Mines are important to civilizations because mining has provided metals that are used in the construction, transportations, energy, etc. Many important mines in Ontario can be found in Sudbury. However, mines pollute the environment by polluting the environment with acid mine drainage. Microbes speed up the process of leeching and oxidation in producing acid mine drainage. Nadia Mykytczuk, an environmental microbiologist in Sudbury, Ontario is investigating how microbes could be used to retrieve the ore tailings from mines instead of polluting the environment with acid mine drainage. She hypothesizes that the bioleaching could help prevent the harmful affects of acid mine drainage on the environment, recover valuable metal from the earth, and restore mines to be a habitable environment for species.
http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/Industry-News/mining/2013/06/Microbes-could-help-recover-metals-in-tailings.aspx
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Oxidation is a synthesis reaction between a chemical and oxygen. The sulphur found in ore tailings reacts with oxygen to create a non-metal oxide, which is an acidic oxide. Another synthesis reaction occurs where the non-metal oxide, sulphur dioxide reacts with water to produce sulphuric acid. Sulphuric acid is an acidic solution and acid damages the environment by polluting lakes and harm wildlife such as fish. However, acid can be neutralized using a base. The pH would be closer to 7 and produce water and an ionic compound ending the pollution and protecting the wildlife in the environment. Neutralization has been used to clean up our lakes from acidic or basic
The last test was called the Acidity test. The Acidity test gives us the alkalinity and acid of a stream. On the Ph scale it goes from 0 to 14. A stream with a great abundance of life will probably have a reading of 7 on the scale( which is near neutral). Here are the results from some of the tests.
A solution with a pH of 7.0 is considered _______. a. Acidic c. alkaline (basic) b. Neutral d. saturated 9. If the concentration of the H+ ion is greater than the concentration of the OH- ion, the solution is said to be ________. a. Acidic c. alkaline (basic) b. Neutral d. saturated 10.
The pollutants that taint rainfall is caused by the constant burning of coal and other fossil fuels, such as gas. The pollutants that are found in acid rain are sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Acidic substances can also fall from the sky in forms other than rainfall, such as snow and hail, and can also collect on the ground, as dust or fog, and can penetrate into soil. Acid rain is extremely detrimental to soil and therefore
Finally, write a concluding paragraph for the essay, without plagiarizing. Bioremediation, or the use of biological remedies for pollution reduction, is being tested as a potential solution to certain environmental catastrophes. Bioremediation has been used to treat sewage for many decades. Recently, it has been investigated as a treatment for refractory chemical wastes.
Most of these microbes feed on rock, like lichen, which “. . . basically eat rock and they breathe sunlight.” That being said, the rovers are not allowed to enter what are known as “special regions” which have attributes that allow bacteria from Earth to thrive. The special regions include “. . . the periodic dark streaks, known as recurrent slope lineae, spotted on the sides of crates, canyons, and mountains.
Coal mining in Cape Breton is an important piece of history, it gave many men, young and old, secure jobs. Jobs that also meant endangering their lives every day as they went into the mines, possibilities of dust explosions threatened them daily along with unknown threats to their health, breathing in the dust from the mines would build up and cause serious long term lung diseases. Taking jobs in the mines meant being put in a company town, leaving them little to none free choice of their own, also taking the job meant being paid very little which resulted in hunger and poverty among the miners, and when striking against the company for more money and more power over their own lives it resulted in extreme police brutality towards the miners.
If the pH levels fall below 4.8 then then it becomes hostile to the aquatic life, at levels below 5pH Most fish eggs can not hatch, even lower pH levels will kill adult fish. (Conserve Energy Future)Acidification also reduces biodiversity since most aquatic life cannot survive in just low levels of pH(Conserve Energy Future), but the main problem for norway is their economy. Fish is not only their main source of food, but norway's main export as well.(Environmental Issues.) That is a major problem because if norway loses all of their fish there economy will free fall after losing its main export and top food source. The norwegian government is making huge strides to improve the Sulfur and nitrogen dioxide levels.
