Annotated record of the detailed examination of Mn deposits from R.R.S. "Discovery" Cruise 2 stations

This report gives a comprehensive general description of the scientific activities of Cruise 2 of R. R. S. 'Discovery'. These were largely geological and geophysical and were part of the British contribution to the International Indian Ocean Expedition. In addition to the thirteen geophysicists and geologists on board, there were five scientists involved in ocean chemistry, temperature measurements and ornithology making continuous observations - their accounts are also included. The report of a geological expediton ashore in the Seychelles is given in section 6.

(Table, page 500) Geochemistry of a pancake-shaped concretion from lake Charlotte, Canada

A pancake-shaped concretion from Ship Harbour Lake, a small freshwater lake in eastern Nova Scotia (now named Lake Charlotte) is part of collection sent to the National Museum of Canada by Mr. R. A. Logan, of the Pan American Airvays. These concretions are of similar to the well-known marine concretions with a composition similar to wad. These are known only from abyssmal depths of the sea in the red clay deposits, while the present concretions occur in very shallow lake waters. They should be of interest to geologists, who may be concerned with the rather difficult problem which some concretions raise of distinguishing between concretions of syngenitic and epigenetic origin.

Improved ore processing assessed by digital image análisis of the ores: a key to the sustainable development of the Iberian Pyrite Belt

Mining in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB), the biggest VMS metallogenetic province known in the world to date, has to face a deep crisis in spite of the huge reserves still known after ≈5 000 years of production. This is due to several factors, as the difficult processing of complex Cu-Pb-Zn-Ag- Au ores, the exhaustion of the oxidation zone orebodies (the richest for gold, in gossan), the scarce demand for sulphuric acid in the world market, and harder environmental regulations. Of these factors, only the first and the last mentioned can be addressed by local ore geologists. A reactivation of mining can therefore only be achieved by an improved and more efficient ore processing, under the constraint of strict environmental controls. Digital image analysis of the ores, coupled to reflected light microscopy, provides a quantified and reliable mineralogical and textural characterization of the ores. The automation of the procedure for the first time furnishes the process engineers with real-time information, to improve the process and to preclude or control pollution; it can be applied to metallurgical tailings as well. This is shown by some examples of the IPB.

Multispectral microscopy and quantitative texture

CAMEVA SYSTEM Automated optical identification of ore minerals in polished samples using multispectral digital images Support for basic ore microscopy / ore identification Geometallurgy: Automated system for quantitative mineralogy applications, more efficient than manual methods and less expensive than SEM systems

Using damage from 2010 Haiti earthquake for vulnerability estimation of typical structures in Port-au-Prince (Haiti).

After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, that hits the city of Port-au-Prince, capital city of Haiti, a multidisciplinary working group of specialists (seismologist, geologists, engineers and architects) from different Spanish Universities and also from Haiti, joined effort under the SISMO-HAITI project (financed by the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid), with an objective: Evaluation of seismic hazard and risk in Haiti and its application to the seismic design, urban planning, emergency and resource management. In this paper, as a first step for a structural damage estimation of future earthquakes in the country, a calibration of damage functions has been carried out by means of a two-stage procedure. After compiling a database with observed damage in the city after the earthquake, the exposure model (building stock) has been classified and through an iteratively two-step calibration process, a specific set of damage functions for the country has been proposed. Additionally, Next Generation Attenuation Models (NGA) and Vs30 models have been analysed to choose the most appropriate for the seismic risk estimation in the city. Finally in a next paper, these functions will be used to estimate a seismic risk scenario for a future earthquake.

Increasing the quality of seismic interpretation

Euan Macrae was funded by a NERC Open CASE PhD award (NE/F013728/1) with Midland Valley Exploration Ltd. as the industry partner. We thank the 763 geoscientists for their participation, and in particular, the reference experts who gave their time freely to the project. Marian Scott (University of Glasgow, UK) is thanked for assisting with the statistical analysis. Four reviewers are thanked for their constructive comments which improved the manuscript.

La roca magica: Uses of natural zeolites in agriculture and industry

For nearly 200 years since their discovery in 1756, geologists considered the zeolite minerals to occur as fairly large crystals in the vugs and cavities of basalts and other traprock formations. Here, they were prized by mineral collectors, but their small abundance and polymineralic nature defied commercial exploitation. As the synthetic zeolite (molecular sieve) business began to take hold in the late 1950s, huge beds of zeolite-rich sediments, formed by the alteration of volcanic ash (glass) in lake and marine waters, were discovered in the western United States and elsewhere in the world. These beds were found to contain as much as 95% of a single zeolite; they were generally flat-lying and easily mined by surface methods. The properties of these low-cost natural materials mimicked those of many of their synthetic counterparts, and considerable effort has made since that time to develop applications for them based on their unique adsorption, cation-exchange, dehydration–rehydration, and catalytic properties. Natural zeolites (i.e., those found in volcanogenic sedimentary rocks) have been and are being used as building stone, as lightweight aggregate and pozzolans in cements and concretes, as filler in paper, in the take-up of Cs and Sr from nuclear waste and fallout, as soil amendments in agronomy and horticulture, in the removal of ammonia from municipal, industrial, and agricultural waste and drinking waters, as energy exchangers in solar refrigerators, as dietary supplements in animal diets, as consumer deodorizers, in pet litters, in taking up ammonia from animal manures, and as ammonia filters in kidney-dialysis units. From their use in construction during Roman times, to their role as hydroponic (zeoponic) substrate for growing plants on space missions, to their recent success in the healing of cuts and wounds, natural zeolites are now considered to be full-fledged mineral commodities, the use of which promise to expand even more in the future.

Airborne minerals and related aerosol particles: Effects on climate and the environment

Aerosol particles are ubiquitous in the troposphere and exert an important influence on global climate and the environment. They affect climate through scattering, transmission, and absorption of radiation as well as by acting as nuclei for cloud formation. A significant fraction of the aerosol particle burden consists of minerals, and most of the remainder— whether natural or anthropogenic—consists of materials that can be studied by the same methods as are used for fine-grained minerals. Our emphasis is on the study and character of the individual particles. Sulfate particles are the main cooling agents among aerosols; we found that in the remote oceanic atmosphere a significant fraction is aggregated with soot, a material that can diminish the cooling effect of sulfate. Our results suggest oxidization of SO2 may have occurred on soot surfaces, implying that even in the remote marine troposphere soot provided nuclei for heterogeneous sulfate formation. Sea salt is the dominant aerosol species (by mass) above the oceans. In addition to being important light scatterers and contributors to cloud condensation nuclei, sea-salt particles also provide large surface areas for heterogeneous atmospheric reactions. Minerals comprise the dominant mass fraction of the atmospheric aerosol burden. As all geologists know, they are a highly heterogeneous mixture. However, among atmospheric scientists they are commonly treated as a fairly uniform group, and one whose interaction with radiation is widely assumed to be unpredictable. Given their abundances, large total surface areas, and reactivities, their role in influencing climate will require increased attention as climate models are refined.

Los microfósiles y la Crisis de Salinidad del Mediterráneo como recurso didáctico en Ciencias de la Tierra

El estudio de las disciplinas científicas resulta más atractivo si se acompaña de actividades de carácter práctico. En este trabajo se propone un taller cuya finalidad es introducir al alumnado en el trabajo científico que realizan los geólogos y paleontólogos a través de la información paleoambiental y bioestratigráfica que proporcionan los microfósiles y su aplicación a la Crisis de Salinidad del Messiniense. Este periodo es considerado como uno de los acontecimientos más relevantes de la historia geológica del Mediterráneo y se caracteriza por una acumulación masiva de evaporitas en el fondo de la cuenca, que se relaciona con la desecación y posterior reinundación del Mediterráneo hace aproximadamente cinco millones de años. El taller consta de tres sesiones: una teórica, de introducción de los contenidos necesarios para el desarrollo de la actividad, para la que se proponen una serie de recursos bibliográficos y audiovisuales de libre acceso en internet; una práctica, de obtención de datos; y una final, de interpretación de los cambios paleoambientales que conlleva la presentación de los resultados en forma de artículo científico y posterior debate en el aula. Todos los datos necesarios para el desarrollo de la actividad se proporcionan en el presente artículo, si bien esta propuesta de taller queda abierta a las posibles modificaciones y mejoras que el profesorado considere oportunas. Para vertebrar esta propuesta, en forma de ejemplo de aplicación, se ha incluido el taller en la programación de la asignatura Biología y Geología (4º ESO). La puesta a punto de este taller pone de manifiesto que resulta idóneo para el trabajo en grupo en el aula permitiendo que el alumnado se sienta partícipe de todas las fases que constituyen una investigación científica.