Does road salt affect groundwater in Denmark?

Chloride (Cl) from dissolved salt is a major threat to groundwater quality in many regions of the world. In arid regions near present-day coastlines, where old seawater occurs in deeper sediments and where road salt is frequently used, Cl can be a significant pollutant (European Environmental Agency 2009). European Union member states have recently reported that next to nitrogen, Cl is the most commonly found pollutant and is often responsible for groundwater bodies being at risk or having a poor ecological status (European Commission 2010)

Mobil og villig debat? - åben og fordomsfri diskussion bør påbegyndes

Vi er positivt overraskede over den debat, vores artikel i GeologiskNyt 3/04 har skabt, da vi fortsat mener, at geologiens kår i Danmark kan og bør forbedres. Vi geologer bør derfor starte NU med en åben og fordomsfri diskussion om de aktuelle udfordringer, som geologien og geologiuddannelsen står overfor

Soil micromorphology at the Viking-Age ring-fortress of Borgring, Denmark: Analysis of samples from the East, North and South Gateways

This report presents the results of soil micromorphological analysis of samples from archaeological deposits uncovered by excavations at Viking-age site of Borgring, on the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark. The study of thin sections has identified different microstratigraphic units in the deposits sampled at the gatesways to the fortress. These suggests accumulation of (colluvial) material mixed with anthropic waste before both the rampart construction and the burning of the wooden gateway structure. The burnt horizon identified in thin section is indicative of rapid and in situ fire. At the top of the sequence, another deposit of (colluvial) material exhibits mini-mal anthropic signature. All in all, this deposit might be reflecting a low-energy, slow soil build-up associated with the presence of animals and people in this landscape after the ring fortress was abandoned

Arsen i dansk drikkevand - et undervurderet sporstof

Epidemiologiske undersøgelser har vist, at grundstoffet arsen selv i små mængder kan forårsage alvorlige sygdomme. Grænseværdien i drikkevand er derfor sænket til en femtedel af den tidligere værdi. Det giver en del problemer for grundvandet som drikkevandsressource

Historic maps as source for hydrological reconstruction of pre-industrial landscape wetness in Denmark: a methodological study

Historic maps are an important primary source which can be utilized in the reconstruction of environmental variables of the pre-industrial landscape. However, methodological constraints have hitherto prevented large scale and systematic approaches. In this paper a novel methodology is presented, which documents the usefulness of the maps in the study of paleo-hydrology and thus serves a better understanding of the conditions for agricultural production under pre-drainage conditions. The methodology is developed based on eighteenth and nineteenth century maps from a 100 km2 study area in one stream catchment in East Jutland, Denmark. It combines information from two types of historic maps in order to correlate computed soil hydrology (wetness index) and recorded historic land-use. The calculated wetness indexes are derived from contour lines on topographic (military) maps (in Danish: Høje Maalebordsblade), whereas the spatial overlays are land-use classes from economic maps (in Danish: Matrikelkort - Original 1). This study demonstrates – for the first time - that the wetness index is explanatory for the agricultural suitable/non-suitable dichotomy (tilled land versus “wetland”: meadows, fens, and peat bogs) on the historic economic maps. Furthermore, the study shows that pre-industrial arable areas were stretched to their limits in respect to cropping wet soils in this agricultural dominated landscape. The study confirms the existing belief that the historic economic maps constitute the best available source of these mosaic-landscapes for periods before the intense subsurface tile drainage began. This finding opens for further methodological development and up-scaling using automatic feature detection, contour line extraction and text recognition of historical maps

