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Dear Members,
I must firstly apologise for the delay in producing this issue of INTERFACE
but I have waited until I could bring you news of developments concerning
SEGH and IMGA (see pages 2-3). Also included in this issue is a report
and the prize-winning student abstracts from the 22nd European Conference
of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health held at the University
of Sussex on 5-7 April, 2004 (see pages 4-5). A report from Brian Davies
on the 5th International Conference on Environmental Geochemistry in the
Tropics (GEOTROP) held in Haikou, Hainan, PR China on 21-26 March, 2004
appears on page 6.
The next (23rd) SEGH European Conference is to be held at the University of Paisley on 4-6 April, 2005 (see contact details on page 7) and an announcement of the Call for Abstracts will soon be going out. Membership Secretaries of the various SEGH branches will also be getting in touch soon concerning subscription renewal and elections to the SEGH Board. Current Board Members are listed on page 8.
Finally, I am grateful to those who have provided me with articles for this issue of INTERFACE and would also like to encourage members from all branches of SEGH to send items for inclusion in the next issue as soon as possible.
Margaret Graham
(Margaret.Graham@ed.ac.uk)
University of Edinburgh
September 2004
Since the 6th ISEG 2003 in Edinburgh in September 2003, there has been informal discussion between what is now the International Medical Geology Association (IMGA) and SEGH. This has largely consisted of regular contact and exchange of views between Olle Selinus (one of the three Directors of IMGA), Fiona Fordyce (an IMGA Councillor, based in Edinburgh) and myself (as President of SEGH). During the year, Fiona also gave a Keynote Lecture on ‘Geochemistry and health and medical geology into the 21st century’ at the 22nd European SEGH Conference and I represented SEGH’s interests on an IMGA Committee charged with looking at ‘Promoting Medical Geology’. I have reported the fruits of these discussions and endeavours back to members of the SEGH Board at various times and was asked to continue my term of office into a third year in order to be able to continue the dialogue and to attend the official launch of IMGA on 27th August at the recent 32nd International Geological Congress in Florence.
At the launch of IMGA, I indicated the willingness of SEGH to form a cooperative, mutually beneficial, relationship with IMGA. In essence this would see us continue on the path upon which we embarked in September 2003. There is goodwill between the organisations and, although there are obviously some areas of overlap, there are sufficient distinguishing features in terms of remit, types of activity and agenda to justify separate, but cooperative, entities for the foreseeable future.
Most importantly, however, SEGH welcomes the IMGA decision not to start a new journal in the area of Medical Geology. Moreover, we are pleased that IMGA, following discussions over the past year, has accepted the invitation of Editor Ming Wong to put together and edit (through Bob Finkelman) a Special Issue of Environmental Geochemistry and Health devoted to Medical Geology in Developing Countries. I understand that the issue will contain 12 papers and should appear in the second half of 2005. This can only be good for the relationship between the two organisations and good also for the journal, which increases from four to six issues in 2005.
In SEGH, we are especially keen for our founding North American branch to develop links with IMGA in the coming year and we look towards Andrew Hunt, Howard Mielke, Bobby Wixson and others to discuss potential collaborative opportunities with Bob Finkelman and Jose Centeno, both of whom are U.S.-based IMGA Directors. The same applies also to the Asia-Pacific and European branches of SEGH and participants at both APSEG4, the Fourth Asia-Pacific Symposium on Environmental Geochemistry, Perth, Australia (18th-20th January 2005), and the 23rd European SEGH Conference, Paisley, Scotland (4th-6th April 2005), will be able to express their views and ideas about SEGH-IMGA links.
The Annual General Meeting of the whole Society will also take place at Paisley and it is there that I will step down as President. I should like to thank fellow office-bearers, Board members and all SEGH members for their support since July 2002.
John Farmer
President, SEGH
September 2004
INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL GEOLOGY ASSOCIATION (IMGA)
The last four years have witnessed an incredible increase in the activity
and profile of the Medical Geology initiative, which started as a small
Working Group within the IUGS Commission COGEOENVIRONMENT. Medical Geology
was initiated by and is chaired by Olle Selinus, Geological Survey of
Sweden, together with Bob Finkelman, USGS, and Jose Centeno, US Armed
Forces Instititute of Pathology. In 2000, the Working Group held a technical
organisational meeting in Sweden and a special session at the 31st IGC
in Rio, as well as a few invited lectures. In 2001, a complementary project
IGCP#454 was started, a first short course was delivered in Zambia by
Bob Finkelman, Jose Centeno and Olle Selinus, and the first session on
the subject was held at a GSA Pardee Symposium.
