Denudacja antropogeniczna na obszarach górniczych : na przykładzie Górnośląskiego Zagłębia Węglowego

"Monografia dotycząca przekształceń rzeźby w wyniku działalności górniczej na obszarze Górnośląskiego Zagłębia Węglowego. Praca stanowi podsumowanie stanu wiedzy o historii i rozmiarach antropogenicznych zmian rzeźby na tle tego typu presji w Polsce i w Europie oraz analizę ilościową denudacji antropogenicznej dla całego obszaru Zagłębia, wykonana według jednolitej procedury badawczej i z zastosowaniem różnych wzajemnie weryfikujących się metod. Praca jest bogato ilustrowana. Adresowana do zainteresowanych naukami o Ziemi." (wyd.

Wpływ górnictwa węgla kamiennego na zmiany rzeźby obszaru KWK Miechowice na Wyżynie Śląskiej

The paper presents geomorphological effects of activity of black coal mine “Miechowice”, located in upland area with weakly diversified relief. On the base of morphometric studies with archival and contemporary cartographic materials applying as well as coal outputbalance analysis it was stated that almost 100-years lasting mining activity caused essential changes in relief of about 70% of mining area. The area of “active” mining terrain was lowered on average of 10,3 m, but the largest lowering rate happened in the last 30 years and it amounted on average to 156 mm/year. Total sizes of subsiding are spatially diversified and they are included within the range from 1 m up to 23 m. In result of significant terrain surface subsiding in the relief depression without outflow (subsiding depressions) of total area of about 2,39 sq km were separated. In consequence almost 31% of former “active” mining area was excluded from the fluvial system. This young, deep depressions without outflow play the special role in the process of matter circulation, beca-use they make local denudation bases and therefore they are the place of deposits accumulation. The rate of natural “filling” of such sedimentation basins without outflow will be at least several hundred times slower than anthropogenically conditioned rate of their formation. Therefore geomorphological effects of short-lasting mining anthropopression will be long-lasing

The disappearance of inland dunes landscape - a case study from southern Poland

The paper presents changes in the landscape of inland dunes in one of the basins in the eastern part of Silesian Upland. Based on the analysis of archival maps and historical sources, the former dune landscape of Dąbrowa Basin was reconstructed. The current state of its preservation was determined based on contemporary cartographic materials and field research. It was established that the dunes occur on the floodplain, under-slope flattening, and cuesta escarpment (Ząbkowice Hummock)). The source of aeolian sands was fluvioglacial and alluvial deposits, which, as a result of aeolian transport, were moved to higher and higher morphological levels and stabilized on a substrate of different lithology and age. The impermeability of the bedrock – tills, clays, mudstones, siltstones had a significant influence on the dune landscape. It resulted in the presence of wetlands and peat bogs in the vicinity of most dunes. Consequently, the landscape of the valley was distinguished by a lot of contrast in terms of vegetation - dry pine forests or grassy areas on the dunes and moisture-loving vegetation in their surroundings. However, this landscape was under strong human pressure. Most of the dunes (3/4) have been destroyed in the last hundred years due to sand mining and industrial and residential construction. One of the largest dune fields in the Przemsza River basin and most floodplain and under-slope flattening dunes were utterly destroyed. In addition, an interesting dune at Triassic clays was almost fully exploited, and a rare case on the Silesian Upland where a dune entered the Triassic limestones was partially covered with concrete. There are only 25 dunes in the study area - they deserve protection both as the last fragments of the inland dunes landscape in this part of the Silesian Upland and for historical and natural reasons

Płytka eksploatacja węgla kamiennego na Płaskowzgórzu Dańdówki (Wyżyna Śląska)

Shallow exploitation of black coal in Dańdówka Plateau was carried out on a wide scale in the 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century. It included 20% of the area of plateau and its effects still reveal. Two regions of shallow exploitation were here distinguished – the northern, including 10 smaller fields as well as the southern with three fields. Within them 138 excavations were stated, which in the majority of cases had the depth of 10–15 m, maximally 63 m. In result of falling of the part of empty places tens of collapse cones have been originated, often after several years after exploitation finishing. The largest density of empty places occurs below the built-up areas, making the potential hazard for the terrain surface and the construction of buildings

Interface roughness effect on friction map under fretting contact conditions

In many industrial applications where fretting damage is observed in the contact (e.g. rotor/blade, electrical contacts, assembly joint, axe/wheel, clutch) the external loadings or geometry design cannot be changed. Therefore, the surface preparation and finishing process become essential to control and reduce the damage caused by fretting. In this paper, the authors present the experimental study of the initial surface roughness and machining process influence on fretting conditions in both partial and full sliding regimes. Surfaces prepared by milling and smooth abrasive polishing processes have been analysed. The influence of roughness on sliding behaviour and analysis of friction have been reported. Also, the contact pressure influence and qualitative analysis of fretting wear scar have been presented

Sedimentary DNA versus morphology in the analysis of diatom-environment relationships

The Arctic treeline ecotone is characterised by a steep vegetation gradient from arctic tundra to northern taiga forests, which is thought to influence the water chemistry of thermokarst lakes in this region. Environmentally sensitive diatoms respond to such ecological changes in terms of variation in diatom diversity and richness, which so far has only been documented by microscopic surveys. We applied next-generation sequencing to analyse the diatom composition of lake sediment DNA extracted from 32 lakes across the treeline in the Katanga region, Siberia, using a short fragment of the rbcL chloroplast gene as a genetic barcode. We compared diatom richness and diversity obtained from the genetic approach with diatom counts from traditional microscopic analysis. Both datasets were employed to investigate diversity and relationships with environmental variables, using ordination methods. Aftereffective filtering of the raw data, the two methods gave similar results for diatom richness and composition at the genus level (DNA 12 taxa; morphology 19 taxa), even though there was a much higher absolute number of sequences obtained per genetic sample (median 50,278), compared with microscopic counts (median 426). Dissolved organic carbon explained the highest percentage of variance in both datasets (14.2 % DNA; 18.7 % morphology), reflecting the compositional turnover of diatom assemblages along the tundra-taiga transition. Differences between the two approaches are mostly a consequence of the filtering process of genetic data and limitations of genetic references in the database, which restricted the determination of genetically identified sequence types to the genus level. The morphological approach, however, allowed identifications mostly to species level, which permits better ecological interpretation of the diatom data. Nevertheless, because of a rapidly increasing reference database, the genetic approach with sediment DNA will, in the future, enable reliable investigations of diatom composition from lake sediments that will have potential applications in both paleoecology and environmental monitoring