• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.483-494
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• 2021

This study was carried out to investigate the feasibility of reducing clean cover soil using a flooded column test in arsenic-contaminated farmland reclamation of abandoned coal mine area that shows generally low or about worrisome level (25 mg/kg) of Korea soil environment conservation act unlike abandoned metal mine. During the monitoring period of soil solution for 4 months, chemical properties (pH, EC, ORP, Fe, Mn, Ca, and As) in each layer (clean soil cover and contaminated/stabilized soil) showed different variation. This result revealed that soil solution in stabilized or contaminated soil rarely affected that in cover soil. Whether stabilized or not, arsenic concentrations in the rice roots grown in the soil covers with the thickness of 40 cm decreased by 98% in compared with the that grown in the control soil. In case of the soil covers with 20 cm thickness on stabilized soil, it decreased by 80% and this was 22 percentage point higher than when the soil of lower layer was not stabilized. Thus, reducing clean cover soil could be possible in contaminated farmland soil reclamation if appropriate stabilization of contaminated soil is carried.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.199-212
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• 2021

The Sebyeonggwan Hall (National Treasure No. 305) is located on the Naval Headquarter of Three Provinces in Tongyeong, and it has partly undergone with several rebuilding, remodeling, repairing and restorations since it's the first establishment in Joseon Dynasty (AD 1605) of ancient Korea. This study focuses on 50 foundation stones that comprise the Sebyeonggwan. These stones are made of six rock types and currently have various shapes of the surface damages. As the foundation stones, the dominant rock type was dacitic lapilli tuffs, and provenance-based interpretation was performed to supply alternative stones for conservation. Most of the provenance rocks for foundation stones showed highly homogeneity with their corresponding stones of petrography, mineralogy and magnetic susceptibility. According to surface deterioration assessments, the most serious damages of the stones were blistering and scaling. The deterioration mechanism was identified through the analysis of inorganic contaminants, and the primary reason is considered salt weathering caused by sea breeze and other combined circumstances. Based on the mechanical durability of the stones, there was no foundation stone that required the replacement of its members attributed to the degradation of the rock properties, but conservation treatment is considered necessary to delay superficial damage. The foundation stones are characterized by a combined outcome of multiple petrological factors that caused physical damage to surfaces and internal defects. Therefore, it's required to diagnosis and monitoring the Sebyeonggwan regularly for long-term preservation.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.421-428
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• 2022

This study analyzes emerging earthquake and space use technologies from the latest Korean and Japanese scientific and technological foresights in 2022 and 2019, respectively. Unlike the earthquake prediction and early warning technologies presented in the 2017 study, the emerging earthquake technologies in 2022 in Korea was described as an earthquake/complex disaster information technology and public data platform. Many detailed future technologies were presented in Japan's 2019 survey, which includes largescale earthquake prediction, induced earthquake, national liquefaction risk, wide-scale stress measurement; and monitoring by Internet of Things (IoT) or artificial intelligence (AI) observation & analysis. The latest emerging space use technology in Korea and Japan were presented in more detail as robotic mining technology for water/ice, Helium-3, and rare earth metals, and manned station technology that utilizes local resources on the moon and Mars. The technological realization year forecasting in 2019 was delayed by 4-10 years from the prediction in 2015, which could be greater due to the Corona 19 epidemic, the declaration of carbon neutrality in Korea and Japan in 2020 and the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022. However, it is required to more active research on earthquake and space technologies linked to information technology.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.717-726
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• 2022

This study was conducted to assess the geochemical contamination degree of As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Sb, and Zn in the soil and water samples from an abandoned gold mine. Enrichment Factor (EF), Geoaccumulation Index (Igeo), and Pollution Load Index (PLI) were carried out to assess the geochemical contamination degree of the soil samples. Variations of sulfate and heavy metals concentration in water samples were determined to identify the geochemical distribution with respect to the distance from the mine tailing dam. Geochemical pollution indices indicated significant contaminated with As, Cd, Pb, and Zn in the soil samples that areas close to the mine tailing dam, while, Sb showed similar indices in all soil samples. These results indicated that the As, Cd, Pb, and Zn dispersion has occurred via anthropogenic sources, such as mining activities. In terms of water samples, anomalies in the concentrations of As, Cd, Zn, and SO₄^2- was determined at specific area, in addition, the concentrations of the elements gradually decreased with distance. This result implies the heavy metals distribution in water has carried out by the weathering of sulfide minerals in the mine tailing and soil. The study area has been conducted the remediation of contaminated soil in the past, however, the geochemical dispersion of heavy metals was supposed to be occurred from the potential contamination source. Therefore, continuous monitoring of the soil and water is necessary after the completion of remediation.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.271-280
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• 2024