By 2002, meetings and courses were being held in Chile, Russia, Netherlands,
USA and Japan, with Invited lectures in Turkey, Namibia, Argentina and
Brazil. In 2003, the course was delivered in Lithuania, Uruguay, Scotland,
Brazil, Australia and Malaysia. Lectures were given in several cities
and there was a rise in the number of publications. More importantly,
the initiative obtained a $50,000 USD grant from ICSU. Finally, in 2004
the group has or will be giving courses in Hungary, Canada, Australia
and India, in collaboration with an ICSU initiative on Health. For 2005
courses are planned in Romania, Tanzania, Turkey, Argentina and Uruguay
with requests from many other countries. A first Centre for Medical Geology
is now being established in China.
The Medical Geology initiative is publishing a textbook on Medical Geology
with Academic Press. This book covers all aspects of Medical Geology and
will be 1000 pages in full colour. Of the 60 authors, 30 are geoscientists
and 30 are medics, toxicologists, epidemiologists etc. The book will be
published in October 2004.
Corresponding members of the Medical Geology initiative number about 900
from all over the world. There is a registry of Medical Geology with the
US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington and flyers, brochures,
newsletters, posters, CDs, textbooks and many published articles have
also been developed. An active program within the International Year of
Planet Earth (the United Nations Initiative) is also on its way. The website
forms a key source of information on the subject. For more information
see www.medicalgeology.org
where also brochures and other material can be downloaded.
Our organisation has reached the stage of development in which a formal
structure is necessary for it to function efficiently. As a result of
the work to date, an International Medical Geology Association was therefore
launched in Florence at 32nd IGC. The structure should enable us to better
respond to the opportunities, to rapidly pass information to those interested
in Medical Geology issues, and to make critical decisions that will benefit
the discipline. To begin this process, we have selected the name "International
Medical Geology Association" (IMGA) for our organization. The Directors
of the association are: Olle Selinus (Geochemist, Sweden) BobFinkelman
(Geologist, USA), and Jose Centeno (Pathologist, USA). David Elliott will
continue his work as editor of the Newsletter. We have appointed six Councillors
to represent the broad geographic distribution of Medical Geology and
the wide range of disciplines that are embraced by this topic. The Councillors
are: Bernardino Ribeiro de Figueiredo (Geologist, Brazil), Fiona Fordyce
(Geochemist, UK), Zheng Baoshan (Geochemist, China), Calin Tatu (Medical
researcher, Romania), Nomathemba Ndiweni (Veterinary Biochemistry, Zimbabwe),
and Philip Weinstein (Epidemiologist, Australia).
We are glad that SEGH offered full cooperation with the newly established
Association at the IGC in Florence and wished the new Association well.
The new Association will continue its good relationship with SEGH and
a first step is the work going on with a special issue of the SEGH journal
Environmental Geochemistry and Health in 2005 on Medical Geology in Developing
Countries, with Bob Finkelman as guest editor. We look forward to a fruitful
collaboration with SEGH with mutual interests which will be positive for
both our organisations.
Olle Selinus, Bob Finkelman, Jose Centeno
Report from the 22nd European Conference of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health, University of Sussex, 5-7 April 2004.
The 22nd European Conference SEGH 2004 was held at University of Sussex, from 5th-7th April 2004. It was generally acclaimed as a very successful meeting. It attracted around 80 delegates from across Europe, but also many from other continents, from Canada to Korea and Lebanon to China. There was also lots of new faces attracted partially by the greater emphasis on organic contaminants and also by a diverse range of authoritative plenary lectures. These commenced with an excellent broad overview of the scientific challenges in risk-based land management, by Theresa Kearney of the newly formed Science – Air, Land, Water Section of the Environment Agency. This set the scene of how environmental geochemistry is involved in many aspects of managing risk, in addition to the well known role in the first identification of contamination. The growing links between Environmental Geochemistry and Medical Geology were then beautifully illustrated and very clearly explained using many international examples by Fiona Fordyce of the Edinburgh branch of BGS.
Walter Giger, Associate Editor of the premier environmental journal Environmental
Science and Technology, gave an excellent overview of emerging environmental
contaminants. This widened the scope of the traditional concerns of many
SEGH members from the well known heavy metals, through the emerging organic
contaminants, such as endocrine disruptors, to the new field of environmental
exposure to a wide range of drugs, concentrating particularly on antibiotics.