Urban gardens in Antiquity : the case of Gerasa/Jerash in Jordan

Funding: the Carlsberg Foundation, the Danish National Research Foundation (grant 119), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Deutscher Palästina-Verein, the Danish EliteForsk Award and H. P. Hjerl Hansens mindefondet for Dansk Palæstinaforskning. Financial support for the OSL analyses was provided by the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES).In the Eastern Mediterranean, where some of the earliest known urban cities are located, relatively little is known about urban soils in archaeological contexts. Red Mediterranean Soil (RMS) is a hallmark of the Mediterranean region while the impact of long-term urbanization on RMS material is understudied. In this article we present evidence of RMS from the longue durée cityscape of Jerash, Jordan, to determine how humans have used, modified and impacted RMS material in an urban context. Thin-sections were made of twelve RMS samples, and micromorphological studies on several in-situ but disturbed soils adjacent to bedrock were conducted, spanning the initial surface soil disturbances in the Hellenistic and Roman period occupation, as well as transported RMS material spanning the Roman through Umayyad periods (until the earthquake of 749 CE). We compared the on-site inner-urban red soils to natural RMS in the area and found that some characteristics reflect their origin in the Pleistocene soils, while other traits reflect human impact related to urban activities. The majority of the on-site samples contained evidence comparable to modern centers, including changes of structure, texture, inclusions, as well as high levels of contamination of heavy metals and phosphorus (P), which combined are strong signs of urban activity. Evidence including textural pedofeatures, fragmented peds, mixed fabrics, sorting of silt-sized material likely reflect the use of RMS in urban gardens and cultivation. Black carbon inclusions within the fabric contain evidence for burning of organic matter in connection with various anthropogenic activities, likely re-dispersed via aeolian and water erosion processes. Heavy metal enrichments, which are associated with production and artisanal activities, may also have been disseminated by both aeolian and surface water processes, possibly in conjunction with irrigation undertaken with polluted water. Contrasting soil fabrics and inclusion features observed in thin section together with elemental analayses characterizes the nature of urban cultivation in its environmental context at Jerash, where city life was maintained for over 800 years. With cultivated soils in urban areas increasingly evidenced in archaeological stratigraphies from different regions of the world, our approach offers new insight into the vital contributions that these soils and their management has made to the food security, resilience and longevity of early city life.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Quartz SAR optically stimulated lumines-cence (OSL) dating of sands from Ulbjerg Klint, Central Jutland, Denmark

This report concerns optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) investigations of a soil profile at Ulbjerg Klint, Central Jutland, Denmark. At this site, a minor landslide had exposed some unusually clear plough marks, which might contribute to the understanding of the first use of the mould-board plough in southern Scandinavia. The aims were first to date the plough marks, and secondly to date the oldest phase of the sedimentary archive of this site, with a remarkable thick sequence of aeolian sands with high potentiale for archaeological and paleo-climate studies. The report presents the OSL method, the results, a discussion and a conclusion, while the appendixes contains analytical description and a detailed soil profile and sampling description. Combined, the determined OSL ages reveal that over a 2500 years period the vegetation on this exposed coastal cliff was removed several times with episodes of drifting sand as a consequence. The first aeolian sand layer is dated at or slightly after 5th century BCE, i.e. around the transition between the Danish late Bronze Age to the pre-Roman Iron Age. The aeolian sand layer with the clear plough marks is from the 17th century CE, i.e. in the Little Ice Age. Due to the limited number of OSL dated samples, no additional climatic or land use indications could be established

A Roman provincial city and its contamination legacy from artisanal and daily-life activities

Funding: This project was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (R.R., www.carlsbergfondet.dk, Grant CF14-0467), Danish National Research Foundation (R.R., www.dg.dk, Grant 119), the Deutsche Forchungsgemeinschaft (A.L., https://www.dfg.de/, grant nos LI978/4-1 and LI978/4-2), the Deutscher Palästinaverein (A.L., https://www.palaestina-verein.de/), the Danish EliteForsk Award (R.R., https://ufm.dk/forskning-og-innovation/forskningsformidling/eliteforsk, grant 4094-00077B), and H. P. Hjerl Hansens Mindefondet for Dansk Palæstinaforskning (RR).Roman metal use and related extraction activities resulted in heavy metal pollution and contamination, in particular of Pb near ancient mines and harbors, as well as producing a global atmospheric impact. New evidence from ancient Gerasa (Jerash), Jordan, suggests that small-scale but intense Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad period urban, artisanal, and everyday site activities contributed to substantial heavy metal contamination of the city and its hinterland wadi, even though no metal mining took place and hardly any lead water pipes were used. Distribution of heavy metal contaminants, especially Pb, observed in the urban soils and sediments within this ancient city and its hinterland wadi resulted from aeolian, fluvial, cultural and post-depositional processes. These represent the contamination pathways of an ancient city-hinterland setting and reflect long-term anthropogenic legacies at local and regional scales beginning in the Roman period. Thus, urban use and re-use of heavy metal sources should be factored into understanding historical global-scale contaminant distributions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe