• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.571-577
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• 1995

Several acid-sulfate clay deposits associated with silicic magmas occur in the Haenam area of the southwestern part of Korea. Geology of the studied area consists of tuffs, granitic rocks, quartz porphyry, rhyolite, andesite and sedimentary rocks. The granitic rocks and quartz porphyry intruded tuffs and sedimentary rocks. The rhyolite and tuffs around the mines have undergone hydrothermally weak or strong alteration. Gold contents with major and trace elements have been determined for a total of sixty-seven specimens of fresh igneous rocks, wall rocks and minerals such as dickite and alunite by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometer and inductively coupled plasma. Gold is enriched in the alunite vein and the silicified zone, but is depleted in dickites and hydrothermally altered rocks with dickite of the Seongsan deposit. Gold is especially concentrated near the faults or conjunction area of two faults. High content of gold is shown in the mineral assemblages of alunitequartz- pyrite in the alunite vein and silicic zone of the Seongsan deposit compared with that of minerals and rocks from another deposits distributed in the studied area. Gold content in tuffs and dickites with pyrite is generally low. Gold content in silicified tuff tends to show positive correlations with content of As, Hg and Sb. Variation trends of Cd, Hg and Sb are similar to those of gold content. From the result of gold content variations, gold may be transported and concentrated by mineralizing solutions ascending along the cracks like fault. Therefore, it is important to survey alunite vein and silicified zone at the conjunction of faults, and to analyze pathfinder elements such as As, Hg and Sb for geological and geochemical exploration of gold in the studied deposits.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.623-641
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• 2012

The Janggun lead-zinc-silver deposit is hydrothermal-metasomatic deposit. We have sampled wallrock, hydrother-maly-altered rock and lead-zinc-silver ore vein to study the element dispersion during wallrock alteration. The hydrothermal alteration that is remarkably recognized at this deposit consists of rhodochrositization and dolomitization. Wallrock is dolomite and limestone that consisit of calcite, dolomite, quartz, phlogopite and biotite. Rhodochrosite zone occurs near lead-zinc-silver ore vein and include mainly rhodochrosite with amounts of calcite, dolomite, kutnahorite, arsenopyrite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena and stannite. Dolomite zone occurs far from lead-zinc-silver ore vein and is composed of mainly dolomite and minor calcite, rhodochrosite, pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, galena and stannite. The correlation coefficients among major, trace and rare earth elements during wallrock alteration show high positive correlations(dolomite and limestone = $Fe_2O_3(T)$/MnO, Ga/MnO and Rb/MnO), high negative correlations(dolomite = MgO/MnO, CaO/MnO, $CO_2$/MnO, Sr/MnO; limestone = CaO/MnO, Sr/MnO). Remarkable gain elements during wallrock alteration are $Fe_2O_3(T)$, MnO, As, Au, Cd, Cu, Ga, Pb, Rb, Sb, Sc, Sn and Zn. Remarkable loss elements are CaO, $CO_2$, MgO and Sr. Therefore, elements(CaO, $CO_2$, $Fe_2O_3(T)$, MgO, MnO, Ga, Pb, Rb, Sb, Sn, Sr and Zn) represent a potential tools for exploration in hydrothermal-metasomatic lead-zinc-silver deposits.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.353-364
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• 2021

Since the mid-twentieth century, geology has gradually evolved as an interdisciplinary context in South Korea. The journal of Economic and Environmental Geology (EEG) has a long history of over 52 years and published interdisciplinary articles based on geology. In this study, we performed a literature review using topic modeling based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an unsupervised machine learning model, to identify geological topics, historical trends (classic topics and emerging topics), and association by analyzing titles, keywords, and abstracts of 2,571 publications in EEG during 1968-2020. The results showed that 8 topics ('petrology and geochemistry', 'hydrology and hydrogeology', 'economic geology', 'volcanology', 'soil contaminant and remediation', 'general and structural geology', 'geophysics and geophysical exploration', and 'clay mineral') were identified in the EEG. Before 1994, classic topics ('economic geology', 'volcanology', and 'general and structure geology') were dominant research trends. After 1994, emerging topics ('hydrology and hydrogeology', 'soil contaminant and remediation', 'clay mineral') have arisen, and its portion has gradually increased. The result of association analysis showed that EEG tends to be more comprehensive based on 'economic geology'. Our results provide understanding of how geological research topics branch out and merge with other fields using a useful literature review tool for geological research in South Korea.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.217-240
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• 2021

