『Abstract
Magnetic methods have been widely used for delineation of environmental
pollution of soils and sediments under certain conditions during
the last decade. A number of structure-sensitive magnetic characteristics
(coercive force, coercivity of remanence, remanent magnetization)
were utilized for deduction of the grain size of the anthropogenic
particulate matter which serves as a proxy for the evaluation
of the distance from the pollution source, possible health effects,
etc. However, p to now there is no detailed study on the influence
of the morphology, internal structure and phase composition of
anthropogenic particles on the corresponding magnetic characteristics.
The aim of the present investigation is to obtain detailed microscopic,
magnetic and microchemical data on single grains from polluted
river sediments and thus to check the validity of the classical
grain size-dependent trends of coercivity and remanence parameters
obtained for natural and synthetic magnetites for the anthropogenic
magnetic phases. Single anthropogenic particles from magnetic
extracts have been separated from several sites along the Bulgarian
part of the Danube river, which show the strongest magnetic enhancement.
Results from the combines magnetic (thermomagnetic analysis and
magnetic hysteresis), microscopic (optical and scanning electron
microscopy (SEM)) and microchemical (electron microprobe analysis
(EPMA)) study on single anthropogenic particles show that there
is a general trend for significant underestimation of the physical
size of the anthropogenic particles due to the following reasons:
(1) in most cases the spherules posses a complex internal structure,
in which the magnetic phase is presented as dendrites exsolved
within a glassy non-magnetic aluminosilicate matrix; (2) the surface
morphology is characterized by orange-peel or dendritic structures,
or smaller strongly magnetic spherules are adhered to the surface.
Magnetic mineralogy as deduced from single grain thermomagnetic
K(T) analysis and further elucidated by microprobe data on the
same particles shows that magnetite is the main ferromagnetic
phase. In isolated cases significant Al substitution leads to
a decrease of Tc down to 500℃. Hysteresis
parameters for all studied single grains of physical sizes varying
from 39μm up to 1.5 mm fall mainly in the pseudo single domain
(PSD) range. On the basis of the results from single grain magnetic
measurements, a new approach for semiquantitative estimation of
the degree of anthropogenic pollution is proposed.
Keywords: Single anthropogenic magnetic grains; Hysteresis properties;
Microscopy; Microprobe analysis; Danube; Bulgaria』
1. Introduction
2. Origin, chemistry and structure of the most common anthropogenic
magnetic phases
3. Experimental procedures, geological background and magnetic
susceptibility variations along the river
4. Experimental results
4.1. Site D39 - Somovit port
4.2. Site D51 - Orjachovo port
4.3. Spherules from urban sites
5. Discussion
5.1. Magnetic phase identification
5.2. Hysteresis measurements
5.3. Integration of the information deduced by the applied methods
5.4. Semiquantitative evaluation on the degree of industrial
pollution
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References