This study examines the European Union (EU)'s policies on managing nitrate contamination in groundwater and provides implications for the future groundwater management in South Korea. Initiated by the 1991 Nitrate Directive, the EU has pursued a multifaceted approach to reduce agricultural nitrate pollution through sustainable ('good') farming practices, regular nitrate level monitoring, and designating Nitrate Vulnerable Zones. Further policy integrations, like the Water Framework Directive and Groundwater Directive, have established comprehensive protection strategies, including the use of pollutant threshold values. Recently, the 2019 Green Deal escalated efforts against nitrates, aligning with broader environmental and climate objectives. This review aims to explore these developments, highlighting key mitigation strategies against nitrate pollution, and providing valuable insights for the future sustainable groundwater nitrate management in South Korea, emphasizing the importance of preventive measures and collaborative efforts to restore and improve groundwater quality.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.51-71
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• 2024

Seismic exploration is one of the widely used geophysical exploration methods with various applications such as resource development, geotechnical investigation, and subsurface monitoring. It is essential for interpreting the geological characteristics of subsurface by providing accurate images of stratum structures. Typically, geological features are interpreted by visually analyzing seismic sections. However, recently, quantitative analysis of seismic data has been extensively researched to accurately extract and interpret target geological features. Seismic attribute analysis can provide quantitative information for geological interpretation based on seismic data. Therefore, it is widely used in various fields, including the analysis of oil and gas reservoirs, investigation of fault and fracture, and assessment of shallow gas distributions. However, seismic attribute analysis is sensitive to noise within the seismic data, thus additional noise attenuation is required to enhance the accuracy of the seismic attribute analysis. In this study, four kinds of seismic noise attenuation methods are applied and compared to mitigate random noise of poststack seismic data and enhance the attribute analysis results. FX deconvolution, DSMF, Noise2Noise, and DnCNN are applied to the Youngil Bay high-resolution seismic data to remove seismic random noise. Energy, sweetness, and similarity attributes are calculated from noise-removed seismic data. Subsequently, the characteristics of each noise attenuation method, noise removal results, and seismic attribute analysis results are qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Based on the advantages and disadvantages of each noise attenuation method and the characteristics of each seismic attribute analysis, we propose a suitable noise attenuation method to improve the result of seismic attribute analysis.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.353-362
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• 2024

This study examined the spectral characteristics of sediments according to moisture content using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based hyperspectral sensor and evaluated the efficiency of moisture content detection at different flight altitudes. For this purpose, hyperspectral images in the 400-1000nm wavelength range were acquired and analyzed at altitudes of 40m and 80m for sediment samples with various moisture contents. The reflectance of the sediments generally showed a decreasing trend as the moisture content increased. Correlation analysis between moisture content and reflectance showed a strong negative correlation (r < -0.8) across the entire 400-900nm range. The moisture content detection model constructed using the Random Forest technique showed detection accuracies of RMSE 2.6%, R² 0.92 at 40m altitude and RMSE 2.2%, R² 0.95 at 80m altitude, confirming that the difference in accuracy between altitudes was minimal. Variable importance analysis revealed that the 600-700nm band played a crucial role in moisture content detection. This study is expected to be utilized in efficient sediment moisture management and natural disaster prediction in the field of environmental monitoring in the future.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.399-408
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• 2021

Natural soil was artificially contaminated with heavy metals (Cd, Pb, and Zn), and the movement of earthworm was characterized in real time using the ViSSET system composed of vibration sensor and the other components. The manifestation mechanism of ecological toxicity of heavy metals was interpreted based on the accumulative frequency of earthworm movement obtained from the real-time monitoring as well as the conventional indices of earthworm behavior, such as the change in body weight before and after tests and biocumulative concentrations of each contaminant. The results showed the difference in the earthworm movement according to the species of heavy metal contaminants. In the case of Cd, the earthworm movement was decreased with increasing its concentration and then tended to be increased. The activity of earthworm was severely increased with increasing Pb concentration, but the movement of earthworm was gradually decreased with increasing Zn concentration. The body weight of earthworm was proved to be greatly decreased in the Zn-contaminated soil, but it was similarly decreased in Cd- and Pb-contaminated soils. The bioaccumulation factor (BAF) was higher in the sequence of Cd > Zn > Pb, and particularly the biocumulative concentration of Pb did not show a clear tendency according to the Pb concentrations in soil. It was speculated that Cd is accumulated as a metallothionein-bound form in the interior of earthworm for a long time. In particular, Cd has a bad influence on the earthworm through the critical effect at its higher concentrations. Pb was likely to reveal its ecotoxicity via skin irritation or injury of sensory organs rather than ingestion pathway. The ecotoxicity of Zn seemed to be manifested by damaging the cell membranes of digestive organs or inordinately activating metabolism. Based on the results of real-time monitoring of earthworm movement, the half maximal effective concentration (EC50) of Pb was estimated to be 751.2 mg/kg, and it was similar to previously-reported ones. The study confirmed that if the conventional indices of earthworm behavior are combined with the results of newly-proposed method, the mechanism of toxicity manifestation of heavy metal contaminants in soils is more clearly interpreted.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.589-601
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• 2023

