Download or read book Atmospheric Deposition to the Athabasca Oil Sands Region Using Snowpack Measurements and Dated Lake Sediment Cores written by Jane Kirk and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Depositional History of Sediments in Lake Athabasca written by Richard A. Bourbonniere and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The primary objective of this study was to collect and analyse high quality, well-described sediment cores for use in defining the depositional history of sediment-bound contaminants in Lake Athabasca, including those which have atmospheric or upstream sources. The researchers dated the cores using the lead and caesium methods, and used these geochronological results to determine sedimentation rates and time scales, as well as the suitability of the cores for subsequent contaminant analyses. Selected cores were to be analysed for particle size distribution, bulk carbon and nitrogen species, radionuclides, total polychlorinated dioxins and furans, heavy metals, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, fatty acids, and biogeochemical marker parameters derived from alkanes and fatty acids. Results presented include trends in contaminant concentrations over the past century, correlations of observed trends with human activities or natural occurences, and likely sources of sediment contaminants.
Download or read book Tracking the History of Alberta Oil Sands Contaminants Using Lake Sediment Cores written by Alexandre Salat and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Petroleum hydrocarbons are emitted into the environment via natural and anthropogenic activities. Once emitted, these hydrocarbons can be transported globally, persisting and accumulating in aquatic ecosystems. In the Alberta oil sands region (AOSR), mining activities have significantly altered and polluted the surrounding aquatic and terrestrial environments with heavy metals and various petroleum hydrocarbons including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PACs). Though PACs have been tracked through time using dated lake sediment cores, separating natural and anthropogenic PACs can be difficult. In the Peace Athabasca Delta (PAD) this task is especially difficult as this region has been receiving annual inputs of naturally eroded bitumen throughout history. Petroleum biomarkers are unique petrogenic compounds (i.e. derived from petroleum) which may provide a secondary proxy to track mining impacts. This thesis investigated the impacts of mining activities on the AOSR and the PAD using two different proxies, PAC and petroleum biomarkers. These two regions were compared to reference lakes to the south and northwest of the Athabasca oil sands formation, in order to provide a natural signal, with minimal oil sands mining contamination. Historically deposited PACs and petroleum biomarkers were analysed in radiometrically dated lake sediment cores from the AOSR and the PAD, Alberta. Sediment profiles in the AOSR (Saline Lake) showed increases in PAC fluxes for both alkylated and parent compounds coeval with mining activities. Alkylated PAC fluxes in reference lakes (Mariana Lake and BM11) increased at the height of oil sands development (1990s). PAD lakes showed no statistical increase in PAC flux through time due to high levels of naturally eroded bitumen entering the system. Parent PAC diagnostic ratios, however, showed clear shifts from pyrogenic (primarily wood burning) in pre-development sediments to petrogenically derived PACs in modern sediments, in both AOSR and PAD lakes, coeval with oil sands development. Petroleum biomarker diagnostic ratios in Saline Lake and PAD lakes remained stable through time, indicating a clear current and historical petroleum signal originating from the AOSR. Reference lakes (Mariana Lake and BM11) showed the greatest change in petroleum biomarkers. Historically, these lakes had signatures uncommon of petroleum sources, however, in recent years petroleum inputs from mining development were revealed by these petroleum biomarkers. This study compared the historical trends of several petroleum hydrocarbons in lake sediment to the historical emissions of these petroleum hydrocarbons from oil sands mining operations. Notably, we show the potential for petroleum biomarkers to trace petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in the environment.
Download or read book Alberta Oil Sands written by Kevin E Percy and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At 170 billion barrels, Canada's Oil Sands are the third largest reserves of developable oil in the world. The Oil Sands now produce about 1.6 million barrels per day, with production expected to double by 2025 to about 3.7 million barrels per day. The Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) in northeastern Alberta is the largest of the three oil sands deposits. Bitumen in the oil sands is recovered through one of two primary methods - mining and drilling. About 20 per cent of the reserves are close to the surface and can be mined using large shovels and trucks. Of concern are the effects of the industrial development on the environment. Both human-made and natural sources emit oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, trace elements and persistent organic compounds. Of additional concern are ground level ozone and greenhouse gases. Because of the requirement on operators to comply with the air quality regulatory policies, and to address public concerns, the not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder Wood Buffalo Environmental Association (WBEA) has since 1997 been closely monitoring air quality in AOSR. In 2008, WBEA assembled a distinguished group of international scientists who have been conducting measurements and practical research on various aspects of air emissions and their potential effects on terrestrial receptors. This book is a synthesis of the concepts and results of those on-going studies. It contains 19 chapters ranging from a global perspective of energy production, measurement methodologies and behavior of various air pollutants during fossil fuel production in a boreal forest ecosystem, towards designing and deploying a multi-disciplinary, proactive, and long-term environmental monitoring system that will also meet regulatory expectations. Covers measurement of emissions from very large industrial sources in a region with huge international media profile Validation of measurement technologies can be applied globally The new approaches to ecological monitoring described can be applied in other forested regions
Download or read book Summary Evaluation and Integration of Atmospheric Deposition Monitoring in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region written by Greg Wentworth and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ecological Causal Assessment written by Susan B. Norton and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2014-10-29 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by experts at the leading edge of the development of causal assessment methods for more than two decades, Ecological Causal Assessment gives insight and expert guidance on how to identify cause-effect relationships in environmental systems. The book discusses the importance of asking the fundamental question "Why did this effect happen?" bef