Upon the human exploration era of the Moon, this paper introduces lunar topography and geologic fundamentals to space scientists. The origin of scientific terminology for the lunar topography was briefly summarized, and the extension of the current Korean terminology is suggested. Specifically, we suggest the most representative lunar topography that are useful to laymen as 1 ocean (Oceanus Procellarum), 10 maria (Mare Imbrium, Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranuillitatis, Mare Nectaris, Mare Fecundatis, Mare Crisium, Mare Vaporium, Mare Cognitum, Mare Humorum, Mare Nubium), 6 great craters (Tyco, Copernicus, Kepler, Aristachus, Stebinus, Langrenus). We also suggest Korean terms for highland, maria, mountains, crater, rille, rima, graben, dome, lava tube, wrinkle ridge, trench, rupes, and regolith. In addition, we introduce the standard model for the lunar interior and typical rocks. According to the standard model on the basis of historical impact events, the lunar geological eras are classified as Pre-Nectarian, Nectarian, Imbrian, Erathostenesian, and Copernican in chronologic order. Finally, we summarize the latest discovery records on the water on the Moon, and introduce the concept of water extraction from the lunar soil, which is to be developed by the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM).

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.408-416
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• 2015

The collapse of the underground cavities and voids, which were made for developing mineral resources, can cause the subsidence of the ground surface in the residential areas. During the Japanese colonial era and the 1960's mining boom period, lots of mines had been developed indiscriminately in Korea. Due to complicated geological conditions and mining methods, many of dangerous underground mine cavities with steep slopes had been generated at the shallow surface. Due to such conditions, it is difficult to directly apply valid foreign reclamation practice for the cavities in Korea environments. It is necessary to develop the efficient ground stabilization technologies for the Korea underground mine conditions to solve abandoned mine reclamation properly. Therefore, MIRECO and Korea government have been carrying out practical researches and technical developments together with other academic researchers and reclamation business partners, and various practical solutions such as surveying and exploration methods, proper cavity filling materials and reinforcement methods have been developed with application in the mine field. In this article, up to date technologies and R&D trends in the field of mine subsidence prevention technology are broadly reviewed to establish the future direction of a research and development.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.519-526
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• 2018

In order to analyze space resources, it had to be brought to earth. However, using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) and Raman spectroscopy, it is possible to analyze qualitative and quantitative analysis of space minerals in real time. LIBS is a spectroscopic method in which a high energy laser is concentrated on a material surface to generate a plasma, and the emitted light is acquired through a spectroscope to analyze the atomic composition. Raman spectroscopy is a spectroscopic method that analyzes the molecular structure by measuring scattered light. These two spectroscopic methods are complementary spectroscopic methods for analyzing the atoms and molecules of unknown minerals and have an advantage as space payloads. In this study, data were analyzed qualitatively by using principal component analysis(PCA). In addition, a mixture of two minerals was prepared and a quantitative analysis was performed to predict the concentration of the material.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.281-287
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• 1994

The present paper deals with numerical modeling of Love channel waves in transversely isotropic elastic medium. First, an explicit finite-difference scheme of second order approximation is formulated with the wave equation of SH particle displacement in transversely isotropic medium. Since it is a heterogeneous formulation, it should enable efficient modeling of complex model structures without additional treatment of the internal boundary matching. With a model of isotropic coal seam embedded in high velocity host rock, seismograms are synthesized and tutn out to be essentially identical with published ones of Korn and $St{\ddot{o}}ckl$. Next, anisotropic coal seams are investigated. It is found that the horizontal velocity of the seam appears to play a major role of determining the group velocity of Love channel waves. The group velocity increases with the increase of the horizontal velocity or vice versa. However, further study will be needed to exploit fully Love channel waves for the determination of lithology, stratification, fracture in sedimentary rocks, for instance, for hydrocarbon exploration and development.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.317-323
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• 2014

