• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.170-187
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• 2020

Dolmens bearing the burial layout and stone coffin tombs of the late Bronze Age were excavated from Samdeok-ri, Goseong, Gyeonsangnsamdo, and grave items such as red-burnished pottery, arrowheads, and stone swords were also discovered. In the case of the red-burnished pottery that was found, it retains a pigment layer with a thickness of about 50 to 160㎛, but with most of the other items, exfoliation and peeling-off of pigment layers can be observed on the surface. The raw materials of the red-burnished pottery contained moderately sorted minerals such as quartz, feldspar, and hornblende, and partly opaque iron oxide minerals were also identified. In particular, the raw materials of the red-burnished pottery from stone coffin tomb #6 were different from those of the other pottery, containing large amounts of hornblende and feldspar. The pottery's red pigment was identified as hematite and showed similar mineral content of raw materials such as fine grained quartz, feldspar, and hornblende. The firing temperature is estimated to have been approximately 900℃, based on their mineral phase. The possibility exists that the raw materials had been collected from the Samdeok-ri area, because diorite and granite diorite with dominant feldspar and hornblende have been identified within 3km of that area. During the pottery manufacturing process, it is estimated that the pigment was painted on the entire surface of the red-burnished pottery after it had been molded and then finished using the abrasion technique. In other words, the red-burnished pottery was made by the process of vessel forming - semi drying - coloring - polishing. The surface and cross-section of the pottery appears differently depending on the concentration of the pigment and the coloring method used after vessels were formed. Most of the excavated pottery features a distinct boundary between pigment and body fabric. However, in the case of pottery in which fine-grained pigments penetrate the body fabric so that layers cannot be distinguished, there is the possibility that the fine-grained pigment layer was applied at a low concentration or immediately after vessel forming. Many cracks can be seen on the surface pigments in thickly painted pottery items, and in many cases, only a small portion of the pigment layers remain due to surface exfoliation and abrasion in the burial environment. It is reported that pottery items may be more easily damaged by abrasion if coated with pigment and polished, so it is believed that the red-burnished pottery of the Samdeok-ri site suffered from weathering in the burial environment. This damage was more extensive in the potsherds that were scattered outside the tomb.

• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.409-421
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• 2022

Achieving a highly resolved spatial distribution of Mn-bearing minerals and elements in the natural ferromanganese nodules can provide detailed knowledge of the temporal variations of geochemical conditions affecting the formation processes of nodules. While a recent study utilizing Raman spectroscopy has reported the changes in the manganate mineral phases with growth for spherical nodules from the Arctic Sea, the distributions of minerals and elements in the nodules from the shallow Arctic Sea with non-spherical forms have not yet fully elucidated. Here, we reported the micro-laser Raman spectra with varying data acquisition points along three different profiles from the center to the outermost rim of the non-spherical ferromanganese nodules collected from the East Siberian Sea (~73 m). The elemental distributions in the nodule (such as Mn, Fe, etc.) were also investigated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) analysis to observe the internal structure and mineralogical details. Based on the microscopic observation, the internal structures of a non-spherical nodule can be divided into three different regions, which are sediment-rich core, iron-rich substrate, and Mn-Fe layers. The Raman results show that the Mn-bearing mineral phases vary with the data acquisition points in the Mn-Fe layer, suggesting the changes in the geochemical conditions during nodule formation. In addition, we also observe that the mineral composition and structural characteristics depend on the profile direction from the core to the rim. Particularly, the Raman spectra obtained along one profile show the lack of Fe-(oxy)hydroxides and the noticeably high crystallinity of Mn-bearing minerals such as birnessite and todorokite. On the other hand, the spectra obtained along the other two profiles present the presence of significant amount of amorphous or poorly-ordered Fe-bearing minerals and the low crystallinity of Mn-bearing minerals. These results suggest that the diagenetic conditions varied with the different growth directions. We also observed the presence of halite in several layers in the nodule, which can be evidence of the alteration of seawater after nodule formation. The current results can provide the opportunity to obtain detailed knowledge of the formation process and geochemical environments recorded in the natural non-spherical ferromanganese nodule.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.301-310
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• 2023

Ferrihydrite is an iron oxide mineral that is easily found in the natural environment, including acid mine drainage, and has a low crystallinity and high specific surface area, resulting in high reactivity with other ions, and can remove environmentally hazardous substances. However, because ferrihydrite is a metastable mineral, there is a possibility of releasing adsorbed ions by phase transformation to other minerals having low surface area and high crystallinity. In this study, the adsorption characteristics of arsenate, chromate, and selenate on ferrihydrite and the oxyanion removal efficiency of ferrihydrite were studied considering mineral phase transformation. At both pH 4 and 8, the adsorption of oxyanions used in the study were in good agreement with both Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models except for selenate at pH 8. Due to the difference in surface charge according to pH, at pH 4 a higher amount of ions were adsorbed than at pH 8. The adsorption amount were in the order of arsenate, chromate, and selenate. These different adsorption models and adsorption amounts were due to different adsorption mechanisms for each oxyanions on the surface of ferrihydrite. These adsorption characteristics were closely related to changes in the mineral phase. At pH 4, a phase transformation to goethite or hematite was observed, but only a phase transformation to hematite was observed at pH 8. Among the oxyanion species on ferrihydrite, arsenate showed the highest adsorption capacity and hardly caused phase transformation during the experimental period after adsorption. Contrary to this, chromate and selenate showed faster mineral phase transformation than arsenate, and selenate had the lowest retardation effect among the three oxyanions. Ferrihydrite can effectively remove arsenate due to its high adsorption capacity and low phase transformation rate. However, the removal efficiency for other two oxyanions were low by the low adsorption amount and additional mineral phase transformation. For chromate, the efficient removal is expected only at low concentrations in low pH environments.