One of the most thought-provoking plenary lectures was given by Janna
Koppe on organic contaminants in pregnancy and breast milk. This drew
on Janna’s distinguished career in neonatal medicine based in Holland,
to explain the growing evidence of the emerging links between environmental
exposure of pregnant women to various organic compounds, and a range of
medical conditions of the resultant children during their later life.
Many delegates appreciated the breadth of the programme, which still managed to gain the required depth in many of the more traditional SEGH topics. This included a lively discussion session on whether observed health effects can be used to inform better ways of setting threshold values, for elements such as arsenic.
After the conference dinner in a hotel overlooking the Marina at Brighton, the conference finished with a well-attended field trip to a rural water catchment of the River Arun, around the town of Arundel. The science discussed was diverse and included the implication of the new river management policies of the EA for the accumulation of contaminants. There was also a report on the relatively high levels of some endocrine disrupting compounds that have been detected in such apparently unspoiled catchments.
Mike Ramsey
Chair, Organising Committee of SEGH 2004
Sediment and associated contaminant flux through an urban river system, Greater Manchester, UK.
*Jessica Coyle, Kevin G. Taylor and Mike Dobson
Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M1 5GD, UK.
Aquatic sediment-associated contamination is an elevating problem for
many countries, especially those with a long industrial history. Over
the past 30 years there has been significant interest in quantifying the
transport and fate of sediment-associated contaminants within the aquatic
environment, with much of this focus on agricultural or mining-impacted
rivers. Sediment-associated contaminants in urban river systems, however,
have received less attention. Urban catchments and their aquatic environments
are prime sites for biodiversity and regeneration, and understanding the
importance of the fluxes of both aquatic sediments and their associated
contaminants in this type of environment needs to be addressed.
The study presented here goes some way towards assessing the contribution
of sediment to the total contaminant flux of a heavily urbanised river,
the River Medlock, in the Mersey Basin of Greater Manchester, UK. Bed
load and suspended sediment have been sampled throughout the River Medlock
system and analysed for heavy metal (Cu, Mn, Pb and Zn) concentrations.
A spatial data set on contaminant-sediment levels has been produced and
a temporal suspended sediment monitoring programme is ongoing. Two sites
(one city centre and one upstream) along the Medlock are being continuously
monitored in order to bring in to context the relationship of suspended
sediment and associated metal concentration fluxes to river discharge.
Results to date have surprisingly provided little or no clear spatial
variability in contaminant levels. However, temporal variations in suspended
sediment concentrations have been recognised. Suspended sediment concentrations
ranged between 1 mg l-1 and 700 mg l-1 and are dependent on flow conditions.
Higher metal concentrations on suspended sediment were also found in relation
to discharge. For example, during a flood at the Medlock when discharge
was 19 m3 s-1, the flux of suspended sediment was calculated as 12,654
kg hr-1 and sediment-associated zinc had a flux of 3.16 kg hr-1. Suspended
sediment metal concentrations were also high in comparison to bed load
(especially coarse bed load). Results from this research will help determine
the role of suspended sediment in the flux of sediment-associated contaminants
and its contribution to the total contaminant flux of an urban river system.
Remediation of an arsenic- and copper-contaminated site in SW
England – initial investigations
1*A. Dybowska, 1M.E. Farago, 2E. Valsami-Jones and 1I. Thornton
1Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Imperial College
of London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BP; 2Department of Mineralogy,
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD.
Leaching of As from soil creates a great potential hazard for groundwater
contamination. Treatment of As-rich soils, particularly when As is accompanied
by other potentially toxic metals, such as Cu, presents a particular challenge
due to contrasting behaviour of the two elements.
An As- and Cu-contaminated old mining site in SW England is being studied.
The aim of the project is to investigate (i) the distribution and speciation
patterns of the two contaminants, (ii) possible remediation options with
emphasis on metal/arsenic immobilisation in soil and revegetation and
(iii) the fate of both elements in soil given remediation options recommended
and/or possible future management scenarios.
Total Cu and As content were measured by ICP-AES in soils following HNO3/HClO4
digest and in plants following HNO3/H2O2 digest. ED SEM and X-ray diffraction
analyses were undertaken on soil samples. Fractionation of As and Cu in
soil was further studied by sequential extractions. Initial leaching experiments
have been conducted on the waste tip material.