Odyssey, one of the NASA's Mars exploration program and SELENE (Kaguya), a Japanese lunar orbiting spacecraft have a payload of Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) for analyzing radioactive chemical elements of the atmosphere and the surface. In these days, gamma-ray spectroscopy with a High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector has been widely used for the activity measurements of natural radionuclides contained in the soil of the Earth. The energy spectra obtained by the HPGe detectors have been generally analyzed by means of the Window Analysis (WA) method. In this method, activity concentrations are determined by using the net counts of energy window around individual peaks. Meanwhile, an alternative method, the so-called Full Spectrum Analysis (FSA) method uses count numbers not only from full-absorption peaks but from the contributions of Compton scattering due to gamma-rays. Consequently, while it takes a substantial time to obtain a statistically significant result in the WA method, the FSA method requires a much shorter time to reach the same level of the statistical significance. This study shows the validation results of FSA method. We have compared the concentration of radioactivity of $^{40}K$, $^{232}Th$ and $^{238}U$ in the soil measured by the WA method and the FSA method, respectively. The gamma-ray spectrum of reference materials (RGU and RGTh, KCl) and soil samples were measured by the 120% HPGe detector with cosmic muon veto detector. According to the comparison result of activity concentrations between the FSA and the WA, we could conclude that FSA method is validated against the WA method. This study implies that the FSA method can be used in a harsh measurement environment, such as the gamma-ray measurement in the Moon, in which the level of statistical significance is usually required in a much shorter data acquisition time than the WA method.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.81-90
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• 2015

International Seabed Authority (ISA) is currently developing rules with regard to exploitation of manganese nodules which will be contained in its first regulations governing the exploitation of deep seabed mineral resources. A stakeholder survey was conducted in the early 2014 by ISA with the aim of facilitating participation of interested entities in the development process of the rules. The stakeholders who had replied to the survey included existing contractors, sponsoring States, environmentalists, academics, and nongovernmental organizations. Opinions given by them largely reflect their own interests. This paper aims to clarify the scope of the obligations regarding the environmental protection which may be imposed on contractors under the new regulations for the exploitation of manganese nodules. To do so, it first analyses the express provisions on environmental protection applicable to deep seabed mining included in the Law of the Sea Convention, its agreement on implementation of Part XI, and the regulations on exploration for manganese nodules. Secondly, it categorizes these obligations based on the categories of international obligations suggested by Combacau and Alland. Based on the categorizations this paper concludes that, in addition to the existing duties to protect deep seabed environment within the Law of the Sea Convention system, the following new obligations could be added: conservation of exploitation sites for a limited time after the contract is ceased; taking all necessary measures for rehabilitation of destroyed ecosystems that occurredas a result of mining activities; monitoring exploitation sites for a limited period time after the contract is ceased; observing rules and standards on safety of ships and environmental protection adopted under IMO instruments; regulation on the discharge of mine tailings from the facilities used for exploitation of deep sea minerals. Lastly, this paper attempts to provide ways of reflecting national interests in terms of potential obligations which may be included in the new regulations.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.165-174
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• 2002

Seismic velocity and attenuation coefficient of the rocks under the broad-band earthquake observatories of the Korea Meteorological Administration have been measured in the laboratory by using very high frequency seismic waves. Estimated P velocities of the rocks range from 3.2 km/s to 5.6 km/s, depending on the rock type, mineral, and weathering, while, the attenuation coefficients vary from 0.06 to 4.3 db/kHz-m. It seems that P velocities is inversely proportional to the attenuation coefficients of the rocks. Average travel-time delays of the broad-band stations seem to be related with the measured P velocities in the laboratory.