Download or read book Developing Pre industrial Baselines from Floodplain Lake Sediment Cores to Quantify the Extent of Metals Pollution Within the Alberta Oil Sands Region written by Wynona Klemt and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil sands mining operations began in 1967, but the onset of a monitoring program to assess water and sediment quality in the Athabasca River watershed began 30 years later. Consequently, no knowledge of pre-industrial, baseline conditions exists upon which current river sediment quality can be compared. This has undermined an ability to determine the relative importance of contaminants supplied by natural processes versus pollution to the Athabasca River by rapid growth of oil sands development. In this study, a paleolimnological approach was used to analyze sediment cores from five flood-influenced lakes located upstream and downstream of oil sands operations within the Alberta Oil Sands Region (AOSR). Loss-on-ignition and organic carbon and nitrogen elemental analyses were used to differentiate periods of strong and weak Athabasca River flood influence. In addition, the temporal changes in concentrations of bitumen-associated metals vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) were explored at each lake. A pre-industrial baseline was developed using pre-1967 sediment concentrations of V and Ni, normalized to aluminum concentration, from lakes in the AOSR to estimate the natural range of variability of these metals. When normalized metals concentrations in recently deposited flood-influenced sediment were compared to the pre-industrial baseline, no evidence of enrichment in the river-derived stratigraphic intervals was detected. However, significant enrichment of bitumen-related metals V and Ni (up to 2- and 1.6-fold above the baseline, respectively) was observed in weakly flood-influenced sediment in the two floodplain lakes located closest to the most active mining operations (
Download or read book Long term Environmental Change in Arctic and Antarctic Lakes written by Reinhard Pienitz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-11-08 with total page 579 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concerns about the effects of global climate change have focused attention on the vulnerability of circumpolar regions. This book offers a synthesis of the spectrum of techniques available for generating long-term environmental records from circumpolar lakes.
Download or read book Limnogeology Progress Challenges and Opportunities written by Michael R. Rosen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-24 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book honors the career of Professor Elizabeth Gierlowski-Kordesch who was a pioneer and leader in the field of limnogeology since the 1980s. Her work was instrumental in guiding students and professionals in the field until her untimely death in 2016. This collection of chapters was written by her colleagues and students and recognize the important role that Professor Gierlowski-Kordesch had in advancing the field of limnogeology. The chapters show the breadth of her reach as these have been contributed from virtually every continent. This book will be a primary reference for scientists, professionals and graduate students who are interested in the latest advances in limnogeologic processes and basin descriptions in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and China. *Free supplementary material available online for chapters 3,11,12 and 13. Access by searching for the book on link.springer.com
Download or read book Investigative Strategies for Lead Source Attribution at Superfund Sites Associated with Mining Activities written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-12-01 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Superfund program of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in the 1980s to address human-health and environmental risks posed by abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous-waste sites. Identification of Superfund sites and their remediation is an expensive multistep process. As part of this process, EPA attempts to identify parties that are responsible for the contamination and thus financially responsible for remediation. Identification of potentially responsible parties is complicated because Superfund sites can have a long history of use and involve contaminants that can have many sources. Such is often the case for mining sites that involve metal contamination; metals occur naturally in the environment, they can be contaminants in the wastes generated at or released from the sites, and they can be used in consumer products, which can degrade and release the metals back to the environment. This report examines the extent to which various sources contribute to environmental lead contamination at Superfund sites that are near lead-mining areas and focuses on sources that contribute to lead contamination at sites near the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District. It recommends potential improvements in approaches used for assessing sources of lead contamination at or near Superfund sites.
Download or read book Ecological Response of Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition on Reconstructed Soils in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region written by Tyrel Hemsley and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sources of Particulate Matter in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region written by Catherine Danielle Phillips-Smith and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Summary of Acid Deposition Information for the Athabasca Oil Sands Region written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Field Guide Regional Sedimentology and Processes of Deposition of the Athabasca Oil Sands Northeast Alberta written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Athabasca Oil Sands written by Barry Glen Ferguson and published by Alberta Culture/Canadian Plains Research Centre. This book was released on 1985 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the research - private, scholarly, and government - that went into developing the oil sands.
Download or read book Evaluation of four reports on contamination of the Athabasca River system by oil sands operations written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They also measured these contaminants in the water of the Athabasca River and its tributaries in the oil sands area, and in Lake Athabasca and the Athabasca Delta. [...] Approximately 17% of the estimated established bitumen reserves in the Athabasca oil sands region were under active development as of the end of 2008, and 3% of the estimated established bitumen reserves of the Athabasca oil sands region has been extracted by the end of 2008. [...] The rapid expansion of oil sands development in the last 20 years led to the establishment of many research and monitoring organizations and programs to collect data on water and air quality in the oil sands area. [...] David Schindler of the University of Alberta conducted studies which led to the publication of two articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [...] The purpose of their research was to determine the relative contribution of industrial activities to the input of PACs compared with the natural inputs of these compounds from the naturally occurring bitumen.
Download or read book Water Quality of the Athabasca Oil Sands Area Vol 1 Data Collection and Quality written by Canada-Alberta. Alberta Oil Sands Environmental Research Program and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
