• Title/Summary/Keyword: Division of Earth Sciences

Search Result 763, Processing Time 0.026 seconds

Distribution of Heavy Metals in Sediment Cores Collected from the Nakdong River, South Korea

  • Magalie, Ntahokaja;Lee, Jiyeong;Kang, Jihye;Kim, Jeonghoon;Park, Ho-Jin;Bae, Sang Yeol;Jeong, Seok;Kim, Young-Seog;Ryu, Jong-Sik
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
    • /
    • v.42 no.4
    • /
    • pp.412-424
    • /
    • 2021
  • Understanding the distribution of heavy metals in sediment is necessary because labile heavy metals can partition into the water column and bioaccumulate in aquatic organisms. Here we investigated six heavy metals (Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn) in sediment cores using a five-step sequential leaching method to examine the occurrence of heavy metals in the sediment. The results showed that all elements, except Mn, are depleted in the exchangeable and carbonate fractions. However, heavy metal concentrations are much higher in the Fe-Mn oxide and organic matter fractions, especially for Cu, indicating enrichment in the organic matter fraction. Furthermore, contamination parameters (contamination factor and geoaccumulation index) indicate that Mn contamination is high, primarily derived from anthropogenic sources, presenting a potential risk to ecosystems in the Nakdong River.

Review of Remote Sensing Applicability for Monitoring Marine Microplastics (해양 미세플라스틱 모니터링을 위한 원격탐사 적용 가능성 검토)

  • Park, Suhyeon;Kim, Changmin;Jeong, Seongwoo;Jang, Seonggan;Kim, Subeen;Ha, Taejung;Han, Kyung-soo;Yang, Minjune
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
    • /
    • v.38 no.5_3
    • /
    • pp.835-850
    • /
    • 2022
  • Microplastics have arisen as a worldwide environmental concern, becoming ubiquitous in all marine compartments, and various researches on monitoring marine microplastics are being actively conducted worldwide. Recently, application of a remote detection technology that enables large-scale real-time observation to marine plastic monitoring has been conducted overseas. However, in South Korea, there is little information linking remote detection to marine microplastics and some field studies have demonstrated remote detection of medium- and large-sized marine plastics. This study introduces research cases with remote detection of marine plastics in South Korea and overseas, investigates potential feasibility of using the remote detection technology to marine microplastic monitoring, and suggests some future works to monitor marine microplastics with the remote detection.

Interpretation of Paleostress using Geological Structures observed in the Eastern Part of the Ilgwang Fault (일광단층 동편에서 관찰되는 지질구조를 이용한 고응력사 해석)

  • Kim, Taehyung;Jeong, Su-Ho;Lee, Jinhyun;Naik, Sambit Prasanajit;Yang, Wondong;Ji, Do Hyung;Kim, Young-Seog
    • The Journal of Engineering Geology
    • /
    • v.28 no.4
    • /
    • pp.645-660
    • /
    • 2018
  • In the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula, huge fault valleys, including the Yangsan and Ulsan faults, are recognized. These NNE-SSW trending lineaments are called as a whole Yangsan Fault System. However, this fault system is relatively poorly studied except the Yangsan and Ulsan faults. This study deduced the paleostress history based on the mutual cross-cutting relationships between geologic structures developed in the granite body near the Ilgwang fault, which is compared with previous studies. In the study area, four lineaments parallel to the Ilgwang fault are recognized, and three of them show evidences of faulting. In each lineament, both slip-senses of left-lateral and right-lateral are recognized. It indicates that these faults consistently underwent multiple deformations of inversion along the faults. The inferred paleostress directions based on the mutual cross-cutting relationships of the geological structures are as follows: 1) Tensile fractures developed in the late Cretaceous under the ENE-WSW direction of compressive stress, 2) NW-SE trending maximum horizontal principal stress generated conjugate strike-slip faults, and 3) selective reactivations of some structures were derived under the compression by the NE-SW trending principal stress.