The mean As content in the waste material is 17000 mg/kg, whilst that
of Cu is 1750 mg/kg. The soil is very acidic (pH<4) and has a low OM
content (3%). Calluna vulgaris is a dominating species colonising the
site. This plant appears to operate exclusion strategy towards both As
and Cu as indicated by very low Bioaccumulation Coefficients (BAC): 0.004
for As and 0.012 for Cu. The As content of the plant material ranged from
2.5 to 360 mg/kg, whilst the Cu content ranged from 4.3 to 89 mg/kg.
Natural immobilisation of As appears at some parts of the site, where
As is found to be fixed in the form of iron arsenates and iron-lead arsenates.
Primary As and Cu minerals – arsenopyrite and chalcopyrite –
were found in samples from the waste tip.
Only 0.002% of total As was leached out by 0.01 M CaCl2 as compared with
3.25% of total Cu being solubilised under the same conditions. The fate
of both As and Cu can be influenced significantly by adding organic matter
and phosphorus which were found to stabilise Cu but mobilise As in the
waste material.
Due to low pH and low OM content treatments such as liming and compost
additions could be beneficial, but may potentially increase As mobility.
These and other treatments aiming for Cu stabilisation will now be further
tested in leaching columns. Possible influence of revegetation will also
be studied.
Abstract of the Poster Presentation Prize-winner
Bioconcentration of nonylphenol polyethoxylate mixtures in the
cyprinid fish, rutilus rutilus
*Mike Smith and Elizabeth M. Hill
Centre for Environmental Research, Biology and Environmental Science,
School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QG,
UK
Alkylphenol polyethoxylates (APEOs) are common contaminants in the aquatic
environment through their use as industrial surfactants and their discharge
in wastewaters and effluents. APEOs are synthesized as mixtures of long
chain ethoxylate oligomers which biodegrade during wastewater treatment
to mixtures containing short chain oligomers. This can result in an increase
in toxicity and estrogenic activity of the APEO mixture to aquatic organisms.
To assess the bioavailability of APEOs to fish, we studied the fate of
two different oligomeric mixtures of technical grade 4-nonylphenol polyethoxylate
(NPEO) in adult roach. Fish were exposed to 20 mg/l of either radiolabelled
NP4avEO or NP9avEO over a 4-day period in a flow-through aquarium. Recoveries
of different oligomers in aquarium water were determined for the test
material and radioactive residues were extracted from soft tissues and
analysed by reverse phase radioHPLC. Bioconcentration of NPEO residues,
mainly metabolites, was highest in the bile. Radioactive residues were
also detected in all other soft tissues analysed. HPLC and GCMS analysis
of gill, liver, gonad and muscle tissue revealed that these residues were
a mixture of NP together with NPEO oligomers of up to 4 EO units. Bioconcentration
factors for individual nonylphenolics in these tissues was in the order
of NP1EO>NP2EO=NP>NP3EO>NP4EO.
This work indicates that waterborne NPEO oligomers greater than 4EO units
are not bioavailable to fish and that there was no transformation of NP
ethoxylates to shorter chain ethoxylates or the parent alkylphenol within
the tissues. The high bioconcentration of NP1EO in fish tissues compared
to NP or to other NPEO oligomers suggests that NP1EO may be the most important
component contributing to the toxicity of NPEO mixtures.
The
Fifth International Conference on Environmental Geochemistry in the Tropics
(GEOTROP) took place in Haikou, Hainan, PR China during March 21 –
26, 2004. The conference was organised by Professor Luo Yongming and Dr
Song Jing of the Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Najing, China. Fifty two delegates from nine countries took part over two
days of paper and poster presentations. A post conference tour of Hainan
Island was organised following the meeting. Hainan island, the most southerly
part of China, is tropical and the eastern coast is developing into a major
tourist destination. The oral presentations reflected the growing interest
in pollution problems in the tropical countries and selected papers will
be published in a special issue of Environmental Geochemistry and Health.
The plenary lecture was given by Professor Brian Davies (Environmental Geochemistry
in the 21st Century: a Conceptual Framework for Research in the Developing
Countries) and Professor Wong Ming Hung (Hong Kong Baptist University) closed
the meeting with a conference overview and prospective.
Professor Wong has taken over the leading role in organising the Geotrop conferences from Professor B E Davies. Plans for the future include launching a website and electronic newsletter under the general title GEOTROPIC. The sixth Geotrop conference is planned for November, 2005 in Sabah, Malaysia. A first announcement will be made soon and provisional details can be obtained from Professor Wong (mhwong@hkbu.edu.hk).
