy metal availability assessed with soil extractions with 0.05 M CaCl2 were monitored over a residual time of two years, while plant uptake over one year, after addition of the sludge. It was found that the concentrations of Cd and Ni in both the ryegrass and the soil extracts increased slightly but significantly during the first year. In most cases, this increase was most evident especially at the higher sludge application rate (50 t ha(-1)). However, in the second year metal availability reached a plateau. Zinc concentrations in the ryegrass did not show an increase but the CaCl2 extracts increased during the first year. In contrast, organic matter content decreased rapidly in the first months of the first year and much more slowly in the second (total decrease of 16%). The concentrations of DOC increased significantly in the more organic rich CL soil in the course of two years. The pattern followed by the decomposition of organic matter with time and the production of DOC may provide at least a partial explanation for trend towards increased metal availability.

Joined-up archaeology at Old Scatness, Shetland: thin section analysis of the site and hinterland

Excavations on the multi-period settlement at Old Scatness, Shetland have uncovered a number of Iron Age structures with compacted, floor-like layers. Thin section analysis was undertaken in order to investigate and compare the characteristics of these layers. The investigation also draws on earlier analyses of the Iron Age agricultural soil around the settlement and the midden deposits that accumulated within the settlement, to create a 'joined-up' analysis which considers the way material from the settlement was used and then recycled as fertiliser for the fields. Peat was collected from the nearby uplands and was used for fuel and possibly also for flooring. It is suggested that organic-rich floors from the structures were periodically removed and the material was spread onto the fields as fertilisers. More organic-rich material may have been used selectively for fertiliser, while the less organic peat ash was allowed to accumulate in middens. Several of the structures may have functioned as byres, which suggests a prehistoric plaggen system.

Weathering microenvironments on feldspar surfaces: implications for understanding fluid-mineral reactions in soils

The mechanisms by which coatings develop on weathered grain surfaces, and their potential impact on rates of fluid-mineral interaction, have been investigated by examining feldspars from a 1.1 ky old soil in the Glen Feshie chronosequence, Scottish highlands. Using the focused ion beam technique, electron-transparent, foils for characterization by transmission electron microscopy were cut from selected parts of grain surfaces. Some parts were bare whereas others had accumulations, a few micrometres thick, of Weathering products, often mixed with mineral and microbial debris. Feldspar exposed at bare grain surfaces is crystalline throughout and so there is no evidence for the presence of the amorphous 'leached layers' that typically form in acid-dissolution experiments and have been described from some natural Weathering contexts. The weathering products comprise sub-mu m thick crystallites of an Fe-K aluminosilicate, probably smectite, that have grown within an amorphous and probably organic-rich matrix. There is also evidence for crystallization of clays having been mediated by fungal hyphae. Coatings formed within Glen Feshie soils after similar to 1.1 ky are insufficiently continuous or impermeable to slow rates Of fluid-feldspar reactions, but provide valuable insights into the complex Weathering microenvironments oil debris and microbe-covered mineral surfaces.

Bridging the Faraoni and Selli oceanic anoxic events: late Hauterivian to early Aptian dysaerobic to anaerobic phases in the Tethys.

A detailed geochemical analysis was performed on the upper part of the Maiolica Formation in the Breggia (southern Switzerland) and Capriolo sections (northern Italy). The analysed sediments consist of well-bedded, partly siliceous, pelagic carbonate, which lodges numerous thin, dark and organic-rich layers. Stable-isotope, phosphorus, organic-carbon and a suite of redox-sensitive trace-element contents (RSTE: Mo, U, Co, V and As) were measured. The RSTE pattern and Corg:Ptot ratios indicate that most organic-rich layers were deposited under dysaerobic rather than anaerobic conditions and that latter conditions were likely restricted to short intervals in the latest Hauterivian, the early Barremian and the pre-Selli early Aptian. Correlations are both possible with organic-rich intervals in central Italy (the Gorgo a Cerbara section) and the Boreal Lower Saxony Basin, as well as with the facies and drowning pattern in the Helvetic segment of the northern Tethyan carbonate platform. Our data and correlations suggest that the latest Hauterivian witnessed the progressive installation of dysaerobic conditions in the Tethys, which went along with the onset in sediment condensation, phosphogenesis and platform drowning on the northern Tethyan margin, and which culminated in the Faraoni anoxic episode. This episode is followed by further episodes of dysaerobic conditions in the Tethys and the Lower Saxony Basin, which became more frequent and progressively stronger in the late early Barremian. Platform drowning persisted and did not halt before the latest early Barremian. The late Barremian witnessed diminishing frequencies and intensities in dysaerobic conditions, which went along with the progressive installation of the Urgonian carbonate platform. Near the Barremian-Aptian boundary, the increasing density in dysaerobic episodes in the Tethyan and Lower Saxony Basins is paralleled by a change towards heterozoan carbonate production on the northern Tethyan shelf. The following return to more oxygenated conditions is correlated with the second phase of Urgonian platform growth and the period immediately preceding and corresponding to the Selli anoxic episode is characterised by renewed platform drowning and the change to heterozoan carbonate production. Changes towards more humid climate conditions were the likely cause for the repetitive installation of dys- to anaerobic conditions in the Tethyan and Boreal basins and the accompanying changes in the evolution of the carbonate platform towards heterozoan carbonate-producing ecosystems and platform drowning.