We compare high-resolution seabed bathymetry data and seafloor backscattering data acquired, using multi-beam, between 2018 and 2021 to understand topographic changes in the coastal area of Dokdo. The study area, conducted within a 500 m × 500 m in the southern coast between the islands where Dongdo Port is located, has been greatly affected by human activities, waves and ocean currents. The depth variations exhibit between 5 - 70 m. Irregular underwater rocks are distributed in areas with a depth of 20 m or less and 30 - 40 m. As a whole, water depth ranges similar in the east-west direction and become flatter and deeper. The bathymetry contour in 2020 tends to move south as a whole compared to 2018 and 2019. The south moving of the contours in the survey area indicates that the water depth is shallower than before. Since the area where the change in the depth occurred is mainly formed of sedimentary layers, the change in the coast of Dokdo were mainly caused by the inflow of sediments, due to the influence of wind and waves caused by these typhoons (Maysak and Haishen) in 2020. In the Talus area, which developed on the shallow coast between Dongdo and Seodo, the bathymetry changed in 2020 due to erosion or sedimentation, compared to the bathymetry in 2019 and 2018. It is inferred that the changes in the seabed environment occur as the coastal area is directly affected by the typhoons. Due to the influence of the typhoons with strong southerly winds, there was a large amount of sediment inflow, and the overall tendency of the changes was to be deposited. The contours in 2021 appears to have shifted mainly northward, compared to 2020, meaning the area has eroded more than 2020. In 2020, sediments were mainly moved northward and deposited on the coast of Dokdo by the successive typhoons. On the contrary, the coast of Dokdo was eroded as these sediments moved south again in 2021. Dokdo has been largely affected by the north wind in winter, so sediments mainly move southward. But it is understood that sediments move northward when affected by strong typhoons. Such continuous coastal change monitoring and analysis results will be used as important data for longterm conservation policies in relation to topographical changes in Dokdo.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.12-22
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• 2001

Purpose: The ictal perfusion patterns of cerebellum and basal ganglia have not been systematically investigated in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Their ictal perfusion patterns were analyzed in relation with temporal lobe and frontal lobe hyperperfusion during TLE seizures using SPECT subtraction. Materials and Methods: Thirty-three TLE patients had interictal and ictal SPECT, video-EEG monitoring, SPGR MRI, and SPECT subtraction with MRI co-registration. Results: The vermian cerebellar hyperperfusion (CH) was observed in 26 patients (78.8%) and hemispheric CH in 25 (75.8%). Compared to the side of epileptogenic temporal lobe, there were seven ipsilateral hemispheric CH (28.0%), fifteen contralateral hemispheric CH (60.0%) and three bilateral hemispheric CH (12.0%). CH was more frequently observed in patients with additional frontal hyperperfusion (14/15, 93.3%) than in patients without frontal hyperperfusion (11/18, 61.1%). The basal ganglia hyperperfusion (BGH) was seen in 11 of the 15 patients with frontotemporal hyperperfusion (73.3%) and 11 of the 18 with temporal hyperperfusion only (61.1%). In 17 patients with unilateral BGH, contralateral CH to the BGH was observed in 14 (82.5%) and ipsilateral CH to BGH in 2 (11.8%) and bilateral CH in 1 (5.9%). Conclusion: The cerebellar hyperperfusion and basal ganglia hyperperfusion during seizures of TLE can be contralateral, ipsilateral or bilateral to the seizure focus. The presence of additional frontal or basal ganglia hyperperfusion was more frequently associated with contralateral hemispheric CH to their sides. However, temporal lobe hyperperfusion appears to be related with both ipsilateral and contralateral hemispheric CH.