Brian E Davies
April 2004
SEGH Meetings
4th Asia Pacific Symposium on Environmental Geochemistry
Location: Perth, Western Australia
Dates: 18-20 January 2005
Website: www.apseg4.curtin.edu.au
Contact: Organising Secretary
(apseg4@curtin.edu.au)
APSEG4, EIGG, Brodie Hall Building, 1 Turner Avenue, Technology Park,
Bentley, WA 6102, Australia.
23rd European Conference of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health
Location: University of Paisley, Scotland
Dates: 4-6 April 2005
Website: www.paisley.ac.uk/es/segh/index.asp
Contact: Professor Andrew Hursthouse
(SEGH2005@paisley.ac.uk)
University of Paisley, Paisley, Scotland.
Other Meetings of Interest
Environmental Mineralogy, Geochemistry and Human Health
Location: Bath Spa University, Bath, UK
Dates: 6-7 January 2005
Website: www.minersoc.org
Contact: info@minersoc.org
Acid Rain 2005 (7th International Conference on Acid Deposition)
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Dates: 12-17 June 2005
Website: www.acidrain2005.cz
Contact: info@acidrain2005.cz
Acid Rain 2005, CHMI, Na Sabatce 17, 143 06 Prague, Czech Republic.
6th International Conference on Applied Isotope Geochemistry (AIG-6)
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Dates: 11-16 September 2005
Website: www.aig6.cz
Contact: Dr. Martin Novák,
Czech Mineralogical Survey, Geologická 6, 152 00 Prague 5, Czech
Republic.
Consoil 2005
Location: Bordeaux Convention Centre, France
Dates: 3-7 October 2005
Website: www.consoil.de
Contact: Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Mrs. B Mathes, UMWELT, P.O.
Box 3640, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany.
7th International Symposium on Environmental Geochemistry (ISEG)
Location: Beijing, PR China
Dates: 25-30 September 2006
Website: www.iseg2006.com
Contact: iseg2006@sohu.com
Conference Secretariat, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, No.46 Guanshui Road, Guiyang, Guizhou 550002, China.
Officers
John G. Farmer (President)
University of Edinburgh,
Scotland (J.G.Farmer@ed.ac.uk)
Andrew Hunt (Vice-President)
SUNY Upstate Medical University,
Syracuse, NY, USA (ahunt2@twcny.rr.com)
Bobby G. Wixson (Secretary & Past-Pres.)
Springfield, MO, USA
(DRBGWIXSON@aol.com)
Nord L. Gale (Treasurer & Past-Pres.)
University of MO-Rolla, Rolla,
MO, USA (nlgale@umr.edu)
Councillors
Malcolm J. Brown
British Geological Survey,
England (mjbro@bgs.ac.uk)
John Carter
The Doe Run Company, Viburnum,
MO, USA (jcarter@doerun.com)
Joy Carter
University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd,
CF37 1DL (jcarter@glam.ac.uk)
Xiangdong Li (Chair, Asia/Pacific)
Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hong Kong, China (cexdli@polyu.edu.hk)
Aradhana Mehra (Chair, Europe)
University of Derby, England
(A.Mehra@derby.ac.uk)
Howard Mielke
Xavier University of Louisiana,
New Orleans, LA, USA (hmielke@xula.edu)
Joyce Tsuji
EXPONENT, Bellevue, WA, USA
(tsujij@exponent.com)
Ron T. Watkins
Curtin University of Technology,
Perth, Australia
(iwatkins@info.curtin.edu.au)
Past Presidents
Richard Cothern
Chevy Chase, MD, USA
(rcothern@core.com)
Brian E. Davies
Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA (bedavies@bellsouth.net)
Jim Fricke
Resource Management
Consultants, Midvale, Utah,
USA (jim@rmc-ut.com)
Ron Fuge
University of Wales,
Aberystwyth, Wales
(rrf@aber.ac.uk)
Betsy T. Kagey
Cumberland, MD, USA
(bkagey@mail.frostburg.edu)
Iain Thornton
Imperial College of Science,
Technology and Medicine,
England (i.thornton@imperial.ac.uk)
Task Force Chair
Willard Chappell
University of Colo-Denver,
Denver, CO, USA
(wchappel@carbon.cudenver.edu)
Journal Editor
Ming H. Wong
Hong Kong Baptist University,
Hong Kong, China
(mhwong@hkbu.edu.hk)
Interface Editor
Margaret C. Graham
University of Edinburgh,
Scotland (Margaret.Graham@ed.ac.uk)