Analysis on New Research Opportunities and Strategies for Earth Sciences in the United States (미국 지질과학분야 신규 연구주제 및 전략분석)

  • Kim, Seong-Yong;Ahn, Eun-Young;Bae, Jun-Hee;Lee, Jae-Wook
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
    • /
    • v.49 no.1
    • /
    • pp.43-52
    • /
    • 2016
  • The essential role of the Division of Earth Sciences(EAR) in the Directorate of Geoscience(GEO) of National Science Foundation of America(NSF) is to support basic research aimed at acquiring fundamental knowledge of the Earth system that can be directly applied to the United States' strategic needs. The 2011 Committee on New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences(NROES) of the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) identified specific areas of the basic earth science research scope of the EAR that were poised for rapid progress during the next decade. Quantified by interdisciplinary approaches, the Committee highlighted the following topics relating to the EAR Deep Earth Processes and Surface Earth Processes sections: (1) the early Earth; (2) thermochemical internal dynamics and volatile distribution; (3) faulting and deformation processes; (4) interactions among climate, the Earth surface processes, tectonics, and deep Earth processes; (5) co-evolution of life, environment, and climate; (6) coupled hydrogeomorphic-ecosystem response to natural and anthropogenic change; and (7) interactions of biogeochemical and water cycles in terrestrial environments. We also promote future research challenges such as the critical zone studies. In order to promote more active such a huge future research challenges, additional research support policies are needed.

Calculations of the Single-Scattering Properties of Non-Spherical Ice Crystals: Toward Physically Consistent Cloud Microphysics and Radiation (비구형 빙정의 단일산란 특성 계산: 물리적으로 일관된 구름 미세물리와 복사를 향하여)

  • Um, Junshik;Jang, Seonghyeon;Kim, Jeonggyu;Park, Sungmin;Jung, Heejung;Han, Suji;Lee, Yunseo
    • Atmosphere
    • /
    • v.31 no.1
    • /
    • pp.113-141
    • /
    • 2021
  • The impacts of ice clouds on the energy budget of the Earth and their representation in climate models have been identified as important and unsolved problems. Ice clouds consist almost exclusively of non-spherical ice crystals with various shapes and sizes. To determine the influences of ice clouds on solar and infrared radiation as required for remote sensing retrievals and numerical models, knowledge of scattering and microphysical properties of ice crystals is required. A conventional method for representing the radiative properties of ice clouds in satellite retrieval algorithms and numerical models is to combine measured microphysical properties of ice crystals from field campaigns and pre-calculated single-scattering libraries of different shapes and sizes of ice crystals, which depend heavily on microphysical and scattering properties of ice crystals. However, large discrepancies between theoretical calculations and observations of the radiative properties of ice clouds have been reported. Electron microscopy images of ice crystals grown in laboratories and captured by balloons show varying degrees of complex morphologies in sub-micron (e.g., surface roughness) and super-micron (e.g., inhomogeneous internal and external structures) scales that may cause these discrepancies. In this study, the current idealized models representing morphologies of ice crystals and the corresponding numerical methods (e.g., geometric optics, discrete dipole approximation, T-matrix, etc.) to calculate the single-scattering properties of ice crystals are reviewed. Current problems and difficulties in the calculations of the single-scattering properties of atmospheric ice crystals are addressed in terms of cloud microphysics. Future directions to develop physically consistent ice-crystal models are also discussed.

A Study on the Research Topics and Trends in South Korea: Focusing on Particulate Matter (토픽모델링을 이용한 국내 미세먼지 연구 분류 및 연구동향 분석)

  • Park, Hyemin;Kim, Taeyong;Kwon, Daewoong;Heo, Junyong;Lee, Juyeon;Yang, Minjune
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
    • /
    • v.38 no.5_3
    • /
    • pp.873-885
    • /
    • 2022
  • The particulate matter (PM) has emerged as a hot topic around the world as it has been reported that PM is related to an increase in mortality and prevalence rates. In South Korea, the importance of PM has been recognized since the late 1990s, and various studies on PM have been conducted. This study investigated the PM research topics and trends for papers (D=2,764) published in Research Information Sharing Service (RISS) using topic modeling based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). As a result, a total of 10 topics were identified in the whole papers, and the PM research topics were classified as 'PM reduction (Topic 1)', 'Government policy and management (Topic 2)', 'Characteristics of PM (Topic 3)', 'PM model (Topic 4)', 'Environmental education (Topic 5)', 'Bio (Topic 6)', 'Traffic (Topic 7)', 'Asian dust (Topic 8)', 'Indoor PM (Topic 9)', 'Human risk (Topic 10)'. In particular, the proportion of papers on topics 'Government policy and management (Topic 2)', 'PM model (Topic 4)', 'Environmental education (Topic 5)', and 'Bio (Topic 6)' to the toal number of papers increased over time (linear slope > 0). The results of this study provide the new literature review methodology related to particulate matter and the history and insight.