Often, new life at hydrothermal vents begins with a burst of bacteria from the opening of the vent. These bacterias can endure high temperatures more than any other organism (Masters). Plants and organisms that live near hydrothermal vents use a process called chemosynthesis, allowing organisms to use energy released by inorganic chemical reactions to produce food (“Ocean Explorer”). Some bacteria and archaea cannot withstand the hot hydrothermal fluids of black smokers, but they thrive just outside the extreme heat of the water (“The Microbes That Keep Hydrothermal Vents Pumping”). Also, being close enough to the chimney but far enough from the heat allows bacteria to gather
A stream with a great abundance of life would probably have a measurement of or near seven, which is near neutral, or the measurement may be a little higher. For a stream that is not as productive, the pH measurement may be higher or lower than seven. For the alkalinity test, the average was thirteen. An alkalinity test tells you if there are limestone, which neutralizes acid. The average amount of rocks that did neutralize acid was sixty five, while the average amount of rocks that didn’t neutralize acid was twenty nine.
Chemical weathering is the process where erosion and weathering happens to nature, caused by chemical reactions. One very common cause of chemical weathering is acid rain. Acid rain is when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released into the atmosphere, then come down as precipitation.
ABSTRACT Coal is an old technique and efficiency and emissions through technologies clean coal in small modern coal power plants taken. The energy of coal still generates energy for millions of people in coal plants. Coal, like all other energy sources, has a number of effects on the environment; both coal mining and coal use. The use of all technologies for electricity production will inevitably lead to some degree of pollution. A number of advanced coal combustion technologies have been developed to improve the efficiency of power generation from coal.
But on the other hand effects of sulfide mining is known to leach into the soil changing its pH level. What this does is prevents plants from getting vital nutrients they need to survive through a process known a liming (Nkongolo, K.,2013). To further understand the situation I also looked at other instances both internationally and nation wide were there might have been a similar situation to this. What a found was an instance at Yellowstone National Park. A company named Crown Mines proposed sulfide mining near this national park and more importantly the Yellowstone River.
A second category of chemical reaction is a decompasition. A decompasition reaction occurs when one molecule, is broken down into simpler one. For example, hydrogen peroxide, a common household disinfectant, slowly breaks down into liquid water and oxygen gas over time. The reaction for this process is 2H2O2 --> 2H2O + O2. Another category of chemical reactions is single-replacement.
These habitats are characterized by high bacterial and archaeal diversity (Kelley et al., 2002), but the factors shaping community structure and composition are often not well understood, as diffuse venting sites are far less studied than plume and chimney habitats (Campbell et al., 2013). The wide, extensive plumes typical of black smoker vents contain chemicals that can either sink back to the ocean floor and become hydrothermal sediment or be scavenged by microbial communities living within the plumes (Kelley et al., 2002; Tivey, 2007). Generally, hydrothermal plumes are characterized by near ambient sea-water temperatures and low nutrient concentrations (Kelley et al., 2002) but they contain distinct regions (e.g., the rising plume and neutrally buoyant plume) with steep physical and chemical gradients that define distinct microbial communities (Dick et al., 2013). Microbial communities within plumes are generally derived from 3 sources (fig 1.3): (1) seafloor communities that are transported upwards, (2) background deep-sea water communities and (3) microbes that grow within the plume. The latter category shapes the plume community most, as these microbes both utilize the hydrothermally sourced electron donors for chemosynthesis, and consume the organic carbon produced in a
When surface water (H2O) reacts with sulphide minerals in coal heaps or exposed coal rocks it chemically reacts to produce acidic water such as sulphuric acid (H2SO4). STUDENT No. 48494070 STUDENT NAME: NOBLE KANYERA UNIQUE No. 603854 5 ASSIGNMENT 02